Dear Bully (24 page)

I entered high school at five nine and age fourteen and it was heaven because it was
tall.
It was the eighties, a loud, colorful time of big hair and high-heeled boots, and I didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary anymore because I learned something new in high school: sarcasm was street cred. Innuendo was my shield and dry wit my sword. Add my family’s patented humor and I soon had a group of friends who didn’t mind that I was taller than them. There were even two guys, Jay and Marcus, who were
taller
than me! We could have entire conversations over the heads of our classmates while walking down the hall, although I’d grown used to placing my left foot forward, slumping my shoulders slightly, and tilting my chin down to speak. It never occurred to me to notice how tall someone was (or wasn’t) or how heavy they were (or weren’t); I think I’d purposefully gone blind to such differences, shaping my eyes to level the playing field. I was surprised by photos that showed my friends were all so much shorter than me. They never seemed that way in real life. We all felt equal.

And if my bullies were in my classes, I didn’t notice. I had my own friends, a boyfriend, a chosen profession (writer!), and my own high school drama; I couldn’t be bothered much by theirs. The yappy dogs weren’t part of my world any longer.

That is, until one day in chemistry class near the end of senior year when Dickie stopped at the front of my row. He leaned over my desk.

“I have a black belt,” he said evenly, “in judo.”

I honestly had no idea why he was telling me this. Was it a threat? A dare? I said nothing and went back to reading my notes. He walked away, a smug smile on his face, and I let him go.

No, really. In that instant, I let him go.

Maybe I was being a bigger person (pun intended) or secretly withholding my snark or having a sudden case of esprit de l’escalier, but I hadn’t said what had instantly popped into my mind, although it made me smile:

“And yet, you’re
still
shorter than me.”

Thus ended the wrath of Dickie.

Ironically, years later, I married a Shaolin Kempo instructor and I learned something important about the martial arts: if Dickie had been any kind of black belt worth his salt, there would have been no reason to tell me his rank unless he felt that it was in self-defense.

Unless he felt threatened.

By li’l ol’ me.

The Superdork of the Fifth-Grade Class of 1989
by Kristin Harmel

It was the end of the eighties. Big hair was in. At Shorecrest School, everybody who was anybody was wearing Z Cavaricci or Esprit.

I, of course, wasn’t. In fact, I didn’t own a single designer item. This, apparently, made me a complete
nobody
.

At least, that’s what the kids at my new school said.

My family had just moved to Florida from Ohio, meaning that I was one of the only new kids in a class that had been together since kindergarten. It also meant that on my first day of fifth grade, when I showed up in my favorite Superman T-shirt and a hot pink skirt, I marked myself as “different,” which was apparently entirely unacceptable.

“Like, where are your Z Cavaricci shorts?” asked the girl sitting beside me in Mrs. Hallinan’s homeroom that first morning.

“Z what?” I asked blankly.

“Like,
no way
,” she said disdainfully. “You don’t even know what that is? Omigod, the new girl is
so lame
!” She turned away, her nose wrinkled in outrage, and whispered something to the girl beside her. Both of them collapsed in giggles.

I’d come from a school where kids still played freeze tag at recess, hadn’t had their first kisses yet, and wore jeans and T-shirts from JCPenney and Sears. Suddenly, at this new school, I was a complete outcast due to the fact that my parents didn’t drive a BMW or Mercedes, I didn’t carry a designer purse, and I hadn’t already made it to third base with a boy (heck, I wouldn’t even have my first kiss for another four years!).

The remainder of fifth grade was pretty much downhill from there. Aside from a few high points, including a friendship with a wonderful girl named Katharine (also a new girl, who had just moved from England), I remember fifth grade by these events:

At the end of week one, I scored a lunch seat at the “popular” table, and when I laughed at popular guy Eric’s joke, I wound up spewing out a bright red slushy, through my
nose
, all over him. Any shot I had at being anything but the fifth grade’s Superdork was gone at that moment.

