Dear Bully

by Megan Kelley Hall

  Then who was I in high school? To answer that question is also to explain why I wanted to contribute to this anthology. Because there were unquestionably two different me’s in high school: there was the me as it was created by others, the me who could be comprehended in, and thus reduced to, a sum of facts and stories (Lauren: smart, slutty, mean).

  Then there was the me as I understood—or, more accurately, didn’t understand—myself. And that me was far blurrier, far less easy to categorize. Angry, self-conscious; brave and also desperately insecure; fiercely loyal to my friends; both a partier and a bookworm; promiscuous and deeply ambivalent about sex. I was a soccer player and a smoker, a theater nerd and a lifeguard, a wild child and an impeccable student.

  But that description is blurry and full of contradiction, and people have a very limited tolerance for contradiction; and so I remained Lauren: smart, slutty, mean.

  Humans have a long and not-so-illustrious history of dehumanizing people in order to dominate, subjugate, or otherwise abuse them—from the infamous three-fifths of a person compromise in the US Constitution to our colonizing ancestors’ determination that the Native Americans were savages to the trials at Salem in the 1600s, in which weird (or promiscuous) women were burned at the stake for being witches.

  This is what happens in high school, too: We call people witches. We decide that they are too weird, too different. They are not us.

  And then we burn them at the stake. We spread nasty rumors; we call them names; we alienate and ostracize them.

  But my point is that the impulses that facilitate this kind of abuse are the same that had me labeled “mean” or, at least briefly, “a slut”; these are the same impulses that also lead us to assign labels like “jock,” “theater nerd,” “video-game geek”: impulses to categorize, to box, to hold desperately to our fragile identities by saying clearly what we are not. After all, it has always been easier to understand what we like by virtue of what we don’t—anyone who has ever heard the phrase “I like all music except for country!” knows that.

  In order to find some solution to the bullying problem, we’ll have to be more tolerant of ambiguity, subtlety, and strangeness not just in other people but in ourselves. It may be important to your identity that you are a soccer player, but it may be equally important that you can whistle the national anthem backward and make the world’s best spicy popcorn and do a wicked impression of Victoria Beckham. Schools, parents, and educational endeavors should encourage people not just to empathize but to discover and celebrate the weirdness in others and in ourselves. We need not just to think but to live outside the box. Weirdness is good. It keeps things interesting.

  I’ll end this essay with a metaphor. Imagine a plate, compartmentalized. In one corner is a pile of plain cooked pasta, lumped together; in another is steamed asparagus; in yet another is a pile of chopped basil; lastly, there is a small pile of feta cheese. The plate is orderly, clean-looking. It is also boring and unappetizing.

  But shake things up a little, mix all the ingredients together . . . and, my friends, the miraculous will occur.

  I feel I am still very young in many ways, but in the past ten years, since graduating from high school, I have learned several very valuable lessons. I can say with confidence that being kind and generous will make you happier than being mean and withholding; that the only thing worth striving for is individuality; and that celebrating people’s differences is, paradoxically, the best way to bring people together.

  Speak

  Levels

  by Tanya Lee Stone

  Being on top is cool

  especially after working our way up from the bottom

  But being on top is nothing

  if you’re gonna use it

  to put people down.

  I tried to reason with you,

  talk to you man to man,

  but you just laughed

  and kept right on after them.

  Can’t you see they’re already scared of you

  without you acting beneath yourself?

  They look up to you

  even though

  you don’t deserve it,

  looking down from your flimsy cloud.

  But I’m big enough to tell you

  and I’m not gonna stop until I get somewhere.

  What are you going to do about it?

  I don’t care if I piss you off,

  calling you off

  those kids.

  Yeah, we’re both on top

  But you just

  sunk

  a little

  lower.

  Slivers of Purple Paper

  by Cyn Balog

  Every high school class has one. One person whose name is synonymous with tragedy, whispered with a serious shake of the head or a “tsk, tsk.” High school is painful as it is, but for some it’s downright torturous. I’m talking about the one who didn’t live out the four years, the one for whom all the pressure was just too much.

  In my school, that person was Avery.

  I had nothing in common with Avery. Avery was smart and athletic and popular, all the things people like me wished we could be. If you put my picture in front of the members of my graduating class, most would probably say they’d never seen me before in their lives. I’d been in the school district since kindergarten, and yet, I was the invisible one. My classmates didn’t think of me. They would describe me, if they absolutely had to, in one word: shy.

  How do I know this? Because in seventh grade, my health teacher decided to do a project aimed at boosting our confidence. We arranged our desks in a circle and were each given a little Chinese takeout box and a few scraps of purple construction paper. On top of the boxes, we wrote our names. Every thirty seconds, we had to pass the boxes to the right. It was the job of the others in the circle to write one nice thing about the person whose name was on the box on a piece of purple paper and slip it into her box.

