So that’s it. It’s all over. Lilly’s back, but I guess she’s not coming back to Truman. I can’t say I blame her. The language arts teachers took a break from our regularly scheduled curriculum to talk to us about cyberbullying.
I took notes: Technology has made it possible for kids to harass each other in new ways. What is cyberbullying? It’s when you bully someone online. Why is it bad? Because you don’t see the person you’re bullying and they don’t see you. So you say things you might not say otherwise.
Once I realized we weren’t going to be tested on this, I stopped taking notes.
Mrs. Michael said someone had been hurt by the Truth about Truman and those other websites. She didn’t name names, but we all knew who she was talking about.
And now the whole school was supposed to write about what happened with the Truth about Truman and those other sites, how the whole thing got so out of control, how it affected us, and how we felt about it. She said it wasn’t just one person who was responsible; our whole school was responsible.
I got what she was saying, but I couldn’t help but feel I was a little more responsible than everyone else. My feelings were all jumbled up inside. I still didn’t like Lilly all that much, but we had a history together. And I felt bad about what happened. I didn’t write any of that mean stuff about her, but I created a website that made it possible for other people to write stuff about her. It almost made me wish there had never been a Truth about Truman website.
Trevor:
I feel like a little kid who’s being made to write one hundred times, “I will not cyberbully anyone.” What good is that going to do? Do the teachers really think that by making us write a paper about it no one’s ever going to go online and say something mean about someone else ever again? They’re fooling themselves if that’s what they think!
Mrs. Michael said, “Because you can be anonymous online, the person you show the world online is usually not the real you.” I think she’s dead wrong about that. I think the person you show online is exactly the person you really are. The person you show in real life is the one that’s fake. Think about it. Most people are chameleons. They act different around different people. What’s real about that?
Mrs. Michael is probably one of those do-gooders who sees all the bad stuff people say or do online and then thinks, “That’s not real.” But the truth is, that’s the only thing that is real. The person you are when no one’s looking, or when no one else knows who you are … that’s the person you really are!
Amr:
I got a little annoyed by how the teachers made such a big deal about this cyberbullying thing. Like cyber-bullying was somehow worse than any other kind of bullying. Bullying is bullying. Whether it’s being done on the computer or anywhere else.
A lot of adults are blaming the whole thing on computers. I have news for them. Kids have been bullying each other a lot longer than computers have been around. So don’t blame computers. Blame the kids!
Brianna:
Besides being suspended for five days, my mom and stepdad grounded me for a whole month. Plus they took the computer out of my room. They said I didn’t deserve to have a computer in my room since I had shown them I didn’t know how to use one responsibly. From now on, when I want to use the computer, I have to use it in the family room, where I get, like, no privacy.
My mom even made me write Lilly a letter of apology, which she read to make sure it was good enough. Didn’t anyone realize we were just goofing around? It wasn’t any big deal.
Hayley:
Okay. We got it. Saying bad things about someone online, whether it’s on a website, in an email or an instant message, or a text message is bad, bad, bad. We’re bad kids. We go to a bad school. We’ll never do it again.
Can we move on now?
Lilly:
I still had some unfinished business before I started at Roosevelt. Call me crazy, but I wanted to meet with milkandhoney in person.
Anonymous:
I got an email from Lilly! It said: Dear milkandhoney, I know who you are. Obviously she did know who I was since the email came directly to me. I don’t want to get you in trouble. I just want to talk to you. I think I know why you did this. I think we should talk in person rather than in email. Meet me at the monkey bars at our old school at 4:00. If you show up, I promise I won’t tell anyone about you. But if you DON’T show up, I MIGHT tell.
I didn’t get it. Why would Lilly want to talk to me in person? And why wouldn’t she want to get me in trouble? Why wouldn’t she want me to pay for my role in all this? I certainly wanted her to pay for everything she ever did to me and every other unpopular kid at Truman.
Trevor:
Lilly was perched on top of the monkey bars when I arrived at Hoover that day. She watched me walk across the playground. There were some elementary school kids playing basketball, and a couple more over by the swings. But Lilly and I were the only kids hanging around the monkey bars.
