Maybe a little. Maybe I told the story to entertain my husband or one of the kids. A story of this awful boy who kicked a jar of grasshoppers out of my hands. Who stuck a wad of gum in my hair. I’d tell it, and it was funny. Even to me. These things had happened to another girl—one so afraid of a boy in her homeroom that she went home every day and smelled her clothes. Who assumed she always would. Who believed that seventh-grade homeroom would last forever. Who blamed the unchangeable alphabet—cold and distant and as out of her control as the cosmos.
Over. That other forever was over and had only been called up again that afternoon in front of the computer when his much-older face emerged from the void in which I’d left it—with an invitation. To be friends. (The internet: it hadn’t been invented yet, or what an added tool it would have been, back then, for him to torture me with!) I thought, briefly, I should be upset, but found myself laughing instead and dialing the number of my old friend.
“Who? Tell me.”
T. “Tom L.”
U. “Unbelievable. What did you do?” “Nothing.” “What will you do?” “I’m still thinking about that.” “Maybe he’s going to apologize. Or maybe he’s not done bullying you yet.” “Oh, yes he is,” I said.
V. “Life is very strange,” she said. “Very, very strange. Who would ever have imagined?”
W. “Why me?” I asked, as if there might be an answer to that question after all this time. We laughed.
X. “Exactly,” she said.
Y. “You can’t take it personally,” my mother said, wiping the tears off my cheeks, my chin, my neck with her soft hand. (But I wanted to die. But I wanted to die. I remember so little, but I remember clearly: Because of him, I wanted to die.) “If you weren’t there to bully, it would just be someone else. You’re going to be stronger and happier after you live through this, I promise you.”
Z. How could she have been so wrong? (So wrong. So kind.) How could she have been so right? All the years and friends and family and the sorrows and the strength I would need and the laughter. On the other side of that forever was the future, and it was so much better, and all I needed to do was to keep on living to get to it.
They Made Me Do It and I’m Sorry
by Cecil Castellucci
ILLUSTRATED BY LISE BERNIER
Simplehero
by Debbie Rigaud
I’m not what you would call a tough girl. In fact, I’d say I’m more of the scaredy-cat persuasion. I’ve never been in a school-yard fight. I was always of the opinion that someone as bony as I should avoid physical confrontation. So imagine my confusion when my friend Desiree told me that I protected her from a notoriously fearsome bully our freshman year in high school.
“You don’t remember?” she asked me during a recent phone conversation. “That’s how we became friends!”
Me? Defend Desiree? Desiree is one of the boldest people I know. Smart and opinionated, the girl can debate any attorney, seasoned politician, or TV judge to the ground. And with a flash of her dimples and a quick turn of phrase, she’ll yank you out of your proverbial box and introduce you to a fresh perspective. But that’s the Desiree from the later high school years and beyond. As she tells it, she was in a very different place at the start of freshman year.
“Tanya* wanted to fight me, so she made up this story that I was talking about her brother on the bus,” recounts Desiree. “I was terrified—Tanya was huge, and I’m not a fighter. You and Rhonda were there, and you said, ‘She didn’t say that. I was on the bus and I know that’s not true. She doesn’t even catch the bus!’”
The story started to sound vaguely familiar to me, but it wasn’t crystal clear until Desiree uttered Rhonda’s now legendary words: “You’ll have to get through me to get to her.” That’s when I got a visual on the day. We were in the school’s lower level in the hallway by the lockers. As she charged toward Desiree, Tanya looked ten feet tall. She was wild-eyed with flaring nostrils, and her husky voice blared a loud and angry alarm. I remember thinking, Tanya’s got the story all wrong. So I told her the truth. But Rhonda’s style of defense was on a whole ’nother level. Rhonda matched Tanya in size, so she stepped between Tanya and Desiree and said, “I will not let you touch this girl. You’ll have to go through me to get to her.” That quelled everything outright. Tanya backed down and walked away.
