The next neighborhood you’ll be seeing is not as well off as the one you have just seen. It is on the more infamous side of the city. It is the kind of neighborhood where people say you’re likely to get mugged, robbed, or even killed. And, unfortunately, they weren’t always wrong. After the whole fiasco, the whole debacle, of a kid being robbed and shot in his own home, no one dared move there again. Plenty of bad things have indeed happened here. But to Paul and Gabby, it was home.

Paul was a paper-thin boy who always had a smiling face. He needed and used crutches. His legs weren’t the best, but his mind was. He was the top of his class alongside Gabby. Gabby was his best friend since they were toddlers. She was tall and remarkably beautiful with her dark hair, which she always had cut short, and happy brown eyes.

Today was a special day for the pair. They had just gotten a letter from another school, a prestigious one at that, saying that they had been given a scholarship. They said that the school would be honored to have Paul and Gabby in their school. It wasn’t strange or surprising in the slightest, they were known in the nearby schools for their smarts. It was strange, however, for that school to hand them a scholarship, they, on the other hand, were known for being a tad elitist.

Back to the hour at hand, they walked through this neighborhood every day as they walked through what life threw at them. They did it together. And more often than not, they survived. I say this because things were difficult for them. A perfect example is the school bully and the neighborhood gangster. His name was ‘Lip’ and he was brutal and cruel. He, as always, came with two of his friends, who were just as awful and did whatever he said. They were in an alley-like, dark part of the place when they showed up. Nobody was there but the bullies wouldn’t stop even if they were in a crowded place.

“When your legs don’t work like they used to before,” Lip’s goon sang.

Gabby and Paul just ignored the ableist remark. They planned to just continue walking, not sparing any of their time for the bullies’ taunting. However, the other friend, who was much bigger and had more brawn, had pushed Gabby away from Paul and taken his crutches, letting him fall to the ground.

“Sod off!” Gabby yelled as his two friends held her, laughing at her effort.

Lip seemed affected by this, at least for a second before he chuckled darkly and walked over to the helpless pair.

“You’re nothing, both of you.”

“And you’re something?” Gabby said before spitting in Lip’s face.

Lip growled. With half the anger he could muster, the rest of his anger he saved for Paul, he slapped Gabby right across the face. His hand burned on her cheek.

“You piece of trash, get away from her!” Paul yelled. He then realized that he too was helpless, but he didn’t give up trying to yell.

With more force and twice the anger as Lip’s hit, Gabby shouted and curled her hand into a fist. In a flash, which to her felt like slow motion, she punched the bully in the face, breaking his nose, making the middle of his face a bloody mess.

Lip’s two friends had run away, dropping Paul’s crutches, at the sight of their leader weak and bleeding.

“You’re going to pay for that, next time I see you,” Lip said.

Gabby replied audaciously, “Well let’s see if I can fit it in my schedule.”

And though he’d probably never admit it, Lip then ran.

Gabby ran to get Paul’s crutches and rushed to her best friend’s side. She helped him up. Paul slowly tried to stand with the help of Gabby and his crutches. Despite his own condition, he looked at her with a face full of worry.

“You have to stop doing that. What if he takes it too far one day?”

Gabby scoffed. “He never will. He’s too much of a coward. And besides, we’re moving schools, right?”

They continued to walk home.

“You know,” Paul began, “I heard Lip used to go to that school.”

“Oh?” Gabby asked.

Paul nodded. “I wonder if he’s heard.”

Gabby shrugged. They walked in silence for about ten minutes. Soon, they arrived at each other’s homes. They lived next to each other too.

“Good night,” Paul said.

Gabby smiled. “See you tomorrow.”

As Gabby walked in, before she could reach the door, Paul said,

“I have this weird feeling, some weird thought that something big is going to happen.”

Gabby put her lips together to form a small smile. She placed her hand on Paul’s shoulder in a form of a pat. Somehow, she had felt it too.

“Well, we’ll see.”

This scholarship was going to change their lives. Not only in the way that they’d be in a better learning environment, but in a way that they’d forget who they, and everyone else, thought they were, smart kids who aren’t going anywhere from the awful side of the city, and find out who they truly were.