The Bully

When I was five or six years old, my family didn’t have much money. In those days there was no free lunch so to speak. You had a hot lunch ticket or brought your lunch. If you didn’t have food to pack a lunch with, you either did without or went to a relative’s house during the lunch break. I went to my Grandmother’s house sometimes but I don’t think it was because we didn’t have food. We never ever went hungry.
I was a chubby little girl so the walk didn’t hurt me. It was about five blocks from the school to Grandma’s house. She would have hot lunch waiting for me .
Anyway, one day a bad, mean boy started yelling at me while I was walking to Grandma’s. I knew his name and no one liked him. He was a modern day bully. He said that he was going to cross the street and beat me up. He also said that if I told anybody he would kill me. I started running as fast as my chubby little legs could carry me. When I started to run so did he. I was crying so hard I could hardly breathe when I got to Grandma‘s. She was really upset, but my Grandpa didn’t say a word. I thought if he loved me he would do something or at least say something. He couldn’t do anything. He had a stiff hip and could hardly walk, but that thought did not occur to me.
The next day I was scared to death to go to Grandma’s. Sure enough there was that bad boy taunting me again and pretending like he was going to cross the street and beat me up. Again, I arrived crying and shaking. I ate and went back to school, but he wasn’t there on the way back. I never found out what happened to that boy, but he never bothered me again. My grandfather could not walk far, but he could drive.
Now that I’m grown, I have a feeling he was out and about watching for that boy or he called my mom and dad. They didn’t say anything to me and I didn’t tell them. There had to be an important reason that I ate with Grandma and Grandpa. It will never be known, and the identity of the bully will never be known either.
I have been very interested in the “bully” issue lately. It seems to have escalated even to the internet. I did some research on bullying and according to the experts my parents and I did everything wrong. No one talked about it or warned me about it. I have a feeling I was a lucky little girl. I thought it would be fun to see what the computer said if I asked it what a bully looked like. I was amazed on how many sites had this question. Unlike “what does a criminal look like” the bully pictures always depicted a frown and a show of teeth.