I knew Des had run-ins with bullies her freshman year at our all-girls academy. But I never understood why. Des was as unlikely a target as I was a bodyguard. She is a tall, attractive girl from a prominent family in her suburban town. She has five older brothers—one of whom was an NFL player at the time. But as Desiree explains it, two things made her a target throughout her childhood—her dark skin and her Caribbean heritage.
In grammar and middle schools, she was called every derogatory name for “black” by lighter-skinned African-American classmates. The catchy commercial jingle lulling TV viewers to “Come Back to Jamaica” became “Go Back to Jamaica.” And each year she dreaded the public reading of her classmates’ annual “hot list” of girls (ranked by the boys) and boys (ranked by girls). Desiree was always at or near the bottom of that list. “I wanted to quit school even back then,” she recalls.
Things changed in high school—but only slightly. Thanks to the rise of Afrocentric lyrics in rap songs, being dark-skinned became acceptable, and even cool. Yet Desiree was still singled out by bullies because of where she was from. Unlike most of the handful of African-American students who came from urban towns, Desiree lived in an affluent suburb. And while most of the black students rode the city bus to school, Desiree was driven. She missed out on all the critical bonding time on the hour-plus commute to school. (Looking back at these “commuter” and “urban dweller” categories, it seemed that—if you were black—you were all right if you fell under at least one of the categories. I fit under both categories. My close friend Cara was from the suburbs, but she caught the bus. And oddly enough, Desiree’s tormentor Tanya didn’t catch the bus. But she was from the city. Des, on the other hand, was 0 for 2.)
And it didn’t help matters when other kids jumped on the bullies’ bandwagon, joining in the chorus of insults against her. The girls Desiree thought were her friends reported to the bullies that Desiree’s mother has an accent and isn’t American. This led to even more taunting. “They really stuck on the ‘ugly’ thing for a while,” she remembers. (Even though my parents are also immigrants, Des believes I was spared for having had older sisters and a cousin at the school.)
Midway through freshman year, Tanya and her side-kick—yes, she had one—became rabid in their pursuit of Desiree. Almost daily, they threatened to jump her, snatched away her lunch, and even took her jewelry—right off her hands! Tanya and Tara (the sidekick) had the habit of wearing each other’s jewelry. For some reason, they felt Desiree should share in their friendship ritual.
“One day Tanya walked up to me and said, ‘I wanna hold your jewelry; I wanna wear that ring,’” recounts Desiree. “The ring was on my index finger and I said, ‘No, you can’t; my brother gave me this ring.’” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Tanya and Tara stepped closer, boxing Desiree in at her locker. Then Tanya grabbed her hand and pulled the ring off her finger. “I asked, ‘Are you gonna give it back at the end of the day?’ She said ‘Yeah,’ but I never got it back and she never wore it at school.”
Desiree was at her breaking point. Fearing the backlash she thought would follow if she told teachers or her parents, she suffered in silence. “I had no self-worth, self-image, none of that.” Then sadly, Des got so low, she attempted to take her life. “I took pills, but nothing happened. I just got sleepy. Nobody knew.”
Not long after this attempt, Tanya charged Desiree in the school hallway, accusing her of trashing Tanya’s brother on the bus. But before she could touch Desiree, Rhonda and I intervened.
“At the time, I had no friends,” Des tells me. “But seeing the two of you stick up for me made me realize that there ar
e kind people out there who will stick up for you regardless. It was like, I can make friends. I am worth something because somebody stuck up for me. What you and Rhonda did—that kind of saved my life.”
As karma would have it, Tanya got pregnant later that year and dropped out of school. Tara moved away and didn’t return after freshman year. The bullies’ bandwagon disbanded and all Desiree bashing came to an end. Over the next three years, high school became a supportive, encouraging environment for Des, and she blossomed into the woman I still know and love today.
