Adam’s little brother had a bad cold and his mother even had to take time off work to look after the four-year-old boy until he could be taken to kindergarten. Adam himself was already perfectly able to get to school without his mother’s help, but the woman insisted that the other stay home as well, not spreading the cold among his classmates, and he needed someone to watch his back. That way his mother could leave him with his little brother and pop out to the drugstore, and sometimes send Adam to the store with a shopping list, something he was very proud of.
Friday night he was just returning from the supermarket with a bag of bread, rice porridge, and vegetables when local hooligans came at him from behind the alley. They knew Adam well, he always went with his mother, and he never went to the playground alone, so they picked on him, knowing that he wouldn’t fight back. They teased him about being a coward and a mama’s boy, and kept pulling his bag or hat, and the tallest one grabbed Adam by the scruff of his neck trying to shake him off.
– What are you doing? – The witness to the hooliganism was thirteen-year-old Monica, who lived with her daddy on the third floor.
She hadn’t moved in recently, but a lot of people tried to make friends with her because they were obviously rich. They were dressed in the latest fashions, they had restaurant couriers coming over all the time, and her father had the most expensive car, the coolest one in the whole yard.
Monica pushed the boys aside, hiding Adam behind her. They could not oppose the girl, and her father they were afraid of, so immediately scattered one to another.
– Let me show you out,” she suggested to Adam.
Together they walked to his house and Monica left him her cell phone number, ordering him to call her if any of the neighborhood kids thought of hurting him. And he called very soon, but not because of the bullies, but just to chat. When the younger brother recovered and Adam went out with him, he always called Monica. That was how they both gained the friendship they’d been missing.
