Sam

• Noam Miller, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2022

On, December the nineth someone died at our school. The school that nothing ever happened in, and this is his story. Sam. He was the new kid about five years ago, cheeky smile, fat cheeks, overalls and a stupid grin that never faded. Now that I think about it, I should’ve gotten to know him better before he… left. He was in the term three when things started. Nobody knows exactly how it started but this, is how many think it began.
One Monday morning he was playing in the yard as happy as a clown. Then a teacher came and whispered him something and his smile died, stone dead! He left the school early that day and nobody was worried, he wasn’t really noticed much, but then he was gone for a week and people started to talk. “Where’s that fat kid Sam?” asked some and other times “I’m glad that stupid guy’s gone he party-pooped everything.” Sneered some bullies. But then he came back mouth hanging, his eyes drooping, and eyes fixedly staring into space. I sat there every single lesson and I didn’t think to help him. Quickly after he had come the fights had started.
He wasn’t “cute little boy” anymore. His fists were always clenched, and his mouth was always open to complain about something. He glared at people in the corridors. Friday, in the playground his peak had happened he was full on screaming, and a few moments later… “Mr. Samuel Godavey what in God’s green Earth are you doing?” But he didn’t stop punching that kid and by the time Sam was finished the kid had a bloody nose and swollen eye. Next week he had another fight and another and another, until finally. The teachers got him. I was sitting outside the principal’s office, and I couldn’t help but eavesdrop! They told him that he would be expelled if he got into any more fights and the thing wasn’t an excuse they paused.
He stopped for a while, talked to people and by the end of the year he was popular and social as heck. He came to school on the last day and went to the classroom as usual and went to lunch as usual and then, he had a fight. He was running away from them three floors up and finally onto the roof the bullies said in union “Are you going to cry?” He ran away from them, and he tripped and fell all the way down off the roof and screamed a blood chilling scream as he thudded on the ground…
Five years later we found out that his parents died, and cat did. Everyone else didn’t want to help him, he had no one! I was the bully, which was the closet to him when he died, and I regret what I did so much, it feels like a literal anvil is on my shoulders. So, this is the story of me and my victim “Sam Godavey”