“Kneel down and beg me not to beat you up!”
I was in the sixth grade when a classmate named Larry said that to me. We had just gotten out of school, and several of us were walking to the bus stop. If you’ve ever been the victim of a bully’s daily antagonism, you know what I mean when I say, “It’s a long way to the bus stop.” In that school district, we were given student passes for the city bus, and it was only a couple of blocks away. But a boy like Larry had a way of altering perception — he could make two blocks seem like two miles, and five minutes seemed like forever.