Freddy cried for a few more minutes before he managed to stand up, wincing at the pain coming from his bleeding left knee. The glum ten year-old was no longer in the mood for playing in the park, nor did he have the time left to do so now. In his current shape, he needed to leave immediately if he wanted to make it to class without being tardy. Slowly, Freddy began limping in the direction of his elementary school, gritting his teeth against the throbbing discomfort of his injured leg.
He was still a couple blocks from his destination when a familiar, dark-haired figure turned from the cross-over with Elm Street onto Washington Blvd, just ahead of him. Freddy’s day suddenly brightened and he eagerly called out “Hey, Tommy!”
Tommy Jenkins spun around, wearing a quizzical look until he spotted Freddy. Once he had, he hurried back to his best friend’s side.
“Freddy! Man, what happened to you?” he asked, taking in the torn blue jeans, bloody knee and clear tear tracks down the other boy’s face.
“Michael!” he answered unhappily.
No more needed to be said.
“He did a number on you, huh?” Tommy asked sympathetically.
“He actually only shoved me once,” Freddy admitted in embarrassment.
“Well, here, let me carry your backpack for you until we get to school,” Tommy offered.
Freddy gladly relinquished his burden to his friend.
“Thanks, buddy.”
“You’re welcome.”
Tommy slowed his pace to match Freddy’s, not that he could have gone much faster while carrying two backpacks anyway. The two were bumped against and jostled by numerous other kids hurrying to school, and as soon as they made it into the building’s front courtyard, they veered off the sidewalk and onto the grass, allowing the main flow of children to go past them rather than through them.
As the duo approached the doors Tommy found himself puffing pretty hard from trying to carry both bags at once and so his attention was mainly focused on not dropping them. He therefore didn’t notice his friend stiffen with fear beside him or hear Freddy’s sharply indrawn breath. It was only luck that he happened to glance up and spot who was up ahead.
Michael Madison swaggered toward them, closely trailed by his entourage of loyal followers. Exceptionally tall and immensely strong for his age, Michael could run faster, jump higher, and throw a ball harder and more accurately than any of his peers. He was Jefferson Elementary’s top jock, star of every game he played in, and smart as a whip to boot, boasting a straight A average. Michael was also utterly fearless, aggressively self-confident, tough as nails, and very good-looking. As a result, this dominant alpha male completely ruled the school! Everyone desperately wanted to be Michael’s friend, even the sixth graders!
Freddy and Tommy especially longed for the approval of the coolest kid in school, since they were the cocky preteen paragon’s favorite human punching bags! Freddy had lost count of how many times mighty Michael Madison had beaten him up, just for fun! Fun for Michael, that is; each beating had been absolute torture for little Freddy!
Aware now of the imminent threat, Tommy’s nervous eyes darted every which way as he sought an escape route or source of protection, but he found neither. They didn’t have a chance of outrunning their extremely athletic tormentor, and there wasn’t a single teacher in sight. They were trapped!
“Hey, fag, you carrying your boyfriend’s books for him?” Michael asked, looming like a giant over the considerably smaller, far weaker boys. His taunt was greeted by a wave of appreciative laughter from most of the fifth grade.
Tommy blushed, his head bowed, and didn’t answer. Neither he nor Freddy even considered trying to fight back physically; prior experience had demonstrated that this He-Boy bully could easily kick both of their asses at once!
That was also why Tommy didn’t bother resisting when large, in-charge Michael authoritatively reached forward to take the straps of the backpacks in his right hand.
“Wouldn’t think you could even carry this much, wuss,” Michael commented contemptuously, effortlessly and repeatedly curling both bags in a casual show of strength, incidentally pumping up a defined, healthy bicep which would already be considered impressively big for a thirteen year-old boy, much less for a mere ten year-old!
“Here, have them back,” he offered, whirling the backpacks around in a full circle before launching them straight at Tommy. They slammed into his chest like a cannonball, sending him sprawling back to the ground. He wheezed helplessly, too out of breath to even cry!
Smirking cruelly, the vastly superior preteen turned his predatory attention to a shaking Freddy.
“Ready for another pounding, dweeb?” Michael asked menacingly, his formidable fists clenched. Without waiting for a reply, he socked the wimp hard in the gut, brutally kneed Freddy in the face, and then laid the weakling out with a right cross.
Freddy Orr collapsed next to his friend, bleeding heavily from the nose now, and with two of his teeth knocked out; he could only hope they were both baby teeth. Even through his agony, however, he could still hear onlookers enthusiastically cheering their idol, who’d brutally curb-stomped a helpless little loser for his own amusement (opposing a total winner like Michael automatically made one a loser, by definition)! Assuming you weren't the victim, it was always fun seeing the school's top dog violently assert his supremacy!
Abruptly the jarring ringing of the first tardy bell cut through all of the other sounds. With a final crushingly powerful kick to Freddy’s ribs, Michael turned and strutted inside, trailed by virtually everyone else in the crowd. No one paused to offer any help or even sympathy to the two outcast kids lying on the grass, writhing in pain.
Such was the beginning, not only of Freddy’s woes, but of Jon’s as well, for the teenager had worded his first real wish most poorly indeed! “I wish for the next 7 days that, the personalities of my family would switch with the first person that they would speak with”, he had proclaimed. Yet his grandfather’s letter had warned him, “Changes made will be as if they had always been so” and furthermore, John had understood that a wish could not be contradictory to another wish. He had nonetheless failed to follow these two facts through to their logical conclusion, to wit: in order to produce an aggressive alpha kid like Michael, certain behaviors and traits needed to be present among his parents and siblings. Since Mikey was the first member of the family to talk to someone else, he had received Fred Orr’s personality and Fred had taken his. Then the families of each boy had immediately had their own personalities altered so as to naturally produce such an offspring. Thus the Madison family could not take on other personalities, as Jon had futilely wished for them to do, without undermining the natural foundation in reality for the initial personality change!
Jon was about to find out what it was like to live in a family where everyone, himself included, constantly praised and encouraged his physically and mentally gifted bully of a younger brother, Michael . . .
