The high school was teeming with students, stereotypical in appearance and behavior. Different clusters representing various social niches milled and globbed. Jack climbed a series of floating, disconnected inflatable slides above a large, festive swimming fountain, marveling at the posh interior of the building. The scene seemed, to Jack, to be a vignette from a feel-good 80's movie. The buzzing commotion of students, the paper in the air, the dichotomy between mundanity and youthful vigor and expectation.
He'd been here once before, but much had changed, and definitely for the better. The school was, frankly, amazing. Interlocking staircases combined in interesting ways. Stalls with purposes unkown bordered on every wall, each at a slightly different elevation. There was an abundance of plants and water. Jack, being an amateur appreciator of large, artificially enclosed spaces, found himself wishing he were young enough to attend.
Ahead was a group of unruly bullies, young men and women completely lacking in self-confidence but burly enough to put on a facade to the contrary. Their ring leader, a particularly tough-looking boy with a regrettably baby-like face, postured for his fellows as the group ascended the flimsy waterslides.
Below, a calm young boy rode an inflatable blob. He seemed far too young to be in high school, and the reckless display of his wealth indicated a lack of regard for, or unawareness of, those medieval social norms unique to secondary school. The bullies locked onto him almost immediately.
The group descended from the slides; by that time, the young rich boy had stalked off to a stone wall near one of the exterior doors. He began to punch the wall, either in anger or in preparation; it was impossible to tell.
"Hey, kid," said the ringleader once they had surrounded the lad.
He ignored them and continued landing light punches on the stone.
"Hey! I'm talking to you!"
The lad stopped and slowly turned around.
"Who do you think you are? Some rich snot kid comes waltzing in here, and he thinks he can ignore me? I think you need a lesson." The gang leader advanced, leering and making threatening gestures.
"If you hit me," explained the rich boy calmly, "I'll hit this kid here." He grabbed an even younger child who was passing by with some adults, a boy likely half his age, by the shirt collar.
"Aw, no!" exclaimed the very young boy in the comic voice of a 40's radio announcer. "No, not me! Not me, darling!" He smiled, displaying far too many teeth, all perfectly aligned and white. The site was both ingratiating and slightly disturbing.
"And he," continued the rich kid, "will pass it on to his kid." He pointed to a mere baby, barely able to walk under his own power, beside the very young kid whose collar he held.
The head bully looked horrified, and backed away just as slowly as he'd advanced.
In the epilogue, the bullies stand around the fountain alongside the rich kid, everyone smiling and posing with their very own inflatable blobs. The peace they'd forged had allowed them all to become rich from the resulting drug trade revenue.
Their parents now, in a separate pose, standing, miniaturized, in an office on top of a wooden desk. Beside, an enormous telephone, relative to their size. They too had profited from their children's actions, as evidenced by their own blobs. Their smiles indicated a very slight amount of confusion.
"What?" one asked.
