It had been a Thursday, and I had been
in the fourth grade. We were at recess.
I was sitting underneath the slide with my friends Emily and
Ronnie, talking about nothing in particular.
"Ow! Stop! Stop it, you guys!" I heard someone yelling.
"That's hurts! Please stop!"
"Do you guys hear that?" I asked.
"Hear what?" Ronnie and Emily replied in unison.
"Someone keeps telling someone to 'stop it,' " I
said.
"Yeah," Ronnie said, "who is that?"
"Stop, please!" I hear once more, and I
recognize the voice.
"Guys, I know who it is!" I exclaim. "It's
Jenna!"
"Oh," they shrugged.
I stood, "You guys don't care?!"
"Why should we?" Emily said.
I rolled my eyes and walked past them to help her.
"Eli! Hey! Where are you going!" my friends yelled, but I
just ignored them.
I see Jenna backed up against the gates, in the corner. "Stop!
Someone help me!" she shouted.
Kids were throwing rocks at her.
"Hey, hey! Guys, stop it!" I yelled.
Most people stopped and looked at me. After a second, though, they
all returned to throwing. I ran over to Jenna and stood in front of
her. I realized how bad it was when I had to put my arms up to
shield myself.
"What are you guys doing! What did she ever do to
you?!"
"She won't leave us alone!"
"Eileen told us to!"
"She keeps trying to play football!"
Jenna had never been very much of a girly girl. For that, no one
really ever wanted to hang out with her. She never had very many
friends... She used to have two best friends, their names were
Megan and Will, but they both moved away in the first grade.
"So? That doesn't give you a reason to throw rocks at
her!" Hang on a minute... I thought.
"I heard someone say Eileen told you to -" (Eileen was
pretty much the popular girl of our grade.)
"Yeah, she told us to throw stuff at -"
"Why? Why did she tell you this?"
I watched a lot of kids shrug.
Eileen came forward and said, "Because I don't like
her."
I rolled my eyes and turned to Jenna. Bruises had already started
appearing. "Are you okay?"
"Not really. I was just pelted with rocks..."
"Come on, I'll take you to the nurse's office and we
can tell on Eileen."
"Okay," Jenna agreed.
As we arrived at the nurse's office, Jenna turned to me and
said, "Thank you."
I shrugged and said, "You don't need to thank me. They
didn't need to be throwing stuff at you."
She ignored me, "And thanks for bringing me here
too."
I smiled. She smiled back.
And from then on, we were best friends.
