Dear Bully полностью

But as time went on, I realized that I was actually one of the lucky ones. Because as you got older, you got crueler. Coercing people into signing that anti–Cara Mellon petition; that awful “gift” you sent to Maya Walters that was supposedly from the guy she liked. Even Aura and Jenny, in the end, weren’t immune from your tactics. (Perhaps Jenny’s smirk that day was her gloating over the fact that it wasn’t her day. That she would live to see another as part of your in crowd. But it didn’t last long, did it?) You embarrassed and ostracized each and every one of us until my table, the outcast table, was more crowded than yours. Until we were the ones having fun at lunch while you were practically alone. I learned not to blame those who did your bidding, who stood by and smirked, because I knew that if I had been in their position, I would have stood by and said nothing. Let you do your thing. Because standing up to you was just too scary to contemplate. I tried to understand where they were coming from, and I forgave them. In hindsight I realize that if we had all just stood up to you the first time you “pulled a Samantha,” most of us never would have had to suffer. I wonder what you would have done if ten girls had all told you to stop. If ten girls had come to you as one and told you what we really, truly thought of you. What I wouldn’t give for a big, fat rewind button.

By the time you’d whittled your inner circle down to three, I had seen enough. Enough to know that you were no longer worthy of my attention, not even my curiosity. I knew that if you ever tried to hurt me again, you would find that you were incapable. That if you ever tried to hurt anyone else, I wouldn’t be a part of it. Clearly we didn’t need you or your approval. We were just fine being us.

So I guess I’m really writing this letter to say thank you. I believe that it was because of the way you treated me that I learned what really mattered. It was because of the way you treated me that I learned to be my own person, have my own opinion, stand my ground. It’s at least partially because I survived you that I’m the person I am today.

And I like me.

Love,

xoxo

Sincerely,

Kieran Scott

Just Kidding

Stench

by Jon Scieszka

His real name was Michael Henry. Which should have been funny enough . . . considering the average level of our fifth-grade wit.

For instance:

Because he was short, we called Bobby D. “Shorty.”

Because he had white-blond hair, we called Timmy G. “Whitey.”

And it won’t take you much brainpower to guess what we called Mike W., who happened to have the biggest, most stuck-out ears in the entire school.

Yes, “Ears.”

So we really should have called Michael Henry something like “Two First Names” or “Mike Hank.” But I guess we didn’t have a nickname for Michael Henry because he was new to school.

He was a big kid. Chubby and dark brown. He even had a hint of black mustache hairs on his upper lip. There were rumors that he had been held back a grade. Or maybe two. And because Michael Henry was older than us, he was also further into adolescence than us, and hadn’t had that deodorant talk with his mom. He smelled.

I, on the other hand, with a September birthday, was one of the youngest and smallest kids in fifth grade. I had avoided getting tagged with an embarrassing nickname mostly by keeping a low profile—cracking the occasional joke, not messing with the bigger guys, and generally not drawing any attention to myself.

So it was kind of unusual that I even said anything in the group of fifth-grade boys hanging around the playground after lunch that day. But I did.

Bill M., the captain of our fifth-grade basketball team, was trying out nicknames for Michael Henry, who was standing right there with us. “How about ‘Round Guy’?”

“Bigfoot,” suggested Whitey.

“Big Head!” said Shorty.

“Really Dark Hair Guy!” said Ears.

The fifth-grade boy brain has a terrifying power. In the presence of other fifth-grade boy brains, it is capable of joining together with those brains . . . and somehow generating less thoughtful action than any one of the individual brains. Which is exactly what happened next.

I don’t know why I violated my own survival strategy of laying low. I must have been still drunk on a feeling of word power from my 100 percent on the third-period vocabulary test. I joined in the fifth-grade brain drain and blurted out a single word—“Stench!”

Everybody looked at me.

“It means a really bad smell,” I added.

“Stench,” repeated Bill M., trying it out. “Hey, Stench,” Bill M. said to Michael Henry. And that was that. Michael Henry was Stench for the rest of fifth grade.

I honestly didn’t give it much more thought. If anything, I was pretty pleased that Bill M. had taken my suggestion and that everybody now knew I was a pretty smart word guy. Another terrifying power of the fifth-grade boy brain: the ability to not even think about how your actions might affect others. I had no idea how much misery that one small mean word caused Michael Henry.