Barry woke with the sound of his father shouting at his sister to get out of bed. She was in the opposite room but always got called first because it was closer to his father’s bedroom. He slowly began to open his eyes and worry about the day ahead.
“Come on, Barry. Rise and shine” said his dad, with only his head stuck through the door.
“Yeah” replied Barry, trying to remove the lumps of sleep from around his eyes.
Barry was a frail fifteen year old, bright but lonely. The rest of the boys in his school played soccer, hurling and tennis and hung around at the local shop in groups at the weekend. Barry had joined his class in the middle of their second year together; he was now in the third and still friendless. He had tried to talk to some of the boys but when they saw his desperation, they jeered him. After a while, Barry gave up. He began to attract the worst type of attention from the bullies. The fourth year bullies were the worst; they were close in age so felt that it was almost fair to hurt him. The fifth and sixth year boys really felt sorry for him and their numbers were dwindling. The younger ones were too busy with their own.