Opportunity Knocks

Paul was a large boy, and about a hundred pounds overweight. As such, he was horrible in gym class, and never picked for teams at recess. Usually, he would bring out his Beast Tamers cards and mess with them at recess. The gym teacher usually gave him worksheets or little odd jobs to do, rather than subject him to the torture that the other kids would inflict upon him.

         Timothy was a small boy. He was short for his age, underweight, and asthmatic. As if this wasn’t enough, he was also the new kid in a very small town. In gym class, he was excused from participating due to the severity of his asthma. At recess, he couldn’t run and play with the other kids, and they didn’t want him to, anyway. Due to his situation, he had gotten involved in the world of Beast Tamers.

         Due to the similarities of the two boys’ situations, the office made certain to put them in the same class. They spoke with the teacher beforehand and had the teacher assign Paul to be Timothy’s ‘new student buddy’. 

         Paul was extremely nervous about this assignment. He hoped and prayed that the new kid wouldn’t make fun of him. If he did, Paul decided, he would go straight to the teacher and ask her to assign Timothy a new buddy.

         The office told Timothy that he would be assigned a buddy. This made Timothy very nervous. At his old school, his ‘buddy’ had teased and tortured him until he cried, and then had brought him to the pre-k class and left him there.

         When Timothy entered the fourth grade classroom, he shyly looked around. Everyone was twice as big as he was, except for the boy in the back. That boy was so much bigger than him that he had to sit at a table instead of a desk. Timothy saw several people snickering at him already. 

         When the teacher turned and saw the little boy standing in the doorway, she immediately thought that he was lost. 

         “Hi, sweetie. What classroom are you looking for?”

         “Mrs. Higgins,” Timothy responded quietly. He knew what was coming next.

         “Are you sure, honey? I’m Mrs. Higgins, but this is a fourth grade classroom. What grade are you supposed to be in?”

         “I’m in the fourth grade. My name is Timothy Jones. I’m your new student.”

         Mrs. Higgins apologized and had him sit at the table with Paul. She introduced them, then went back to the front of the class. Timothy could barely reach the table. She felt bad for him, just as she felt bad for Paul. She had been a nerd, herself, in school. She had worn glasses, braces on her teeth and her legs, and her mother had made most of her clothing. Therefore, she knew how the two boys felt, being teased all of the time.

         When the time came for gym, Mrs. Higgins walked the class down, then went by the office to look at Timothy’s file. She was certain that he must have skipped a couple of grades. No, he had not. Just as she had suspected that Paul must have been held back, but she was incorrect on that assumption, as well. 

         Her next stop was at one of the pre-k classrooms. She absolutely hated what she was about to have to do, but Timothy had to be able to properly reach the table in order to do his assignments. She asked the pre-k teacher if they had an extra booster seat, and explained the situation. They did, and gave it to her. She went back to her classroom and strapped it to Timothy’s chair.

         While they were in gym class, Paul and Timothy sat together quietly. After a few minutes, Timothy reached into his pocket and pulled out a deck of cards. Paul looked at him, shocked.

         “These are called Beast Tamers cards,” Timothy explained. 

         In response, Paul pulled out his own deck from his pocket. Both boys grinned at each other. They spent the rest of the period trading Beast Tamers cards. 

         At recess, they once again pulled out their cards and played a round of Beast Tamers. They became fast friends over their cards. Both boys discovered that Beast Tamers was pretty much their lives. They both used all of their allowance to buy cards. They both requested nothing but Beast Tamers items for their birthdays and Christmas. Both boys even saved up for months to pre-order the newest video games or the download games. 

         Finally, the day came that a game they had been waiting for would be able to be downloaded. They woke up super early on the morning of the release, and downloaded it immediately. They soon got into a fierce competition to see who could catch the most beasts the fastest.

         They were all consumed with their new game. Every day at school, they talked about it. They couldn’t wait for the end of the day so that they could continue playing. Some days they would go to Paul’s house, and some days to Timothy’s. They would rush through their homework to get to their game.

         One day, while they were at Paul’s house playing, Timothy discovered something on the game. It was a wormhole, of sorts. A cheat whereby he could go through it and gather better beasts faster. This would assure that he would beat Paul with no problem. Timothy didn’t want Paul to catch on, so he didn’t use it right then. 

         Timothy was supposed to spend the night at Paul’s house that night, but he feigned sickness and went home. He thought long and hard about whether or not he should use the back door that he had found. On one hand, he would be able to beat Paul, something that he had not yet been able to do on any of the games that they had played. On the other hand, it really wouldn’t be fair to beat him that way. It would be a victory, but not a true one.

         Timothy didn’t sleep at all that night. He kept going back and looking at the wormhole.  He was so tempted to use it.

         The next day was Saturday. He went over to Paul’s house. The first thing that he did was to apologize to his friend for lying the night before. He explained that he had not been sick, but that he had had something on his mind.

         Following that confession, he told Paul that he had something else to confess. He then told Paul about the back door cheat and how he had been tempted to use it. 

         Paul thanked him for telling him the truth, and in the end both boys decided to use the cheat and had a blast. As adults, Timothy and Paul still get together to play Beast Tamers, and they still laugh about that back door that almost cost them their friendship.