Clan-X Essays - American Folk Songs, English-language Films

Clan-X There's a new kid at school, his name is Leigh, he thinks he is such a big shot-know all. When he rocked up at school on his very first day, he tried to do a fancy bunny-hop on his crappie, smashed up old bike and stacked it. It was hilarious, especially when he tried to get back on. He just fell straight over it again and broke three of his spokes and started to cry. He walked around school the entire week, showing off in front of everyone, telling them how good he was, trying so hard to be everyone's friend, but we made sure nobody liked him. We were part of a Clan I started called Clan-X. My gang members were: Rene, Grant, Mark, Trent, Tim, Daimien and myself, Cameron. We basically just pushed people around for kicks. Usually people that were half our size and walked around by themselves. We liked to blow up people's letter boxes the most, usually just at random. Whenever any new kids came to our school, we used to tease and make fun of them, so they felt unwelcome and had no friends. Usually they left the school, we loved it when they did that. Anyway, back to the story... On Friday afternoon, just after school, we were all walking home talking about how much of a loser this new guy was. By the time we got to the end of the street, we had all agreed that we should do something totally outrageous to his cat because he had been bragging about it all week. On Saturday, we all met up at the local park and brought along little tools which we thought might come in handy for this sinister exercise. Grant and Rene brought some rope and a switch-blade. Trent and Mark brought a bottle of methylated spirits and some matches. Tim and Daimien brought a voice scrambler and a mobile phone and I brought some explosives, which I got from the local markets. We thought about what we were going to actually do. Finally, I stood up and said, "Okay, First, I will jump Leigh's back fence and grab the cat. I'll take Tim and Daimien with me just in case I can't find it. Grant and Rene can then tie it up to a tree and cut it's whiskers off. Then Trent and Mark can saturate it with methylated spirits, (making sure not to drown it, as we want it to burn alive). You guys can start to run down the street and I'll call up Leigh on the mobile phone and say "Madness takes it's toll, please have exact change." Then I'll throw a K0205 at his front door. When it goes off I'll light the cat up and run. We'll all meet back at the school. Oh, and don't forget, if you get caught, I'll take the heat, my parents couldn't care less if I was at the cop shop." Everyone was silent, Grant and Rene gave me sick grins. Tim quickly stood up and said, "Sure, we toast his cat, and scare the crap out of him, but what does he learn from it?" and then Daimien butted in, "Yeah, his right, we should like leave a note or something." I thought for a second and said, "Okay, when I get home I'll write him a note out of news paper clippings. We'll leave it under his door-mat or something. Everyone put your stuff in my bag here and then we'd better get back to our homes. Be back here at 10:00pm tonight." As I was walking home, I was thinking how funny the look on Leigh's face would be when I lit up that helpless cat, and how confused he would be when he heard the words "Madness takes it's toll, please have exact change." I simply couldn't wait. When I finally got home, I went through all the news papers and all the magazines I could find. After about an hour I had finished the letter. It read: IF YOU DON'T LEAVE THIS SCHOOL BY THE END OF THE WEEK, IT WILL BE YOU THAT BURNS. BUDDY... - LOVE CLAN-X. When I got to the park at 10:00pm everyone was already there, waiting for me. It was dark and everything was silent. Leigh only lived around the corner from the park. I found his address from the very helpful Telstra operator. When we arrived at Leigh's house Daimien and Tim, without saying a word jumped the fence, I followed. We found the cat asleep on the