To think, a selfless act of little consequence to me, a moment I barely thought twice of again, a simple decision to get involved, changed another person’s outlook on life.
And did I mention that I lean toward the scaredy-cat persuasion?
* All names except Desiree’s have been changed.
Isolation
By Cynthia Leitich Smith
Let’s talk about isolation.
The girl who bullied me took away two of my best friends—one, then another.
She gave them a choice, and they bought their freedom at my expense.
I was an only child, and I couldn’t talk to my parents about it. It was so important to them that I be happy. I didn’t dare suggest otherwise.
At school, standing beside me would’ve meant moving into the target zone.
For most people, that wasn’t a choice they were willing to make. I didn’t blame them. And I didn’t want to go through that pain again, either.
So I quietly carved out some territory for myself—at dance class, the library, the school newspaper. But that didn’t make sitting alone at lunch or surviving girls’ gym any easier.
I still looked over my shoulder as I walked home.
I still fretted my garage-sale and discount-store clothes.
And I still guarded the secret of my mixed-blood Native American heritage.
Then one day I noticed a girl who was even quieter than me—a fair, whip-smart girl with a strong sense of justice. Who’d had her share of run-ins with the same bully.
This time I decided to stand beside her.
Cynthia and Tracy, the quieter girl, became friends. Years later they shared a college dorm room.
Cynthia went on to study law and journalism and is an author. Tracy went on to study political science and owns her own lobbying firm. Neither is especially quiet anymore.
Luz
by Melodye Shore
I lean against the outside wall of the cafeteria, gasping for air. Blood oozes from the long, crimson gashes on my arms, staining the stucco as it drips into the spreading pool of vomit at my feet. My stomach heaves yet again, and when there’s nothing left but bile, I fix my gaze on the sliver of sunshine peeking through the clouds. Don’t cry, I tell myself. Don’t let anyone see you cry.
Quick footfalls echo across the courtyard. I shade my eyes and find myself staring at the brown-eyed girl who transferred into eighth-grade English not long after me. Her name is Luz, if I remember correctly, though names don’t seem to matter when you’re stuck in the back of an overcrowded classroom—the row reserved for misfits and newcomers.
“Dáme tus manos.” Her voice is gentle, her face etched with worry.
I manage a weak smile. “I’m fine,” I say. “I just need a little fresh air.”
Truth is, I am not fine. A headache throbs at my temples. When I rake my fingers through my knotted hair, I pull away clots of blood. The wounds on my arms hurt like hell. Each jagged breath is more painful than the last—never mind the soul-scorching insults still ringing in my ears.
It all started in the cafeteria bathroom. I was searching for the free meal ticket that had fallen through a hole in my pocket. The room was quiet except for the locked stall on the end, where another eighth grader was purging her lunch.
The toilet flushed. She emerged from the stall, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
I was startled. I tried to hide the apple in my hand—the perfectly good apple I’d retrieved from the trash can when I thought no one was looking. I wasn’t sure if she’d seen me . . . until, that is, she cleared her throat.
We stared at each other’s reflection, eyes mirroring our darkest secrets.
Her lips curled into a sneer. “Just wait till everyone hears about this!” she said, and then she rushed out the door.
I pulled a wad of paper towels from the dispenser, but before I could bury the offending fruit, she returned with a posse of her friends.
“Trash picker!” someone said with a snicker.
And from someplace behind me, “Freeloader!” And worse.
I was caught off guard by their angry eyes, paralyzed by their venomous words.
They swarmed around me, mocking my silence. Then someone grabbed me from behind.
I called for help.
A fist landed in my stomach.
I wheezed, begged for mercy.
They kicked and punched me instead.
I broke free somehow and ran for the exit, but not before they yanked out handfuls of hair and shredded my arms with their fingernails.
“That’s right,” someone shrieked. “Go home to the Dumpster you came from!”
And now, I’m vomiting up every last bit of that apple—and with it, every last ounce of my dignity.
