 | Approximately a year later Rick has adjusted well to his American school. His first year he received mostly B's in most of his subjects and made many friends. His math teacher, Mr. Mozes, is trying to teach the day’s subject, but is constantly being disrupted by the students in the rear of the classroom.
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Mr. Mozes is a good teacher but has no control over the class. He tries to ignore the students in the rear by concentrating on the ones in the front who are paying attention. He cares a less about the trouble makers in the rear. They were usually the ones who disrupted the class and performed poorly. Rick sat close to the rear of the room but tried to pay attention. As he sits writing with his head down, he surprisingly feels a stinging slap on the back of his neck. Some students start to laugh. He turns to see who hit him.
"Yo man, what the fuck you looking at?” replied a boy named Edward Howard.
"Did you hit me on the back of my neck?” Rick asked while rubbing the back of his neck.
"Yea I slapped your freaking neck, what you goin' to do bout it?” replied Ed.
"Can you guys stop the noise back there? If you don't want to be here, you are welcome to leave", says Mr. Mozes while pointing to the door. As Mr. Mozes turns his back to walk away, SLAP!
Rick feels another stinging slap on the back of his neck. Some children in the class start to laugh again.
"Yo, stop hittin' me man", says Rick, angry but scared.
"This time it wasn't me man, why don't you turn around and shut the fuck up!” replies Ed.
Burrrr! The school buzzer goes on and the students quickly dismiss themselves ignoring Mr. Mozes announcement of the exam next week. While Rick is walking to the next class he suddenly feels a swift push to the middle of his back. Ed ran into Rick while jumping and using his knee. Ed then runs directly into the classroom as if nothing happened. By now Rick knows he has a problem. He can't figure out why all of a sudden this bully is bothering him. As the days go by, Rick tries to stay away from Ed but is persistently bothered by the bully. The persistent assault of being pushed, smacked on the neck during class, marked on with ink pens, punched in the arms, goes on for weeks. The only time Rick felt comfortable going to school was when Ed got suspended for being in other fights.
Rick was a tall skinny kid who wasn't use to fighting. He had gotten into fights with kids but they were just one time incident of playing around and it turned into a fight. Never before had another human continuously assaulted him for no reason. Ed being shorter but bigger was move aggressive physically and intimidated Rick from fighting him. As weeks went by, Rick didn't look forward to going to school. He started to become terrified of Ed. He never spoke to his father, mother or step mother about his problem. The situation got to a point were the homeroom teacher would hold back Ed at the end of the day so Rick could get a head start in getting home safely because Ed was going to bother him.