Cheng stood at the bus-stop for a moment. Ever since the confrontation the group had not seen any member of the Gang for several weeks and the Group had been less punctual about meeting at the bus-stop, so that sometimes they would move off without waiting for latecomers. He noted that it was already ten past eleven, shrugged his shoulders and decided to walk alone. The school was a good ten minutes walk from the main road. Other than the canal which flowed beside the road most of the way, the road was surrounded by rubber trees, remnants of a vast sprawling industry that used to cover most of the island, reminders that this urban city was once capable of manna, milked from good old mother Earth. Another decade and even these remnants would be no more.

Cheng passed the Sweet Shop and his heart skipped a beat. Oh no, that mean chap again! Cheng saw the older bully from the Gang. The bully was lying at the footpath just beside the road where the canal veered off to the right. They guy seemed to be in pain. Cheng took a quick look around to satisfy himself that the rest of the Gang was nowhere in sight and moved on.

“Hey wait,” they guy said, jerking his head at the tree, “I fell.”

Cheng did not reply.

“Help me up,” they guy entreated, “please?”

Cheng stood with his arms akimbo.

“Help me, my leg is broken. If you help me my friends will be grateful to you,” the older guy pleaded, seeking to redefine the relationship between the Group and the Gang as one of mutual respect, calling for a truce and ending with rhetoric: “We can be friends can’t we? I really want us to be friends.”

Cheng frowned and weighed the situation in his mind. Surely the bully would not harm him. After all the Sweet Man was not far away. So Cheng shrugged his shoulders, swung his schoolbag onto his back, crossed the road and cupping his hands around the older guy’s chest, tried to lift the latter from the back.

Then it happened. Cheng felt a hand clamped on his mouth, strong steely fingers gripped his arms and ankles and he was swept off his feet. He saw glimpses of the ground, of the top of the rubber trees, of the bushes, and faces now grim and angry, now wild and exhilarated. The Gang, Cheng realised, was all there to kidnap him. Where were they carrying him to? Cheng kicked and squirmed and tried to scratch and claw at the hands and fingers biting into his flesh. His foot found a mark on someone’s stomach and he heard a grunt, but the Gang simply dropped his feet and pulled him along the footpath like so much dead wood. He yelled and immediately hands descended on his mouth in a painful vice. The Gang was muttering in low angry undertones as they heaved and pulled to negotiate the twists and turns of the footpath.

They shoved him into a bush and started kicking at him. Cheng hardly felt the sticks and branches poking and scratching at his flesh as he tried to avoid the feet kicking at him. He tried to mitigate the kicks by squirming backwards deeper into the bushes to cushion most of the wanton assault. But those that tore through the openings in the bush landed on his legs, sending shots of pain up his spine so that he grimaced and screamed at them. This merely caused the Gang to yell back and kick even more furiously.

“You stupid idiot!”

“You chick!”

“You bastard!”

“Little snake!”

“Wooden head!”

“No balls!”

“Smart ass!”

As the insults piled one upon the other, the kicks came sharper and more painful because by then the bush and undergrowth had been partially demolished and offered little protection. Suddenly the older bully ordered Cheng to get up. When Cheng did not move, the bully grabbed his arm and gave him a pull that sent him crashing into the next bush. They shoved him around and he stumbled into hands, feet, tree trunks, bushes until the world began to swim and swirl around him.

Cheng could not remember the sequence of events which followed or how long he was abused. But suddenly he saw the flash of a fist, felt a punch hooked into his stomach and he was thrown backwards and he felt the ground disappear beneath his feet - his arms and legs wrangled with the empty space beneath him for a second. He was falling. And his back crashed into the bed of the canal, flattening his bag, splashing up a spray of water that soaked his hair and his face, contorted in fear and pain. He was too stunned to move.

The Gang hovered for a while and the older bully jumped over the broken railings but the other two grabbed and pulled him back. A short hesitation and the Gang disappeared from sight.

Cheng lay in the shallow water, afraid that his back was broken, started moving slowly first his arm, his legs, his head... finally he pushed himself up. It was painful but he managed; he was bruised all over but his back was not broken. Thank God for that, he thought, his throat welling up with self-pity and he sobbed leaning against the wall of the canal, pressing his head against the cold hard concrete.

Life was hard. Not everything could be solved by brains alone.

* * * * * *

Lam paced up and down, kicking at pieces of bricks in the room and glanced at Cheng sitting on the floor staring blankly into space, his clothes torn and dripping wet, his forehead, arms and legs bruised and scratched all over.

“We must stop them once and for all.”

“We must beat the hell out of them.”

“We should break all their teeth.”

But it was obvious that the Gang would come back again and again, each episode more violent than the previous one and there would be no end to the fighting, no end to the beatings. Unless...

“We’ll kill them!” Lam said with clenched teeth. He glanced around at the others and for the first time, his confidence wavered. Silence. They looked down, trying to avoid each other’s eyes. What could they do? They were just children. But something had to be done. What? Silence.

Suddenly Soon snapped upright.

“I know,” his eyes gleamed at the others, “I know how to stop them.”

They looked to him for the light beyond the tunnel. So he told them of his observation at the last battle, his hunch about the Gang, his theory about the older bully and, yes, his plan. The Group was incredulous but, as he filled in the details, padded up their imagination, cajoled them into making suggestions here and there, the idea took root and the Group became more and more excited as their scepticism gave way to delight. This was action. This was revenge. It would require a lot of planning and coordination, but it was just the kind of activity which could lift them out of their despondency. Even Cheng, cold and damp, smiled weakly. In the end it was Lam who declared: “We’ll do it!”

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