Sticks and Stones

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Sticks and Stones When there is trouble in sight, some people just run away from it, because they are scared and don't know any other way to deal with it, this is what the short story ”Sticks and Stones” by Trezza Azzopardi is about. The main theme of the short story is running away. Lewis is a teacher who, at the moment, is living with his mother. Every night he has the same dream about a night, fifteen years earlier, where he was at the beach on a dune. He was running away from some boys who were after him. He came to the end of the dune and jumped, ended up with a broken arm, concussion and twelve stitches in his lower lip. After that night he hasn't been to the beach, he spend his entire adult life in the heart of England, protecting himself from another fall. But now he is back, back at his mothers house after the death of a student named Paul Fry and after him leaving his girlfriend Anna, he has been at his mothers house for a hole month without having contact with anyone but his mother and the thought of still being there when it's winter time, fills him with dread. Lewis wishes he was the kind of person that would challenge teachers like Stott and Walker, who has given all the boys who will never fit in at the school, the nickname simply Pins. When Lewis was younger, him and his mother moved away from the city, they were running away from the city, away from his stepfather. Lewis has become an expert in running away, his mother always said it was just ”survival of the fittest”[1], just like he ran away from those boys fifteen years earlier. At the school Lewis works at, he sees a boy named Paul Fry and he immediately gets obsessed with him, he watches him and sees that he is getting bullied, so Lewis goes to the Headmaster to try and help Paul. Paul Fry is a little boy, who goes to the school where Lewis works. The first time Lewis sees Paul, he
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