"Well," I said as Melanie struggled back to her giant feet. "I'll see you later. Have fun!"
I turned to leave and heard her cry, "Wait!" as I walked away. Not once did I bother to look back, even when I heard a thump on the ground and a groan of pain that indicated she had tripped over her own feet again. "Fuck!" she screamed in frustration.
I turned the corner and left her to deal with her newly embarrassing feet. Thoughts of clown shoes danced in my head as I made my way towards a certain part of a nearby forest preserve. I knew without a doubt my next target would be there.
Chris Wooten, my next target, was an asshole. He was big, mean, and violent. A real ogre of a person. He liked to intimidate other students smaller than him, which was most everyone in our class, including me. More than once he had hit me and taken my money. He needed to be stopped.
Basically, he was a perfect target.
I knew that Chris and his asshole cronies liked to hang out in the forest preserve, just out of sight of the parking lot, to smoke pot and get drunk. I made a point of avoiding them as much as possible on most days. Today, on the other hand, I was happy to find them just where I had expected them to be. I heard them laughing and saw a joint passing between them, while one of them cracked open a beer. I hid behind a tree and thought about all of the ways I could get some payback from them.