When I was in first grade, I had a bully. It’s a rare thing these days, actually. Back when our parents were growing up, kids were expected to sort out that kind of problem themselves. Pop loved to talk about this one kid who used to take his lunch money every week, until Pop finally couldn’t take it anymore and went to the principal, not to tell on the bully, exactly, but to report that he was going to be punching someone next week, because he could see no other option. “I’m just going to hit him once,” Pop said. “Really hard. In the nose. I think that will do it.”
Then, of course, the principal tried to talk him out of it, and tried to get him to tell which kid he was planning on hitting, but Pop wouldn’t. “I was no snitch,” he said when he told the story.
And then he did. He punched the bully in the nose. Hard.
Pop got suspended for three days. But the bully didn’t rob him again.
Now, though, the grown-ups are so determined that nobody will get bullied. They talk to us constantly about it. Not just face-to-face bullying, either, but text bullying and bullying on social media and all forms of harassment and public shaming. We have assemblies about it and lectures on it and the word bullying has a powerful zing now. No tolerance for bullies. No way.
Anyway, back to first grade. My bully was a girl named Chloe. Her bullying wasn’t very subtle, but she did it quietly: with a well-timed, super cutting remark. The same one pretty much every time:
“You’re ugly,” she’d whisper.
I always wanted to say something clever back, but I could never think of anything in the moment better than, “It takes one to know one,” which didn’t make sense. I also thought about saying, “No, I’m Ada. You’re ugly,” but I wasn’t brave enough.
So I didn’t say anything. Not to anybody. Looking back, it seems wild that for more than a year this girl called me ugly almost every single day, and I didn’t do a thing to try to stop her. I just tried to keep my head down. I tried to ignore her. But it hurt. Every day, every time, the word hit me like a rock she was throwing at me.
Ugly.
Ugly.
UGLY.
But then, one day, as I was waiting in line to get on the bus after school, Chloe stepped right behind me and pushed me—just a small push, something nobody would notice—and then she said, “You know what?”
I braced myself. I did know, was the thing. That’s why it hurt.
“You’re ugly,” she said. Louder than usual, this time.
I nodded. Like, yes, okay, I know that’s what you think. I accept that you think that.
But then another voice said, “What did you just say?”
Afton’s voice.
Chloe and I both turned. My sister had been standing behind us the whole time. A mighty third grader.
She handed her backpack to one of her friends. “Hold this for me,” she said. “I’ve got to tear this girl’s hair out.”
Chloe didn’t wait for her to act on the threat. She started to scream for our teacher. “Mrs. Yowell! Mrs. Yowell! I’m getting bullied!”
“Not yet, you’re not,” Afton said grimly, and then BAM—she punched Chloe in the nose, a punch that would have made Pop proud, but we didn’t know Pop then. A single heartfelt punch.
“AHHHH!” bellowed Chloe. Her nose was bleeding. Mrs. Yowell was running over. All the kids around us were yelling.
Afton took my hand then, and we ran, past the grown-ups who tried to intercept us like a game of football, dodging and weaving, along the school’s driveway and out onto the street, then down the street, running as fast as we could, until we ducked down a side street and hid behind someone’s trash cans.
“Why’d you do that?” I panted.
Afton rubbed her fist. “Because I’m your sister. Nobody gets to pick on you but me.”
I smiled. “You hit her.”
“It kind of hurt.”
“We’re going to be in so much trouble,” I said.
She nodded. “I will be. I’ll explain that it was all me.”
“No.” I put my hand over hers. “I want to be with you.”
“Okay,” she said.
We waited for a while and then went into a store and asked to use their phone and called Ruthie to tell her where we were and what had happened. And we did get in trouble, but Chloe got in trouble, too—in fact, the entire school had to go through another no-bullying assembly again—so it felt like justice had been served. And I learned another valuable lesson.
Afton was with me. And I was with her.