I squinted up at her. “How did you know it was me?”
Her eyes were focused on something just over my head. “I didn’t,” she said. “I thought it was you, but I didn’t know for sure until right this second.”
“Oh,” I said, digging my toe into the sand. “Are you going to tell on me now? Now that you know it’s me?”
“I said I wouldn’t.” She still wasn’t looking directly at me.
“Well, then why did you want me to meet you?”
Now, she looked at me. “I wanted to say I was sorry, Trevor.”
I blinked. “Y-you wanted to say you were sorry?” There was nothing she could have said that would have surprised me more. “For what?”
“For what I said about you. And your mom. You know. Two years ago. Right before she died.”
Oh.
“I assume that’s why you did this.”
You’re so ugly your mom would probably keel over and die of embarrassment for giving birth to you. That was what she’d said to me.
“It was a horrible thing to say,” Lilly said in a small voice. “Especially when … you know … your mom … ”
“Died?” I filled in.
Lilly nodded, then looked away.
I leaned back against the bar. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to bring Lilly Clarke down. I wanted to make her feel as bad as she made other people feel. And … it looked like I had. But it didn’t bring me as much satisfaction as I thought it would.
Remember when I said I thought the person you show the world online is the person you really are? If that’s true, then I’m a bully. I’m no better than Lilly or Reece or Jonathan or any of the other kids who have bullied me all these years.
At first I thought I could just stay Anonymous forever. But in the end, I decided I had to write the whole truth. I also apologized to Lilly. Maybe now I can finally move on.
Zebby:
I couldn’t believe who was instant messaging me. Lilly!
“can i talk to u?” she typed.
“u r already talking to me,” I typed back.
“right. i saw u took the Truth about Truman down.”
“yeah.” I had taken the whole thing down that morning. Even the “kids at Truman are mean” message. There didn’t seem to be much point in leaving it up.
“thanks.”
“you’re welcome. but i didn’t take it down for u. i took it down because it wasn’t what I wanted it to be.”
“what did you want it to be?”
I doubted Lilly would understand. But I told her anyway. “i wanted it to be something that mattered. something where every1 could write about t
heir own middle-school experience. but instead it turned into a gossip website where people talked about everyone else rather than themselves.”
“maybe u could still do something with it that matters?”
“like what?”
“i don’t know. maybe it could be a place where people can go to talk about bullying?”
Hmm.
I had to admit, that was an interesting idea. A very interesting idea. Even if it did come from Lilly.
I called Amr and he liked the idea as much as I did. He was the one who thought we should start by putting up the story of what happened to Lilly and then have a forum where anyone anywhere in the world (not just kids from Truman) can write in and talk about bullying.
We don’t want to approve every message that gets posted, but we’ll keep an eye on things. If people start posting nasty things or if they try and turn this into another gossip site, we’ll delete those messages. As site owners (and editors!), we’ve decided it’s okay to do that.
Maybe in the end, the Truth about Truman.com will mean something after all.
Once Amr and I worked all this out, I called Lilly. Don’t get the idea we were suddenly friends again. We weren’t. It’s just … it only seemed right to call her. Since she gave me the idea and all. “Hey, do you want to help with this new website?” I asked.
She paused for a second. “Really? You want me to help?”“Sure. It was your idea.”
“Yeah, I guess it was.” I could almost hear her smiling over the phone. “Okay. Hey, maybe I’ll meet some kids at Roosevelt who would want to help, too.”
“That’d be great,” I said. “We want this site to really be for everyone.”
So that’s it. That’s our story. I couldn’t get a lot of kids to write about what happened. Big surprise. Some kids will tell you anything you want to know, but when it comes to writing … especially something they don’t have to write, well, most kids won’t do it. I was really surprised Hayley and Brianna were willing to write about it. Sometimes the popular kids will surprise you.
I don’t know if our story will help anyone or not, but it’s there. For better or worse.
