by Arlene Rivera

Created on: January 07, 2009

Bullies are the villains of the terror stories children tell each other. In the classic terror story, the bully towers over you, demanding your lunch money. The bully intimidates the victim into obedience time after time.

As a child about to start over at a new elementary school, I was told the exact story by my neighbor. My neighbor attended the same elementary school, so of course all the information he provided was reliable. The very idea of dealing with a bully made me extremely nervous my first day of school. I was in the second grade and terrified of having an older elementary school student picking on me (my source told me that bullies were ALWAYS older than you).

The first day of school came and went without a traumatizing encounter, but I did learn who was the main bully in the school (or at least my grade). She was a year older than me and at least three of me put together. Being a small and skinny second grader, her appearance was terrifying; I made sure to avoid her at every possible moment. Logically, if she never saw me, she could never pick on me.

The week passed by without any significant occurrences. Every day we had math, science, language arts, social studies, and on some days of the week we had an additional class. This class could either be art, music, or PE. That week we had art and music, but PE was cancelled. The next week, we were supposed to have PE with another class on Monday.

Since I had not gone to PE yet, Monday came with renewed nervousness. I wondered what we were going to do, and what the other class was like. Once the time came to actually go to PE, my worries had been forgotten, but were quickly replaced by terror. The other class had already arrived, and the bully was in it. I felt doomed, my world was going to end, yet the teacher continued to give instructions.

We were going to play some sort of frisbee game on teams. Everyone got a colored jersey so you knew which team you were on. The goal was to catch the frisbee, and throw it to someone else until someone caught the frisbee inside a square made of cones. Each team had their own square on either side of the field. The bully was on the opposing team.

I attempted to participate in the frisbee game without staring straight at the bully. With a few exceptions, I largely succeeded. Catching the frisbee intended for the opposing team became the funnest thing to do. Your own team always cheered, making it that much funner. This soon became my sole focus. Small and quick, I could

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>