Bullies mocked me for joining their game club. They didn’t know my dad designed it.

Digital Evidence

Tuesday during lunch Leroy showed me his phone where someone had posted a picture of one of my torn notebook pages. They’d cropped it to show just my Shadow Knight build notes and added text making fun of the strategy.

The post already had dozens of likes and comments from kids at the school laughing about how dumb my ideas were. I screenshot everything and went straight to Herman’s office where he pulled up the school network logs on his computer.

His fingers moved fast across the keyboard as he traced the IP address back to a school computer in the library. The timestamp showed it was posted during study hall and the login matched Greg’s student ID.

Herman printed out all the evidence and called Vice Principal Douglas who came down immediately. They had me write out a statement about the harassment while Herman compiled the digital evidence into a report.

Wednesday morning during announcements they called Greg to the office and I saw him walking past my classroom looking pale. Later I heard from other kids that he got 3 days of in-school suspension and his parents had to come pick up his phone.

Douglas stopped by my class to tell me privately that any more incidents would mean longer suspensions or possible expulsion. Thursday at lunch Ignasio brought a quiet kid named Walter to our table in the library.

Walter barely talked but he pulled out a notebook with his own Eternal Kingdom strategies and we spent the whole period comparing notes. We talked about damage calculations and optimal skill rotations while Ignasio asked questions about the lore.

It felt normal for once, just three kids discussing a game without any drama or threats. Walter said he’d been too scared to join the official club after hearing what happened, but he liked our small group better anyway.

Under New Management

That afternoon Dad came home from work with a thick envelope from his company’s HR department. His face looked tired as he opened it and showed me the official warning letter about inappropriate use of company property and unprofessional conduct affecting minors.

The letter said the incident was documented in his permanent file and any similar behavior would result in immediate termination. Dad signed the acknowledgement form without arguing and told me he deserved it for losing his temper.

I felt sick knowing his job was at risk because of me, but he pulled me into a hug and said protecting me was worth any consequence. Friday morning Kirk posted new rules for the video game club on the school website.

The club now required official sign-ups with parent permission slips and he would supervise every meeting as faculty adviser. The rules included a whole section about respectful behavior and consequences for harassment.

I printed out the form and turned it in to Kirk who nodded and added my name to the member list without saying anything. The first meeting under the new rules was that afternoon and I sat in the back corner with my notebook closed.

Grayson ran the meeting like he was reading from a script, calling on people by raising hands and keeping everything focused on the game. When someone asked about optimizing healing spells I raised my hand and explained the math behind regeneration versus burst healing.

Grayson thanked me formally and moved to the next topic without mentioning my dad or anything else. Most kids just ignored me but a few nodded when my answer helped them understand the mechanics better.

After the meeting ended and kids started leaving Grayson walked over to my desk and stood between me and the door. “I’m not going to touch you or your stuff,” He said quietly while looking at the wall behind me.

“But keep your dad away from here and we won’t have problems.” He added. His voice was flat but I could hear the threat underneath the words.

I nodded and tried to move past him but he didn’t step aside for a few seconds—just long enough to make his point clear. I went straight to Joey’s office and told her exactly what Grayson said and how he blocked my path.

She typed everything into her computer and added it to my file then showed me how the documentation system worked. “Every interaction gets recorded,” She said while printing a copy for me. “Keep these interactions short and always have witnesses around when possible.”

Victory Screen

I thanked Joey and headed to lunch where I found Kirk and two other kids from my math class huddled around a laptop in the corner of the cafeteria. Why does Grayson think blocking the door and making threats is going to work out for him when everything’s being documented now?

The kid’s playing with fire after watching three people get suspended for similar behavior. Kirk waved me over and showed me they were stuck on the Crimson Tower raid in Eternal Kingdoms.

It was the part where you need perfect timing between the tank and support characters. I pulled out my notebook with the Shadow Knight build notes that Grayson had torn up but I’d rewritten from memory.

The other kid, a quiet guy named Ignosio who always sat in the back of math class, leaned forward. I explained how the Shadow Knight’s intelligence scaling could actually tank better than traditional builds if you use the right spell rotation.

We spent the next 20 minutes setting up the strategy on Kirk’s laptop with me calling out the timing. Ignasio controlled the Shadow Knight and Kirk handled support.

The cafeteria noise faded as we focused on the boss’s attack patterns, dodging the firewaves and timing our counterattacks perfectly. When the boss finally fell and the victory screen appeared, Ignasio actually smiled for the first time I’d ever seen.

His whole face lit up as he high-fived Kirk. “That was sick,” He said quietly.

I felt something warm in my chest that had nothing to do with forcing anyone to accept me. Over the next few days our lunch group became a regular thing, just the four of us crowded around Kirk’s laptop trying different challenge runs.

Three days later I was walking to history class when I passed Greg standing outside the principal’s office. He was complaining loudly to another kid about how his in-school suspension was making him fail chemistry because he couldn’t do the labs.

“This is such bullshit.” He was saying. “My parents are going to kill me if I have to repeat the class.”

I kept walking without slowing down realizing I didn’t actually care anymore about whether his punishment was fair or not. That afternoon Dad got an email from the school asking if he’d come speak to the computer science classes about game design.

But when he showed it to me at dinner we both knew it was really about trying to smooth things over. Dad typed a polite decline but offered to do a 15-minute virtual Q&A with clear boundaries about what questions he’d answer.

“No personal stuff, no autographs, just talking about the technical side of game development,” He said while setting up the parameters with the teacher. The Q&A happened the next week and I watched from the back of the computer lab as dad answered questions about coding and art design.