• Alone, the skinny kid walked to school as he always had. The same houses, along the same street, seeing the same trees, ditches and neighbors he • d always known in St-Isidore, a town of 2,200 people smack in the middle of nowhere.
The problem was that he couldn • t stop himself from repeatedly licking his dry lips. Round and round, over and over again, until his raw skin pealed into a red outline framing his mouth. A diminutive clown, every single day of school. They could see him coming, he said, • because I was so ugly. I was easy pickings. •
Before he could reach for the school • s front door, a group of 12-year-olds • held back three school years because of serious behavioral problems • would pounce on and strip him. Strip him of his pants, of his lunch money, and of his dignity before a laughing chorus of boys and girls. Everybody pointing fingers except for the shadows of his few true friends • other nerds, other rejects in hiding. The helpless.
Georges St-Pierre was nine years old • •