Victimized

I was the victim of a random act of violence when I was in the fourth grade. I remember it clearly; it was field day and I was excited to run in the three-legged race. I was standing with my friend discussing the qualities of laffy-taffy that made it superior to M & M's. It was a hot day in northern Alabama. Suddenly I felt a thump on my head and saw a kid running in the opposite direction. At first I thought it was a joke, perhaps someone I knew, perhaps an impromptu game of freeze-tag. I didn't recognize the boy, or at least the back of him, as he ran off. Then my friend told me, he hadn't just hit me in the back of the head. No, there was something in my hair. I reached back to feel the sticky blob which we quickly identified as none other than bubble gum! Immediately uncharitable thoughts for my attacker filled my fourth-grade mind. I wanted to chase him and somehow exact my revenge but he was long gone. Instead we told the nearest teacher of the incident and tried to find a way to extract the gum from my hair. Unfortunately all of our efforts were unsuccessful. When I got home that day I showed my mom. By this time humiliation had overcome me. I had been tagged the kid that got gummed at field day. My mom tried various means of bubble gum extraction including peanut butter, ice and other genius concoctions; nothing was working. She finally resorted to a comb and some scissors. She did her best not to leave me looking like I had a brush-in with a weed-wacker, which meant she had to use more comb than scissors. It was very painful and I cried. It hurt my mother to have to inflict the pain on me, probably more than it was hurting me. Nothing was done at school to catch the perpetrator. There was nothing much my friend and I could do to persuade the teacher to look into it much further. When my mother heard of this she took matters into her own hands. I heard her later telling my dad about how she marched into the Assistant Principle's office, demanding punishment while tearfully describing the scene in our bathroom at home where we both cried trying to get the gum out of my hair. The following day the assistant principle came into my classroom and asked me to come with her. I got my buddy to come along too since he had a better look at my attacker. We scowered all the other fourth grade classes to no avail. Then we moved to the fifth grade. After searching thoroughly and not finding him we decided to look one more time at each class. My friend and I examined the line-ups again and this time around I thought I spotted him. I couldn't be sure though. My friend however looked at the delinquent and affirmed that he was the culprit. Satisfied that we had the right student, the Assistant Principle took him into custody for punishment. I was never 100% certain that we had nabbed the right kid, but I believed my friend and let justice work its course.
Two years later mid-way through my 6th grade year we were preparing to go on a field-trip. All the students were very excited! A classmate of mine seemed particularly excited. He told me that this was the first time he would be able to go to this particular museum. The last time his class, in 5th grade, had planned to go he wasn't allowed to go for disciplinary reasons. That was two years ago because he had to repeat the 6th grade. He then told me, as though I already knew, that he couldn't go because he had stuck gum in my hair and that was the punishment. I had no idea it was the same boy that I was now friends with who had been my attacker! I was shocked, yet my previous uncertainty about whether we had targeted the right boy or not was now confirmed, by his own admittance.