Fourth-grade bullies

I liked school. This is likely not a surprise. The third grade school was just a couple of blocks from our house. Fourth grade, though, was a little farther away. Walking took about the same time as riding the bus, so on nice, sunny days my neighbor Carrie and I would walk to and/or from school.

The only trouble we encountered was a group of bullies — four or five boys about our age or a little older. Most of the time we could avoid them. They called us names and yelled at us and once threw rocks, which broke the colored pencils I had in my backpack. I don’t remember walking home from the fourth-grade school very often after that.