Love this story @misterakpan it has a lot going for it for sure! Your voice rings out in this piece, I can almost hear you talking although I have to imagine your accent etc I love how redemptive it is at the end. The fact that you found the confidence to face down your bullies. This bit made me laugh:

My dad rarely talked to me this way. He went on and on with all the philosophical aphorisms a 13 year old could make sense of. That explains why I stuck out my neck and listened enthusiastically.

and it rung out true for my experiences in life when you described speaking in front of the whole school:

I could hear my breath rise and drop rhythmically, and my legs shook in my trousers that I feared others noticed it. I was in space, or a vacuum, or something of sort. I looked at the section of the hall where my classmates sat, they all wore a smile that scared me the more. But Benita wasn’t smiling.

I still feel this way when I read my poetry out at performance nights and if I have a friend in the audience I just focus on them and try to block all the others out, my hand still shakes though lol
Anyway, fantastic story, well done m8 🙂