Bluto, parts 3548 - 3551

 3548. Someone must have understood what the coach’s words meant because the next day an assembly was called and Mr. Roach had to address the entire school and apologize for his obscure and inexplicable comment. When he spoke he had the tone of voice of a man who only hopes to not get fired, and nothing else. He had to apologize to all of us three times, because the first two times we could not hear him.

 3549. I understood what had happened years later, but back then I only had a vague sense that some terrible wrong had been corrected. I understood that Simon was a Jew, and our teachers were persecuting him for it and I was also persecuting him in my own way.

 3550. I took his gold Paper Mate pen, and made him suffer looking for it all day, and then finally when he wasn’t looking I replaced it on his desk, as if it had been there all along. But I was not one of Bluto’s “Saxons,” so I could see that his explanation was faulty.

3551. Even now, these many years later I can remember with shame my evil intent. I did not want him to know I had taken his pen. I wanted him to think that, in his clumsiness, he had overlooked it all day. In short, I wanted him to feel stupid.