—Zebby Bower, over and out.
General Discussion Guide
What did you think of the book? Did you like it? Why or why not? Do you think it was realistic? Why or why not?
Which character did you like best? Which character did you like least? Why?
Choose two of the main characters in the book. How are they alike? How are they different?
Do you think the teachers at Truman School knew what was going on?
Why do you think things got so out of control on truthabouttruman.com?
Do you think Zebby regretted starting her website? Was starting it a mistake?
Do you think Zebby felt bad about what happened to Lilly? What about Amr? Hayley? Brianna? Kylie? Trevor? Reece? Sara?
Have you ever wanted to drop a friend the way Lilly wanted to drop Zebby and Amr in sixth grade? Why? How did you do it?
If you were going to start a website, what would you put on it? Would you let other people post to it? If so, would you set it up so that you had to approve other people’s posts or would you let people post whatever they wanted? Under what circumstances would you remove someone else’s post?
Do you think milkandhoney had a good reason for doing what he/she did to Lilly?
Were you surprised to find out who milkandhoney was or was that the person you thought it was all along? What clues led you to believe it was this person? What clues led you to believe it was someone else?
Do you think it’s a good idea for Lilly to go to a new school? What do you think life is going to be like for her there?
Why do you think the author ended the book the way she did? Why did the author “punish” or “not punish” each character the way she did? Would you have written a different ending? Why or why not?
Have you ever bullied anyone online? Have you ever been bullied online? Have you ever seen someone else be bullied online?
Have your views on cyberbullying changed since you’ve read this book? How?
Cyberbullying Discussion Guide
Do you think cyberbullying is a serious problem or do you think it’s no big deal?
Do you think the media make cyberbullying look worse than it actually is?
Do you think people have the right to say whatever they want about others on the Internet? Explain.
Do you think people present themselves differently online than they do in person? How? Why would a person want to act differently online than they would in person?
Have you ever bullied anyone online? Why did you do it?
Have you ever been bullied online? Did you tell anyone it was happening? What did you do?
Why do you think kids are reluctant to tell anyone if they’re being bullied online?
Have you ever watched a friend of yours bully someone else online? Did you say anything about it to your friend? Why or why not? And if you did, what happened?
Do you think cyberbullying is worse than any other kind of bullying? Why or why not?
Why do you think people bully others online? Do you think people who bully others online are the same people who bully on the playground? Explain.
When does a “joke” become an example of cyberbullying?
Do you think schools should get involved in cyberbullying incidents? Why or why not?
Do you think cyberbullying will be a bigger problem ten years from now or do you think it will be a smaller problem? Why do you feel that way? What about twenty-five years from now? What about fifty years from now?
What can we do about cyberbullying? How can we prevent it? How do we stop it once it’s occurred?
Cyberbullying Resources
What should you do if you’re being bullied online?
Don’t respond. Any response may fuel the fire.
Try and identify the bully. Even if he or she is using a fake name, help may be available through a website moderator or your Internet Service provider.
Block communication with the bully if you can.
Consider saving the messages and/or images as evidence.
Tell a friend, parent, teacher, police officer or other adult you trust.
Online Safety Tips:
Don’t post your full name, address, phone number, school name, parents’ names, or social security number online.
Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say to someone’s face.
Don’t post anything online that you wouldn’t want your grandma to see.
Don’t share your passwords with anyone other than your parents.
Don’t meet someone face-to-face if you only know them online.
Talk to your parents about what you do online.
www.cyberbullying.us/resources.php
The Cyberbullying Research Center is dedicated to providing up-to-date information about the nature, extent, causes, and consequences of cyberbullying.
www.ncpc.org/topics/cyberbullying
The National Crime Prevention Council’s mission is to help people keep themselves, their families, and their communities safe from crime.
www.stopcyberbullying.org and www.wiredsafety.com
WiredSafety.org is the largest and oldest online safety, education, and help group in the world.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Dori Hillestad Butler
Published in 2008 by Albert Whitman &
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Truth about Truman School Page 13