The Adventures of Etta Marie- entry 7

Never underestimate an underdog. When cornered an underdog can surprise you, and turn the tables. Underdogs are counted out usually, so they don't have confidence to render them delusional, like their rivals. What they can have though is heart, and heart can trump ego. Heart is really just guts and drive. It doesn't need ego, it gets by unawares, without celebration, because it is raw courage and strength of spirit bundled, fighting for its life.

Etta Maire always routed for underdogs. Football dynasties, trash-talking champs always rubbed her raw. Not just in sports, but in the everyday places too. The thing that made it right in the end, was the surprise ending--the frequent loser, finally wins.

Did Etta Marie always feel this way? Not really. But, she had seen enough bullying of various kinds to change her philosophy of life a certain way. The day Billy LaBow got a nose bled at kickball when Johnny Sinclair and Benny Staub called him a "whimp" and a "gaywad", punching their fists into his face over and over. Her mouth tasted like a battery. As horrid as it was, she was so glad to not be the object of the fury, not to stand out. Billy was being punished for everything that was weak and inferior in the world, and everyone in 4th grade seemed to know it. No one helped Billy. They all watched. He took the blows, then the kicks. He grabbed a fist of pebbles, the other hand clawed the ground and then quit. He stopped fighting back.

It was a horror. But, they all had a part. Billy's mom took him home, and he never came back to school. Johnny, Benny, Etta, and all the 4th graders had ruined Billy, the underdog. Since then, Etta Marie had kept a special eye out looking for them, trying to spot them, though still too afraid to protect them. That came later in various ways, some big and some small.