Bullied Read Free

the smallest, I am last to join the team or, sometimes, not at all, if there are more players than we need for two teams. The most popular kids are first to be selected. One of the popular kids in my class is Donald, a tall nice looking boy who usually walks around with three or four of his friends, the most popular kids. When he is a team Captain, he will pick all of his friends first before choosing any others. The popular kids, as well as the bigger kids, think they have a right to do anything they want to a red headed, freckle faced person my size that is not with the in-group. This includes telling the other captain of the competing team not to pick me either. If I say or do anything offensive to him, he will punch me in the arm or push me down on the ground. Nevertheless, I still like playing baseball and get to play most of the time.
    I spend my summer between the park, the pool and the Boys Club baseball diamond. Nevertheless, like all summers they have to end so I am disappointed when August comes and goes. Now, at 10 1/2 years old, I am in sixth grade and I still have three more long years before moving on to high school. There is some talk right now about perhaps my elementary school, Saint Ambrose, extending the elementary school into the high school years as well. I do not know how I feel about this; maybe I would like to attend Union Endicott High School instead. I have been looking forward to attending UE high school, where my mother and her sisters Mary and Elaine graduated years ago.
    One of the things that I am not happy to hear about this year is that there is interest on the part of some fifth-graders to gain status by fighting a sixth grader. I had three different kids from fifth grade ask me to fight. I try talking them out of it and sometimes it works, and sometimes it does not. However, I will definitely never “meet them” anywhere to fight. They have to put me in a position where I have no choice. Besides, I am smaller than everyone, even than many boys in the lower grades, is so I usually lose, and it hurts.
    When other kids hit me while at school, no one ever seems to notice. I noted the similarity between this and when something happens to me in front of somebody's house with adults watching. No one ever does anything about it or intervenes. Whenever I hear adults talking, they usually say that kids’ picking on each other is just normal, part of growing up, and there is no harm done. They have no idea how much it hurts and scares me. Do the adults really understand how terrifying this feels? Why don't they? Have they forgotten what it was like when they were kids?
    I am glad when in the classroom in school where I am safe most of the time, except when I have to go to the boy's bathroom. In addition, I have to endure daily pain inflicted by the Sisters. Regarding the Sisters, they all have very different personalities, for example, Sister Prentice, Sister Donna and Sister Honorine are always nice but others, like Sister Paula, Sister Ann Richards and some others are stern and unsmiling. The one thing they all have in common is they never hit me but they will grab me by the arm, hair or my ears for almost any reason, and this always hurts.
    It seems, from the minute I get up, to the time I go to bed, I have different people grabbing, shoving, threatening, punching and screaming at me. Is this what life is supposed to be like? Should I really have to endure this just for a Catholic education to prepare me to live my life? It does not make any sense, and I want it to stop.
    I have to figure out a way to avoid these assaults. Traveling to school in the morning, it takes me just 20 minutes to get there. I need to time the walk so I arrive just as the bell rings so I do not have to stand outside with others, but if I do not enter the school right when the bell rings, I will be late and have to stay in detention. However, that might not be bad, because the bullies are usually gone when I get out. This