  I can’t tell you how excited I was when we started this assignment. It was so different from any assignment I’d ever done. We never went around paying one another compliments, and I was dying to see what nice things people thought about me. I’d hoped “generous” and “helpful” and “smart” would be there. Maybe even “nice blue eyes.” There was plenty of fodder to fill that box, even if you didn’t know me.

  I took the assignment as seriously as possible. I’d been made fun of by several of the boys in the class for my giant beak of a nose, and though it was hard to come up with compliments for those people, I managed. “Always speaks his mind” and “Honest” were a few I’d written down. For some, it was easier. It was easy with Avery. We were neighbors, and though I didn’t know her well, she was always kind. As I watched her scribbling, I wondered what people would say about her. What kind of amazing box of compliments she would end up with.

  Maybe I was being naive, because I learned that day that seventh graders do not take the opportunity to build up a person when they can instead tear that person down. When I received my box at the end of the assignment, the same word was on each of the twelve sheets of paper, in different ink and handwriting:

  SHY

  I stared at each paper for only a second. Just looking at them hurt. Of course the assignment was nothing but a joke to most of my classmates. How stupid and pointless to praise others when all they’ll do in return is shoot you down! After all, I just looked like an idiot throwing all these compliments at people who didn’t think anything of me. I was about to stuff the whole thing into my backpack when I pulled out the last slip of paper:

  She might not say much, but when she does speak, she always says something special.

  There it was. The reason that I still remembered that assignment, though so many years had passed. Because I took that sliver of paper and stuck it on my bulletin board at home. As a reminder that I meant something. That I was special. I looked at it every day during high school.

  Five years later, Avery killed herself. It was shortly aft
er high school graduation. Nobody knew why. It was one of those big mysteries; even her closest friends shrugged and complained about the senselessness of it all.

  A few years after that, her mother finally got around to cleaning out her room. Avery had a lot of books, and her mother thought I might like them. When I went up to her room, I noticed all the trophies and awards. She was a great student and athlete, and I couldn’t believe that with all these things that screamed how special she was, she could still feel that life wasn’t worth living. I ran my eyes over the room, stopping at her bulletin board. There was a sliver of purple construction paper. On it, I recognized my own handwriting.

  Lights up every room she enters with her effervescent personality.

  Who knows what the other people in class had said. She’d kept mine. It had meant something to her. Only then did I know that she was the one who had written the compliment that I’d saved. She was the only other person who had taken the assignment seriously. It made me wonder whether, if she had received more of those purple papers throughout her life, things would have been different.

  This is what I know now: actions and words, however small they may be, mean something. And whatever situation you may be in, filling a person up is so much better than tearing her down.

  I remember back then thinking, It’s so hard to know the right thing to do. There were so many people telling me how I needed to act, who I needed to be, what I needed to say and do, that I felt like I was navigating a minefield. The funny thing is, though, looking back, the “right” path was simple.

  Sometimes it takes bravery. Sometimes it takes going against the tide. But kindness is never, ever the wrong choice. And may you never be made to feel guilty or embarrassed for the little slivers of purple paper you send along the way.

  The Sound of Silence

  based on a true story by claudia gabel

  From behind, you’d swear Frances Doyle is a boy. Baggy pants that hang low off her straight hips. Button-down shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Short blond hair that gets trimmed with an electric razor at the barber shop every other Tuesday. But from the front, there is no mistaking it—Frances Doyle is most certainly a girl. Pink, pouty lips and long, full eyelashes that make all the senior queen bees jealous. Perfectly perky 34Cs, which belong in the pages of the Victoria’s Secret catalog. Small but delicate ears that are pierced from the lobe all the way up to the cartilage at the top. If only she’d wear a dress or high-heeled boots or a tight V-neck sweater to school, things would be a whole lot easier.

  But Frances never does and it’s pretty obvious why. Although I can’t say for sure, because she and I have never really spoken before. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say anything to anyone. Not to answer a question in history class or to make a joke to one of her friends at the lunch table. And not a single word to the pack of grade-A butt holes that are tailing her through the hallway right now.

  “Hey, dyke!” Bruce Mitchell shouts, his voice just as loud as when he calls plays on the football field.

  Frances keeps her head down, eyes locked on the tiles in the floor.

  It’s Ted Hall’s turn to peg her now. He has been copying Bruce’s every move since the first grade. “Stop ignoring us, lesbo! We want to talk to you.”

  I stand by my locker and hold my books close to my chest, watching the spectacle and swallowing hard. This happens every day with each change of class. The flurry of students in the hall acts as camouflage. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one seeing what I’m seeing. But then I glance over at snotty Hannah Prince and her group of megabitches. They are doing that trademark teenage girl whisper-giggle thing as Frances and her tormentors walk by. So I’m definitely not alone in the audience.

  Frances stops at her locker, hands shaking as she attempts to remember its combination while Bruce and company swarm her like angry bees.

  “So, Frances, eat anything juicy lately?” Taylor Wells gets within an inch of her face and wags his tongue around.

  I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

  The goons laugh. Not one of them tells Taylor to let her be. Suddenly, I am very grateful that none of the boys at this school has ever expressed any interest in me.

