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“I beg your pardon?” Mrs. Van DeVenter said, sounding appropriately indignant.
Sandra leveled a gaze at the new principal. “I am far more concerned about my son’s behavior than you are, and will be the first to correct him when he is wrong, but my son is no bully.” This was the kid who liked helping out in the church nursery, for crying out loud.
She was obviously unimpressed. “I’m sorry, but Peter did, in fact, push a fourth grader to the ground. He’s admitted it.”
Sandra heard the words, but in no way accepted them. She turned to look at Peter, who looked scared to speak. Before she could coax him to do so, the principal started talking again.
“I’m afraid that we have a zero tolerance policy. Physical bullying is a two-day suspension.”
Over my dead body. Sandra knew then that she would take this to the Supreme Court if necessary. “Peter,” she said softly, trying to pretend the principal wasn’t there and they weren’t both sitting in the hot seats, “what happened?”
He shrugged, but he finally looked at her. “Cameron Thompson is a jerk.”
Sandra recognized the name. Cameron had played with Peter in summer soccer. Cameron’s mother was insufferable.
“He’s the bully.” Peter’s voice wavered up and down.
Sandra’s heart broke for him. This kid didn’t know how to be in trouble and was obviously incredibly uncomfortable with it. She resisted the urge to throw her body between him and the mean principal. “Did you push him?” She tried to sound objective, rational. She almost made it.
Peter nodded. “He deserved it. I’d push him again.”
Oh dear. That didn’t sound like the Peter she was so stoutly defending. “What do you mean, honey?”
“I mean that he was threatening second graders, telling them he was going to make them eat poop if they didn’t do what he told them to do, and he was telling them to do bad stuff. They would’ve gotten into trouble. I told Cameron to leave them alone, but he wouldn’t. So I pushed him away from them, and he fell down and acted like a drama queen, like I beat him up or something.” Peter sniffed loudly.
Sandra turned her eyes to the principal. “Sounds to me like Peter wasn’t the bully. Sounds like he was defending the bullied.”
Mrs. Van DeVenter still looked unimpressed. “That may well be, but he still pushed the child.”
Peter folded his arms across his chest and raised his chin. He simultaneously looked like her little baby and a young man.
Sandra’s chest swelled with pride. “Even so, he was trying to do the right thing. Instead of humiliating him and forcing him to miss two days of his education, maybe we could use this opportunity to teach him how to better handle such a situation—”
“He should have gone to a teacher!” Mrs. Van DeVenter interrupted her.
“Why?” Peter cried. “Teachers never do anything about bullying! Adults don’t ever do anything!” His voice went up several notes with each word until he was squeaking. “Adults don’t care!” he cried.
Oh dear. This isn’t helping. She’d never seen Peter so irreverent.
The principal gave her an I-told-you-so look that Sandra ignored.
She put a hand on her son’s knee. “Honey, that’s not true. I care. I always care. You can tell me about any of this, and I’ll make sure bullying is addressed.”
“We’d prefer he come to someone at school.”
Sandra was suddenly very tired of her son’s principal. “That would be great too, but I want him to know that if that doesn’t work, he can come to me.”
“I’ve told two different teachers,” Peter mumbled, now back in control of his emotions. “This has been going on since the first day of school.”
That wiped the smugness off the principal’s face. The first day of school was a week ago. “Which teachers?”
Peter named them.
Sammy started screaming. Sandra recognized the cry. It was the I’m-tired-and-you’re-not-letting-me-sleep complaint. “Under the circumstances,” Sandra said, nearly hollering to be heard over Sammy’s demands, “can we just give Peter a warning about getting physical, and let him get back to class now?”
Sammy got even louder. Sandra was so proud of both her sons. The three of them made a fairly persuasive team.
The principal appeared to be thinking it over. She looked at Peter. “Do you understand that what you did was wrong?” she asked, but her voice was barely audible.
Peter nodded, whether he heard her or not.
“You can’t push people, no matter what they’re doing. That’s assault.”
Sandra caught her eyes just in time, right before they were about to do a big roll. Assault? Come on, the kid was ten years old.
Peter nodded. “I won’t do it again. I was just trying to stick up for the little kids.”
Mrs. Van DeVenter nodded, looking contemplative. “All right. I appreciate that. But next time, don’t get physical, and tell a teacher. I’ll talk to the teachers and make sure they are taking bullying seriously. We’re not going to suspend you—this time. But you are on probation. Do you know what that means?”
Peter nodded, even though Sandra knew he had no idea what that meant.
“You may, however, be suspended from today’s soccer game. That will be up to your coach.”