by James Johnson

Created on: January 07, 2009   Last Updated: November 23, 2009

"Bully, you better give us that ball back!" shouted the little girl as I walked into the school yard.

"Oh yeah!" was the reply from the obviously older and considerably bigger boy, "And what will you do if I don't? Tell the teachers?"

"No, I'll tell Patrick" was the young lady's retort. "He'll do something to you!" The Bully returned the ball and walked away.

This was amazing as the only "Patrick" at this very little Caribbean school was my son. He was easily the smallest child in his grade and a third the size of this hulking lad. Why, and how, was Patrick being used to "bully" the Bully? I asked Jessica, Patrick's sister and it was one of the more humorous bully stories I had heard.

At a school, bullies can create real problems for the teachers, especially in the Caribbean if the parents are politically connected. In small communities, the politicians have power and sometimes their children can abuse that power for themselves; abuse of power is what being a bully is all about.

At my children's school, the bully was a big child, having been held back two years. Unfortunately he would steal the smaller children's sandwiches. Of course, the teachers would have put a stop to this if they could catch him, but they had to catch him first. He always claimed the others were lying or had given him their sandwiches. Then he started stealing my son's food!

My son Patrick was thin and short, but was very smart for a 7 year old. The bully was big and fat, but not that clever at 11. Patrick had seen that the protests and complaints were doing little good. Even though parents were getting upset and teachers concerned the only thing happening was that he and his friends were getting hungry. So, all on his own, Patrick came up with a plan!

He went home and carefully picked several miniature hot peppers, putting them in a plastic bag. He got all the little kids to come in early the next morning and gave each a small pepper to hide in their food. They were warned to remove the pepper before eating. Each child took their time eating lunch that day.

The bully swiped several sandwiches and hid around the corner to eat them. The bully suddenly started bellowing like a bull, dropping all the sandwiches. The teachers came running out to see what was wrong. All the little children were laughing, and so did the teachers when they found out what had been done!

Ironically enough, no one was punished by the teachers. They felt that the bully had suffered enough and that Patrick hadn't done anything wrong. As all the Caribbean knows, hot peppers won't really harm anybody. The bully also stopped stealing sandwiches and learned that little guys can retaliate!

This means that now Patrick is the bully, but he only bullies the bully. Does that mean he is a "bully" bully?

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