Bullies mocked me for joining their game club. They didn’t know my dad designed it.
A Safety Plan
Between classes, Joey Banks, the guidance counselor, pulled me out of math and brought me to her office. She had this big map of the school on her desk and started marking different routes I could take between classes to avoid running into Grayson and his friends.
She circled the teachers I could go to if I felt unsafe and arranged for me to sit on the opposite side of the room in the two classes I shared with Greg. She wrote it all down on this official looking form and gave me a copy.
After that meeting, she sent me to the nurse, who took photos of the bruise on my ribs from when Adam shoved me into the desk corner. The nurse measured it with a ruler and wrote down all the details in her report.
She gave me a note saying I couldn’t do gym class for 2 weeks and told me to give copies of her documentation to anyone handling the complaint. Then I had to go see Herman Yensen, the school resource officer, in his tiny office next to the main entrance.
He had me write out everything that happened from the beginning. He asked specific questions about the physical stuff, like exactly how hard Adam pushed me and whether I felt threatened when Greg blocked the door.
He explained I could press charges for assault and theft but said I should talk to my parents first before deciding. My phone dinged with an email during lunch scheduling a disciplinary hearing with Vice Principal Lewis Douglas for Thursday.
The email said all parents would be contacted and that everyone involved had to attend. I forwarded it to my dad, who just replied with a thumbs up emoji.
Exposing the Lies
Kirk Pearson, the video game club adviser, stopped me after school to say he’d filed his report. He’d gone through all the club paperwork and discovered something interesting.
The charter they filed with the school never actually said anything about membership requirements, even though their poster said it was selective. This meant they’d violated school policy by refusing to let me join.
He said this would definitely come up in the investigation. That evening Ignasio texted me again.
He said Grayson always bragged about his brother working at the game company, but nobody had ever seen proof. Ignasio had been in the club for 2 years and Grayson never once showed any insider info or early access to anything.
He said he’d write a statement about what he saw if he didn’t have to face them directly. The next day Vice Principal Douglas called me to his office to explain how the hearing would work.
He went through all these rules about confidentiality and said if anyone harassed me online about this situation they’d face additional consequences. He seemed pretty serious about the whole thing.
That night while we were eating dinner, dad’s phone rang. It was Greg’s parents and I could hear them yelling through the phone about how dad had humiliated their son.
They kept using words like inappropriate and lawsuit until dad cut them off. He told them to contact the school administration and hung up.
Breach of Policy
The next morning dad’s laptop pinged with an email from Leroy Holland, his boss at the company. I watched his face go pale as he read it on his phone at breakfast.
He forwarded it to me without saying anything. I saw the subject line said “immediate action required: unreleased build security breach.”
The message was all about company policy violations and how dad couldn’t threaten customers with bans and had to return the prototype immediately. My stomach twisted knowing I’d gotten dad in trouble at work just because some kids were mean to me.
He drove to the office that morning to return the game while I went to the school early to avoid the main hallway rush. Between first and second period I had to use the bathroom, and when I came out Adam was waiting by the water fountain.
He slammed his shoulder into me so hard I hit the lockers and my books scattered everywhere. No teachers were around and he walked away laughing while I picked up my stuff.
I wrote down the time and place in the safety notebook Joey had given me. I took the long way around the gym for the rest of the day even though it made me late to math class.
During lunch my phone buzzed with notifications from the group chat someone had added me to. There was my photo from the computer lab floor with new captions about being a crybaby who needed daddy to fight his battles.
I screenshotted everything, including the timestamps and usernames, then sent them to Joey and Herman right away. Herman must have acted fast because 20 minutes later I saw him walking Greg, Grayson, and Adam toward the office through the cafeteria windows.
Later Joey told me Herman had pulled them from class to explain harassment laws and what happens when people retaliate against someone who reports bullying. The boys kept saying it was all just jokes and I was being too sensitive, according to what Joey heard from the secretary.
Learning to Stand Ground
That afternoon Joey met with me in the counselor’s office and taught me specific ways to handle these situations. This included keeping my responses super short, knowing when to walk away versus when to stand my ground, and recognizing when things were about to get worse.
She showed me how to document everything properly and gave me alternate routes through the building to avoid problem spots. Her practical advice helped way more than people just telling me it wasn’t fair or that the bullies were wrong.
The next day at lunch I was eating alone when Ignosio from the video game club sat down across from me. He didn’t really say much for about 5 minutes, just sat there eating his sandwich, but then he pushed a folded paper across the table.
“I wrote down what I saw.” He said quietly. “For the hearing thing.”
“I don’t want to talk in front of everyone, but they can read this.” He added. He got up and left before I could thank him properly.
By Thursday the whole video game club got suspended pending the investigation. Suddenly kids who never cared about me before were glaring in the hallways.
Someone wrote “snitch” on my locker in Sharpie. A girl from the club told me I ruined everything for everyone just because I couldn’t take a joke.
More kids started avoiding me at lunch and in class, moving their desks away or finding different lab partners. Dad came home that night looking tired and said he’d returned the prototype to company storage and apologized to Leroy for using company property inappropriately.
He said Leroy understood once he explained the situation, but there would still be a review about the incident. I felt awful that my problem was affecting his job, but he just ruffled my hair and said protecting me was more important than any game.
The Hearing
Two weeks later the letter came about the disciplinary hearing scheduled for Monday morning. Vice Principal Lewis Douglas would run it with Kirk attending as a witness and Dad could come as my support person.
My hands shook as I read the letter three times. Monday came too fast and I sat in the conference room with Dad beside me while we waited for everyone else to arrive.
Kirk gave me a small nod when he walked in with his notepad. Douglas sat at the head of the table looking serious with a thick folder in front of him.
Grayson, Greg, and Adam came in with their parents, who all looked angry at me, not their kids. Douglas started by asking me to explain what happened in my own words.
My voice cracked at first but I forced myself to keep going. I told him about wanting to join the club, getting pushed down, having my inhaler kicked away, and Adam taking my lunch money.
I showed him my bruised ribs in the nurse’s photos and handed over the torn pages from my notebook. Then we submitted our evidence folder with all the screenshots from the group chat, the timeline I documented of Adam shoulder-checking me, and Herman’s incident reports.
Ignasio’s written statement was in there too, describing exactly what he saw that day in the computer lab. Douglas read through everything while Grayson’s mom kept sighing loudly.
When it was their turn Grayson said I was exaggerating everything and couldn’t handle normal teasing. Greg claimed I just memorized stuff from wikis and didn’t really understand the game so they were testing my knowledge.
Adam said the physical contact was accidental and I was clumsy anyway. Douglas looked at his notes for a long minute before announcing the consequences.