Once, while flirting with Matt, the boy I liked, I threatened to “bop him over the head” with my notebook if he didn’t stop teasing me. The class’s Little Miss Popular, Saria, overheard and shouted to the entire class, “Kristin wants to bop Matt! That means she wants to have sex with him! Bop, bop, bop! Ewww!” I thus became known as the Superdork Who Wants to Have Sex with Matt.

I finalized my outcast status midautumn when Saria stopped by my desk to loudly ask what celebrity I would want to sleep with if I had the chance. “Uh, I don’t really want to sleep with
any
celebrities,” I stammered. Considering that I was ten and hardly knew what sex was, I don’t think that was a particularly odd answer, but to Saria, apparently it was laughably foolish. Within five minutes, the entire class had been informed that I was a “frigid bitch” who’d never have a boyfriend.

Yep, fifth grade was miserable. Led by Saria, the “popular” students tortured me endlessly. They made fun of the nondesigner clothes I wore and told me I dressed like a boy. They laughed at the Oldsmobile station wagon my mother drove, while they roared off with their parents in expensive sports cars. They told me that the cool guys they loved, people like Jon Bon Jovi and Joey McIntyre, would never go for a flat-chested, plain dork like me, so I might as well just die now, because no one important would ever love me anyhow. (It never occurred to me that Bon Jovi and the New Kids were also rather unlikely to fall madly in love with
any
of the snotty ten-year-olds surrounding me, but I digress.) I went home from school and cried into my pillow a few times a week.

My mom kept telling me it would get better. I didn’t believe her. I thought that in Florida, maybe I’d be a geek forever. I’d always be wearing the wrong clothes, thinking the wrong things, and totally missing the boat when it came to boys.

That was around the time I read
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl.
It was a book that changed my life. I realized that in a way—on a much, much smaller scale—the bullies of the fifth grade were a little like the people who stole the life of that sweet, young, hopeful girl. Like the Nazis, I thought, the bullies didn’t think for themselves; they just dressed the way they were supposed to dress, thought the way they were told to think, and tried their best to make life miserable for anyone “different.” Anne Frank’s situation had been infinitely, unbelievably worse than mine; yet she’d remained hopeful and refused to let them steal her spirit. Maybe, I thought, I should try to do the same.

When I went to a new school for sixth grade, things began to change. I stood up for myself from the start. I didn’t let people walk on me. And although I still didn’t cloak myself in designer duds, I committed early on to being proud to rock the clothes I wanted to rock. I thought often of Anne Frank’s words: “The final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.” Like Anne Frank, I couldn’t control the world around me, but I
could
control my own perspective and what went on in my own heart.

By high school, I was still doing things that would have gotten me bullied in fifth grade: I was in the marching band; I was making straight As; and I still dressed in jeans and tees because they were more comfortable than designer dresses and heels. I was still flat-chested; I still hadn’t slept with a boy; I still had silly crushes and said silly things.

But here’s the difference: By high school, I’d made a decision. I was never going to be the coolest kid in school, nor would I wear the most expensive clothes or date the popular boys. But I was going to be
me
. And instead of letting people make me feel bad about myself, I was going to surround myself only with people who were kind, even if they were outcasts, too. And furthermore, I was going to stand up for people I saw being picked on.

And you know what happened? When I stopped feeling bad about myself and letting the bullies get the best of me, my attitude attracted other kind people. And by my senior year,
we
were the biggest group in the school, and thus the most popular ones. By typical high school standards, the fact that I was both the valedictorian and the drum major of the marching band should have resigned me to total geekdom, right? But in this case, because we’d worked hard to make our school a place where individuality was respected, I was not only
not
a geek but I was also the prom queen.

As my friend Ken is fond of saying, “Kind is the new cool.” And it is; that’s a secret I discovered back when I was in school, and it’s a thought I’ve lived by ever since.

