Some Bullying Details

WARNING: This post may be difficult for those who have been bullied to read.

Note: Cruella was not the bully's real name, but she was cruel.  Beautiful wasn't my informamt's name, but she was beautiful.

It was COLD out.  I don't think it was ever as cold in Alabama as it was in suburban Pittsburgh on that early January morning.  Waiting for the school bus was double torture: I wasn't used to the cold and I knew no one.  Finally, one of the girls came up to me. "Hi, I'm Cruella.  Who are you?"

"Hah, my nayme is Gay-yul.  Ah'm frum Al-uh-bamuh.  Puleesed to meetcha."  I drawled politely.

Everyone giggled; an accent from the deep South was uncommon in Pittsburgh.  The kids started introducing themselves, each imitating my Southern drawl.  I tried not to be anxious, but the hellacious situation I had escaped in Alabama still held me in its grasp.  I desperately wanted things to be different here.  I wanted to fit in, and my accent wasn't helping.

I was twelve and my father had been transferred from Birmingham, the Pittsburgh of the South, to the real deal: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Although I was sad to leave all my family in the South, there weren't many friends to pine over.  You see, I had been the class scapegoat in Alabama and had been such since the beginning of fifth grade.  Most people avoided me to keep from getting caught in the net of scorn that enveloped me daily at recess and lunch.

Looking back, I wasn't a very likeable kid.  I was a spoiled brat who had never learned how to make friends with kids my own age.  I knew how to charm an adult, but no one had ever taught me that there was a difference between kids and adults.  I had been virtually born with a best friend who lived across the street from me, but that all changed when we moved to a different neighborhood when I was ten.  Everyone was new and I didn't understand the delicate dance of give and take in friendship.  My idea of making friends was to brag about my family, my brothers, and my possessions.  It didn't help that I was smart and often the teacher's pet.

The downward slope of rejection started in fourth grade, when two little girls informed me that their mothers were the new brownie troupe's den mothers and they didn't want me in the troupe, therefore I couldn't join.  As the sister of three scouts, two of them eagle scouts, this was devastating, but there was worse to come.  I was too ashamed to approach any adult with my problem.  All my brothers were popular, so there had to be something wrong with me.

In fifth grade, while a substitute teacher was in charge, the kids colored the traditional pilgrim and turkey pictures with scars, crooked teeth, warts and snot running down and labeled them all as me.  The unsuspecting sub hung all the pictures up around the room.  I'm not sure which was worse: the kids doing the pictures or the look on my regular teacher's face when she saw them upon her return and sitting me in her glass office while she yelled at them.  Once again, my parents never knew.

The snowball of rejection grew in the fall of sixth grade with hurtful taunts and jibes that followed me daily whenever teachers weren't around.  I was humiliated and ashamed; too ashamed to ask for help.  All this rejection culminated in the kids cheering when I left for Pittsburgh that last day.   Nothing could be worse than that, or so I thought.

The school bus finally arrived and I got on with the other kids.  Everyone was looking at me and talking behind mittened hands.  I looked out the frosty window at the snow and wished I were anywhere else.  I wanted things to be different, but didn't know how to make that happen.

The first day of school was a blur of new faces, strange accents and a teacher who didn't quite know what to do with a child that said "Yes, ma'am" and "No, ma'am" to any question.  Apparently, Pittsburgh was far more casual about manners and no one Ma'am-ed elders.  She decided to deal with her discomfort by teasing me and prohibiting me from using a form of address that was required in the South.  At lunch I sat with the heavy set girl that no one else talked to, Beautiful.  She seemed nice, but my pride wasn't real happy about having the class outcast as a friend.

On the bus ride home, Cruella approached me again.  "Want to get together after school?" she asked.  "Sher!" I enthused.  Maybe it WOULD be okay if the most popular girl in class wanted to get to know me….

Cruella arrived at my house and we went down to the family room with a big container of chips and soda to talk.  We chatted for hours about all sorts of things, including our impending puberty and how our mothers handled it.  We also talked about starting a girls club.  I was in heaven; it looked like I would finally be a part of the IN crowd!

The next day at the bus stop, I approached Cruella eagerly, but she seemed to be very involved in another conversation.  It was okay.  We had had a good time yesterday; everything was going to be fine.  I struck up a conversation with another girl at the bus stop who was several years younger than I.  Eventually the bus came to take us to school.  I sat with the girl who I was chatting with and didn't notice the conference that seemed to be going on around Cruella's seat.

During the day, I started to notice that kids were looking at me in a funny way.  Funny bad, not funny good, like sharing a joke.  I knew funny bad intimately from Alabama, so I could recognize it.  I tried to tell myself it was just my accent, but I knew something was wrong.  At lunch, Beautiful approached me and pulled me off to one side.  "Cruella is telling everyone that you're a whore.  I just thought you'd like to know," she whispered.

I was devastated, humiliated.  I didn't even have BREASTS!  How could I be a whore?!?  On the bus ride home, kids that I happened to bump into inoculated themselves with cootie shots.  Apparently whores have cooties.  I sat low in the seat, as close to the cold metal bus panel as I could get.  Leaning my head against the frosty glass, I stared at the snowy landscape rushing past, trying to hold back the tears.  I didn't fit in -- AGAIN.