Continuation from part one – a short story.
After getting up from the curb of the street John was in, he realized the ruffians had taken all of his money. Luckily, he didn’t have much to take in the first place. He felt blood on his face. The main facial cut from the first attack hadn’t completely cured, so his face must have opened up again, and for this reason it was very painful.
Fortunately, his old pushbike that his paper round boss had lent him, hadn’t been taken. I suppose that was one relief. However, he had been beaten up, and apart from bruises his morale had been hurt, confidence shattered, and he couldn’t take anymore.
He completed the delivery of the newspapers. He was told there were fifteen to distribute, but on counting he discovered one was missing. The thugs must have taken one for themselves.
The following morning when he woke up, he felt very sad indeed! John realized; he was on his own. He had to grow up and deal with the situation. The whole scenario would likely repeat itself, so he had to do something to counteract the infringement.
He felt like committing some GBH to give them a lesson for the unprovoked beatings. He wanted to hurt them like they had hurt him. His parents even used to say, a tit-for-tat. So, every day after school, he would visit the local karate club for lessons in self-defense. The problem was it was taking too long to get any good. Proper striking power takes time to perfect. It wasn’t enough to teach the hooligans a lesson.
One day doing his paper round he noticed a middle-aged man going into someone’s home dressed as a plumber with a bag of tools, and then coming out. Seconds after leaving the house, it blew up. This intrigued him. He followed the man, discovered where he lived, and over the next few weeks he shadowed him to see what else he did. Surely enough he carried out some other mischievous deeds.
After a while he confronted the man, and said I’ve been watching you, and I need your help. At first the man had none of it. However, over a period of time the man eventually conceived that this boy really needed help because of his beatings.
Later on, the man helped John to devise a scheme to get rid of the thugs.
Have a great day!
Prof. Carl Boniface
Vocabulary builder:
Ruffians (n) = gangsters, louts, tough guys
Beaten up (phrasal verb) = irregular verb beat, beat, beaten. “The runner had been beaten by an outsider (defeated).” Beaten (adj) but followed by a up preposition = damaged by blows or hard usage. “The beaten-up young man!” synonyms: battered, beat-up damaged. harmed or injured or spoiled.
Shattered (adj) = devastated, crushed, traumatized, horrified, tired, exhausted, spent, beat
Scenario (n) = situation, state-of-affairs, setup, setting, consequence, picture, circumstances
Infringement (n) = breach, violation, contravention, transgression, infraction, intrusion, encroachment, (ant) compliance
GBH = Grievous Bodily Harm is really serious bodily harm which would include broken limbs for example, and it can also include psychiatric injury.
Tit-for-tat (adj) = retaliatory, reciprocal, reactive, punitive, revengeful, vengeful, avenging, (ant) forgiving
Surely enough (idiom) = as supposed or expected. “Sure enough, he asked her for money again” adverb. definitely or positively (`sure' is sometimes used informally for `surely') synonyms: certainly, for certain, for sure, sure, sure as shooting, surely.
Mischievous (adj) = naughty, playful, roguish, ill-behaved, bad, harmful, (ant) well-behaved. Deeds (n) plural = performances, actions, activities, manners, conducts. P.S When “mischievous deeds” is used together it can mean conduct that playfully causes petty annoyance, the trait of indulging in disreputable pranks, dirty tricks, wickedness; cruelty
Mischief (n) singular = harm, damage, trouble, injury, malice, hurt, troublemaker. Mischief can be classified as criminal activity.
Had none of it (idiom) = to refuse to accept, agree with, or support something: She tried to persuade him to retire, but he would have none of it.
Conceived (v) = considered, regarded, perceived, apprehended, comprehended, think of, look on, imagined, envisaged, visualized
Devise (v) = invent, plan, develop, create, formulate, concoct, conceive, contrive, work out, think up, set up
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