“Let me help you,” Luz says in broken English. When she reaches for me, her outstretched arms are like wings, lifting me above and beyond all the pain and humiliation. I slip my hands into hers, and she squeezes them gently. I feel stronger already.
Hand in hand, we walk toward the main office to see the nurse. We duck underneath a sprawling eucalyptus tree, and she steadies me when I stumble over the roots. I retie my hand-me-down shoes, two sizes too large, and then we step inside.
The principal winces when we approach the counter, no doubt taking inventory of my injuries. “Who did this to you?” he asks. I don’t answer for fear of retaliation.
He turns to Luz. “You must have played some part in this!” She blinks and shrugs, as if she doesn’t understand him. Exasperated, he suspends us for the rest of the day.
I don’t have a key to my apartment, so my new friend invites me to hers. The steamy smells of chicken and corn tortillas greet us at the door. Luz’s mother is stirring a boiling pot in the kitchen, but when she sees my wounds, her spoon clatters to the linoleum floor.
Luz brings me bandages and a warm wash cloth, and in halting English, her mother insists that I stay for dinner. Her father says the blessing, and then we pile our plates high with arroz con pollo and frijoles—foods I learned to pronounce in Conversational Spanish but haven’t eaten before. They smile when I ask for seconds.
We talk about our families, and Luz translates for everyone. Her father says they immigrated to California from a small village in Mexico, sneaking across the border in the dead of night. Now he follows the crops. Her mother speaks with sorrow about the relatives she can’t risk seeing again, and when I discuss my parents’ separation, she dabs her eyes with her apron.
By this time, our bellies are full, and the moon shines bright in the inky night sky. Tears turn to laughter, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to translate into words the sense of belonging I feel in this moment.
It’s the first of many meals Luz and I eventually share, the first day of a friendship I want to last forever. We’re walking home from school together when I ask, “Will we always be friends?” She looks away, and in that instant, we both know the answer.
Winter turns to spring, and when one day she disappears, I am sad but not surprised. Her desk sits unoccupied for days, but no one questions her absence. I call her, but the phone’s been disconnected. I knock, and then ring her doorbell, but the curtains stand open and the apartment is vacant.
I think back to the day she came to my rescue. Luz, whose name means light . . . Luz, my beacon of hope in the darkness. Tears stream down my face unchecked, and I don’t care if anyone sees me cry.
Dear Caroline fr
om Canada
by Carrie Ryan
Dear Caroline from Canada,
I know we last saw each other on the Western Tour in the summer of 1993 and you’ve probably forgotten me. But I’m not sure I ever really thanked you. I’m not sure I even understood how brave you were until I got older.
Just in case you don’t remember . . . We were at the dude ranch in Wyoming and some girl (I can’t remember her name but I’ll call her Ginger) said she wanted a cowboy. The only cowboy at the ranch our age asked me to dance (he even sang “Wonderful Tonight” in my ear—I still love that song) and that ticked her off, so she told him, and everyone else, that I was gay.
Today I’d just laugh at her. I’m embarrassed that being called gay was even an insult back then. And it’s not really that that insulted me; it’s that we had to share rooms and beds with other girls on the tour and suddenly they all gave me the evil eye when we were paired up. We weren’t allowed to walk around unless we were in groups of three and no one—no one—would let me hang out with them.
I had to beg to tag along behind random groups so I wouldn’t get in trouble.
It was in the mall after the bus broke down when you told me what Ginger said—until then I had no idea why everyone suddenly hated me that much. All I knew was that I was ostracized—utterly and completely cast out.
So alone. Humiliated.
But you paired up with me that day. You told me the truth even though it was difficult and you promised that you’d be my friend and never leave me out again.
I was so selfish I was just glad to have a friend. I didn’t think about what that meant for you and your reputation. Suddenly everyone called you my gay girlfriend and you were cast out just as much as I was.
Dear Bully Page 10