  Bruce slaps her hard on the shoulder, like she’s just one of the guys. “Come on, you can tell us. We’re your best friends!”

  My heart feels like it is being drilled by the beak of a woodpecker. I pray for the next bell to sound. That will scatter Bruce and his friends like a horde of roaches. I doubt any of them want to get written up. They’re always in trouble for something, but never for this. I don’t think Frances has ever turned them in. She must believe what everyone else does—tattling on these losers will make the target on your back ten times bigger.

  Frances opens her locker and grabs a spiral-bound notebook. I can’t help but notice the display of photos on the inside of the door—pictures of Frances with her arm draped over another girl, both of them smiling radiantly. They actually kind of look alike. And from the grins on their faces, you can tell they’re really happy.

  What’s so freaking wrong with that?

  When Frances shuts the locker and turns around, Ted slaps the notebook out of her grasp, amusing the chuckle-heads that surround him. My skin feels white-hot as I watch Frances reach for the notebook and hear Taylor cackling while he kicks it down the hall. The notebook lands at the tips of my red patent-leather ballet flats. Everyone else keeps moving along as though nothing out of the ordinary is happening. Someone even plants a Converse sneaker on the notebook, tearing out a couple of scribbled-on pages.

  Even Frances’s homework gets stepped on.

  I know what I should do. Take a deep breath and pick up this notebook. Go over to Frances and offer to walk her to class. I don’t even have to acknowledge Bruce and his gang of idiots. We can exit this horrible situation gracefully. In fact, our female solidarity may be so awe inspiring that the hearts of these homophobes may grow three times their size, just like in How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

  Then I feel Frances’s glistening, sad eyes on me, and I can’t move. I’m not even sure if I’m breathing, that’s how still my body is. There’s no doubt that she’s talking to me for the very first time. She’s asking me for help, and I want to. I really want to.

  But I’m afraid. One hundred percent frozen solid with fear. I’m ashamed to admit this, but I don’t want to give anyone a reason to attack me. I’m not as strong as Frances, who shoves past Bruce amid a barrage of insults that would rip through my heart like a fishing knife.

  When she steps in front of me, her neck is completely flushed and her lips are tightened into a thin line, like she is stopping herself from screaming. Instead, Frances bends down and retrieves her notebook, then silently stalks off to the bathroom—the only place she can escape the taunting.

  Bruce starts fist bumping his pals, but then the bell sounds and cuts their celebration short. They dart off in different directions, still howling with laughter. The hallway is empty, but I’m still a thick block of ice.

  Here’s your chance, I think. I could sneak off to the principal’s office without anyone seeing me. Or I could pop into the bathroom and ask Frances if she’s okay. I go back and forth in my mind for a long time.

  When my legs are finally able to move, they take me directly to Mr. Caldwell’s math class. He gives me a tardy slip as I stroll in. I tuck the piece of paper in my jeans pocket and sit down at my desk, quiet as a mouse.

  I’m a coward. That’s all there is to it.

  Scary thing is, I’ll have a chance to redeem myself once class is over, and eight more opportunities tomorrow.

  And the day after that. And the day after that. And the day after that . . .

  Starship Suburbia

  by Maryrose Wood

  I was bullied in middle school (we called it junior high back then). I was never beaten up or threatened, but I was teased quite a bit for a couple of years. It was because I was a mess.
>
  My family lived in a nice middle-class suburb, but we were fakers. There were five of us: one alcoholic, cigar-smoking, compulsive-gambling dad; one stressed-to-the-point-of-insanity mom; and three smart, shell-shocked kids who were trying to stay out of the crossfire.

  We were short on funds and meaningful parental supervision. I often went to school in the same clothes for days on end. Laundry and bathing were an issue. The septic tank was full, but we couldn’t afford to get it emptied. “Don’t flush until you have to!” was the household motto. We were supposed to put all our toilet paper (used, I’m talking about) in the wastebasket.

  That other families flushed their toilet paper was a revelation to me. Almost as much of a revelation as the fact that Star Trek was in color. We had a black-and-white TV set. When I saw the show at a friend’s house, I gazed in wonder at Captain Kirk’s mustard-colored polyester shirt and the way it stretched across those impressive, interplanetary pecs.

  As for me, I didn’t have a pristine Starfleet uniform to slip into every day. Daily showers were not encouraged. Face it, I was unkempt. I probably smelled bad. In elementary school no one cared. In junior high it became a problem. Seventh-grade girls notice these things.

  Interestingly, adults rarely did. Once, a neighbor gently suggested to my mom that, at twelve and already stacked, I might need a bra. Mortified, and without stopping to discuss it or check what my size might be, she went and bought one and tossed it at me, still in the bag. Imagine my surprise when I looked inside!

  She said I should wear it because the neighbor made a crack about my bouncing baby B cups. I can’t even remember how long I made do with that one ill-fitting bra. I didn’t dare put it in the wash; I was afraid I wouldn’t see it for a month!