TIFU by reporting smoking seniors and turning myself into the biggest target ever

Obligatory 'this happened a few years ago'.

Let me introduce myself to you, as I was about 4-5 years ago.

I was 12, the 'weird kid'/'most likely to shoot up the school'/'incel' and still had a deep respect for authority and believed in reporting wrongdoing to school authorities. I was a freshie to the world of secondary education, which may explain my behaviors. Because I was weird, I was bullied. Being the weird kid, I carried a stash of pebbles/rocks in my backpack at all times in anticipation of an event where I'd have to use them to escape or for some other ridiculous fashion. I also had no friends ~~same as today~~ and thus wanted to be friends with anyone and everyone who talked to me. I was also hugely fond of spies and all that shit.

So now I've set the details; let's get into the story.

My school is a snotty private school. According to the majority of parents in the city where I live, this school is the best in the city, no questions asked. I'd been transferred here in Year 4/Grade 3 and joined Secondary in due time, in Year 7. I was still innocent and was the classroom snitch. I snitched on everyone, for minor offenses like pushing a kid in the playground, to camping out in the bathroom to bunk a lesson. My reputation was that, as I'd earned it.

When I came into Secondary, there was talk about the elusive 'smokers' that would haunt the bathrooms. The smell of tobacco was prevalent in the bathrooms at all times of day. If they got a bit careless, they left the butts floating in the toilet, ash around the floor etc. At the same time, they were smart, opening windows and taping smoke detectors up.

I became friends with a fellow nerd/wimp who was into spies and investigation, just like me. Together, for some reason, we resolved to catch whoever the 'Bathroom smokers' were and report them. By doing this and cornering the elusive wrongdoers even the school management could not catch, we anticipated being welcomed as heroes, getting girls (as well as boys in my case) and have careers as prefects and student leadership guaranteed.

So, we read from the 'Spy's field-work manual' (yes, it was a real book!) and set up watch and built crappy gadgets to catch the smokers red-handed. We did things like taping my phone onto the ceiling above the stall and watching it through remote footage through a computer, investigating and interrogating 'witnesses' (who probably BSed through the entire thing) and being 'incognito' and staking out in the bathrooms during break and lunch.

Eventually, we had enough evidence to present to our pastoral deputy head. We had names, references and signed affadits from 'witnesses', discarded butts, videos of those kids lighting up and smoking and the like. So like proud tigers, we went to the pastoral head's office and gave him a USB of all of our findings plus a baggie with the butts and discarded packets. He was obviously curious and shocked that we'd gone through that much effort to catch a bunch of smokers in the bathroom. We smirked and told him that we had a sense of right and justice and thus it was our responsibility as fellow students to bring him in (I know, we sounded like cops in a C-grade cop film).

The next morning, we came in and started bragging about how we'd caught seniors red handed. We told pretty much everyone and I gotta say, few were as impressed or as amazed as we were. But this is where the fun ends.

I left school through the back entrance, where the smoking seniors had gotten word that it was *me* alone who had reported them. They were pissed af, obviously. Chances are that they had been suspended or given severe detentions or something. And so they chased me, intent on beating me up. As I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, I chucked the pebbles I kept in my bag to deter my aggressors.

Eventually I got home safely. But the nightmare was not over. I had to eventually start hiding in plain sight from that day on until they graduated so as to avoid having those guys fuck me up.

TL;DR ~ Reported smoking seniors, spent ridiculous amounts of effort and time trying to gather evidence to clinch the bastards, bragged a bit too early and had to make a daring escape from them as they tried to beat me up on the walk back home.