Bad Decision

Anthony was once again walking down that long stretch of bright green grass that was on one of the sides of the school, a school that Anthony’s head been dreading to go to since last year.
“Maybe everyone has forgotten about last year, and who knows, maybe I’ll have a new friend,” Anthony sighed, his brown coloured fringe blowing gently in the cool breeze.
He reached the hard court area where the younger kids played basketball, the ball getting nowhere near the ring. He pulled up his collar that was attached to his navy blue jacket and hurriedly walked by, his eyes staying down as he approached his classroom.
DING! DING! DING!
The school bell rang echoing through the school and giving the people in the houses nearby a headache. Anthony pushed the door open with his tall and skinny body, his hands shoved into his pockets, and stopped dead still, his tanned face suddenly going to a ghostly pale white, and his green eyes turning as cold as the South Pole.
“Ha ha!” a boy called Jason laughed, making the girls giggle.
“Hey look, it’s Lonely Loner!” Alex who was Jason’s friend teased Anthony, also making the girls giggle.
Anthony could feel his pale white face suddenly go bright cherry red with embarrassment. He shoved his way past the laughing students and chucked his stuff onto his table and buried his head in his sweaty hands.
Anthony started to wonder about how easy it was to be teased to death and be bagged at school, he then thought back to how he lost his friends…

It all began when all of the popular kids started wearing bright colourful shoes called ‘Globes’, and it seemed that if you bought a pair of Globes, you would be considered popular- the only problem was, the shoes were very expensive. Fortunately for Anthony his mum and dad were quite wealthy as his mum was a doctor and his dad was a lawyer, so cash flew into their pockets regularly. It was as easy as cutting a piece of cake when it came to asking his dad to buy him a pair of Globes.
Anthony’s dad simply said, with a cigar in his mouth, “Whatever”. His eyes staying locked on the T.V screen, his mouth puffing out jet black smoke from the cigar.
Dancing around with delight, Anthony suddenly had a thought hit him: why doesn’t he ask Tom and Chris, his friends if they wanted to come to the shops to buy a pair of Globes. He dashed to the phone. Dialling the numbers quickly, his mind buzzed with excitement over how cool he and his friends could be if they bought the shoes.
“Hey Tom, I was wondering whether you wanted to go to the shops to buy some Globes?” Anthony asked.
“Anthony, tell me you’re not just buying those shoes be popular, you’re friends with me and Chris, isn’t that enough? And besides those guys are up themselves like Dale Thomas,” Tom replied.
“Um… so no?” Anthony questioned,, his heart sinking like the Titanic.
“Sorry man,” Tom said hanging up the phone followed by the beep, beep, beep.
Unfortunately Chris said the same thing, “I don’t want to change my personality just to impress and make friends with a group of people who are so up themselves that they call themselves popular. You can forget it!”
This is when Anthony made a decision that he would regret for the whole of year six. This was the decision that made him ‘Lonely Loner’.

There were all types of colours: pink, red, purple, blue, green, yellow, any colour you could imagine. It gave Anthony a terrible headache trying to choose which colour shoes to buy. He soon decided to buy the green shoes as it was what most of the popular kids wore.
“One hundred and sixty five dollars please mate. I heard those shoes are the big thing for kids these days,” the old man at the checkout said. It made Anthony want to vomit.
Anthony handed over the cash to the checkout man and raced off for home with excitement, desperately wanting to open up the shoe box and put on his new shoes that were going to make him popular.
SLAM!
Anthony shut the door behind him, zooming up the stairs to his room like he was in a marathon race. He tore open the shoe box and put on his new shoes, gazing at them like a miner would gaze at gold. He felt on top of the world, but he wasn’t going to be on top of the world for much longer.