There are probably always going to be mean kids; I suspect every school has its bullies. But you know what? I tell you from the bottom of my heart that the mean kids will never prosper. They may rule elementary, middle, and high schools around the country, but when they’re thrust into
real
adult society, they realize soon enough that cruelty and derision don’t pay. Not in the long term.

I’ve run into a few of the bullies from my childhood in the years since. Without exception, those who were the cruelest when we were kids have done almost nothing with their lives. One is even in jail. They peaked in their teens, and it’s been all downhill from there. Most of them are miserable, unfulfilled, and wishing they could go back to their glory days, when they were ten or twelve or sixteen. What kind of life is that?

I, on the other hand, have written six books. I have dozens of friends around the country and, indeed, around the world. I’ve dated celebrities (Take that, Saria!), seen my dreams come true, traveled to the places I’ve read about. Fifth grade was miserable, and I was the object of a year full of bullying torture. But now I’m happy, and like Anne Frank once wrote long ago, “whoever is happy will make others happy, too.” I hope that sometimes I’m able to do that in my life. I keep trying.

My life isn’t perfect, but it’s fulfilling. And most of all, because I try to live my life with kindness, I wake up every morning with a clean conscience and a smile in my heart.

Not bad for the Superdork of Shorecrest’s fifth-grade class of 1989.

“Who Gives the Popular People Power? Who???”
by Megan McCafferty

I have a survey I filled out at the end of first grade. In it, I ranked myself the smartest, funniest, and most popular girl in my class. This wasn’t a case of egotistically inflated self-worth; I was merely documenting the truth. I was the girl other girls wanted to sit next to at lunch, be partners with on school trips, and invite to Friday-night sleepovers. I didn’t try hard to be liked. I just was. My likability was effortless in a way that it would never be again.

Because things changed. Drastically.

January 1

My class at school sucks!

For me, sixth grade was the
worst
. It’s no coincidence, then, that it was also the year I discovered the therapeutic powers of writing and began chronicling in my diary all the backstabbing and casual playground cruelty.
*

March 15

Amy and I aren’t good friends anymore. She’s always over Heather’s house. Like today I was gonna sleep over her house but she canceled because she’s going to the movies with Heather. Amy talks about Heather behind her back
all the time
(and denies doing it). I really hate this, I really do. I can’t compete with Heather. Who gives the popular people power? Who???

By the time I graduated Bayville Elementary School, I wasn’t popular anymore. Not even close. And the worst part about it was that I didn’t understand why. I was still the one who got straight As and could do a funny moonwalk on the blacktop, but smarts and a sense of humor weren’t valued qualities anymore. The rules for social success had been rewritten, and no one had bothered to send me a copy.

March 19

Right now I’m pretty miserable. When I went outside to play kickball they said the game was locked and I couldn’t
join. What hurts most is that Amy played on without saying anything. I used to be the only person on her side when Heather got mad at
her
. I was a real friend! I know this is bad but I hope they
all
get mad at her. Then she’d really see who’s on her side and her friend. (I know it’s mean.) I really don’t have a lot of friends now so it’s not easy. I seriously think there is not one person who knows how to be a true-blue, one-of-a-kind, till-the-end friend. Geez, maybe I don’t even know, but at least I try—honest I do. I just don’t see why everyone adores Heather. I am (I don’t want to brag or lie) a
lot
nicer than her. Well, before I depress you (and me) I better go.

It didn’t make much sense to me that the most popular girls were the ones who were more feared than admired. No one seemed to like them very much at all. Well, except the boys.

April 12

Everyone got mad at me because they said I said Heather is a
slut
. (She
is
but I didn’t say so.) When I walked into math class everyone shoved notes in my face. All of them said things like
Rot in Hell
. Heather said she was going to kick my ass in.

That was it! I’d solved the mystery! The most popular girls were the ones who were wanted by the boys! The only problem was, I was not one of those girls.