SCHOOL THE NEXT DAY

“Whoa! Anthony finally got Globes instead of those dodgy ten dollar shoes from K-mart,” Alex and Jason said to Anthony.
“Anthony, want to hang out with us on the football ground at lunch?” Jason asked Anthony.
“Umm uh,” Anthony murmured, his mouth wide open, “Yeah sure… man.”
The two boys looked at each other and softly punched Anthony in the arm, while smiling at him as they hurried towards their table before the teacher caught them talking.
DING! DING! The school bell rang.
Anthony rushed outside pushing the door open, his eyes scanning everywhere for Jason and Alex.
Suddenly a hand grabbed Anthony on the shoulder, “You didn’t buy those shoes just to be popular did you?” Tom said to Anthony, disgust in his voice.
“Obviously he chose to be with us instead of you dorks,” Alex shot back at Tom, pushing him off Anthony’s shoulder.
“Hey, get off him!” Chris ordered Alex.
“I guess you don’t want to hang out with us since you bought those shoes and Alex is backing you up?” Tom asked, disgust in his voice.
Anthony didn’t know what to say. he just stood there dead still, looking like he was paralysed.
“Come on Chris, it doesn’t look like he wants to hang out with us, nice knowing you Anthony,” Tom said, anger in his voice, walking away.

The next few days were different for Anthony; he was hanging out with different people, and was learning what was not cool and what was cool with the help of Jason and Alex. The only thing that was the same was that he still had his name Anthony, but people were even giving him the nickname of ‘Antho’.



1 MONTH LATER

Anthony was the King of Popular. Everywhere he went someone would say, “Look it’s Anthony.”
But for some reason it was different today, they were staring at his shoes differently for some reason, which made him wonder why?
“Yo, Anthony! Why are you wearing those shoes still, they’re so old, they’re as old as my grandma and believe me that’s old,” Jason paused for a moment. “Seriously get rid of those shoes, buy some Nikes, girls totally dig those shoes.”
“Oh okay,” Anthony said wondering how he was going to get his dad to give him the money to buy a pair of new shoes.

_______

“But dad, you don’t understand, I have to have these shoes to stay friends with these popular kids, please buy the shoes dad, please?” Anthony pleaded to his dad who was in his favourite armchair watching the six o’clock news, a cigar in his mouth.
“I’m sorry mate but I’m not made of money,” Anthony’s dad replied.
“Please dad?” Anthony pleaded again, now on his knees.
“NO!” Anthony’s dad firmly said signalling him to go away.
Anthony darted upstairs, a tear rolling down his cheek as slowly as a snail until it plummeted down onto the ground.
“How am I going to stay friends with Jason and Alex, my only friends are Tom and Chris but they hate me now since I bought those Globes just to get popular. I HATE SCHOOL!” he shouted burying his head underneath his pillow that was gradually soaking up the tears.

The next few days at school Anthony slowly began to be less popular since he couldn’t afford those Nikes. Alex and Jason didn’t hang out with him, not to mention even give the slightest look or grin at him; instead, they just pretended that they didn’t know him.
The bell rang for lunch, Anthony chucked his books in his tub and headed outside to find Jason and Alex who were hugging their girlfriends, with all the other boys staring at them, wishing they could have someone to hug. Anthony made his way over to them, but Jason and Alex sprinted off with their girlfriends, leaving Anthony behind, making him feel like his heart had been torn out of his body and chucked in a bin.
It didn’t take long for Anthony to realize that Jason and Alex didn’t want him to hang out with them anymore. Anthony walked off, red hot tears of anger slowly making their way down his face, falling off Anthony’s tanned cheeks. He couldn’t see what was so bad about him; he was fit, tall, skinny, he was smart, he was basically perfect for anyone, it just didn’t make sense why no one liked him.
Anthony dawdled around the corner and saw Tom and Chris kicking the footy to each other, laughing every time one of them jarred their finger on the football. He wondered about what he could say.
“Hey guys,” Anthony said, “Look I know I made a bad decision about buying those Globes just to be popular, but now I know that I belong with you guys, not those guys in the popular group.”
Tom and Chris kept kicking the footy.
There was a long silence until Tom finally said, “Sorry Anthony, but we’re not going to be treated as your second choice so go hang out with someone else.”
Anthony turned around and slowly walked away, not even bothering to try to convince them to let him play.
And that’s how Anthony became the ‘Lonely Loner’ and is now sitting by himself at the back of the room, everyone making fun of him.
He had learnt a valuable lesson that year, not to change himself just to impress other people.
"Next year's a new year," he sighed to himself, "I've learnt a valuable lesson. Next year, I'll just be myself and people will have to like me for who I am, cool shoes or not!"

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