Free The School Bully by Fiona Wilde Page A

and was fair game. Anna hated Bridgestone Academy more with each passing day. She hated the way everyone curried favor with the popular kids. She hated the way they stalked the halls doing as they pleased, immune to anything more than tepid reprimands by teachers that seemed almost as enamored with the “golden children” as their peers were. The imperfect students – the ones like her – bore the brunt of not just peer injustice but staff injustice as well. The day after Anna's locker was glued shut she was called into the principal's office and suspended for destruction of property. Her frantic efforts to pry open the locker had left it dented, and because she feared further cruelty from Logan and his gang, she refused to implicate the bullies in what they had done.
    Her parents were furious, humiliated and terrified that the friends they admired – ironically the parents of the popular kids – would now think badly of them.
    “Are you trying to embarrass this family?” her father had asked, red-faced.
    It was only then that Anna had confided in them what she'd been going through. Finally, she thought, her parents would help. But they did not. Mr. Fowler had no desire to call bank president Logan Chance, Sr., and discuss his son's behavior. Nor did he want to cause problems for the kids of the hospital CEO, the local developer or the grocery store chain owner.
    “Kids will be kids, sweetheart,” he said. “They're only picking on you because they like you. So try to fit in...”
    But Ann had no interest in fitting in and settled for developing what few friendships she could within the studious crowd of kids. Where straight A's should have impressed her parents and teachers, it was still popularity that mattered. She got few kind words from the teachers other than to remark favorably on her scores, and fewer still from her parents who became agitated whenever someone they respected mentioned that Anna's peers found her “strange.” Anna found it disgusting that adult society in Langford was just a grown-up reflection of what she was experiencing in school. Adults still curried favor, obsessed over where they fit in the social caste, worked too hard to be liked.
    Anna could not wait to leave and she did on the day she graduated. She'd had her pick of any colleges, and her parents had hoped she'd choose one of the universities their friends were so proud to send their kids to. But Anna was done with the games. She had a pick of scholarships and selected a good, private teaching college upstate. She'd decided to become an educator and had it in her mind that when she graduated and found a job she'd be the kind of teacher that would champion kids like her, and put stuck-up little socialite brats in their place if they even though treating their peers with cruelty.
    She knew she'd be a good teacher, and she was. But the time she'd graduated from college, she'd blossomed both socially and physically. She'd purposefully chosen a university with a good academic reputation and her new peers were serious and studious. Her waiflike appearance was now seen as something to admire, and she stopped hiding behind baggy dark clothing and began to wear fashionable outfits that accentuated her small but shapely frame. The mane of wavy black hair that hung almost to her waist was the envy of her friends; Anna accentuated it with colorful combs or tied it back with bright ribbons. When she began student teaching, her diminutive size made her approachable to even the most timid students, while her new-found confidence kept the older ones from taking advantage of her.
    She had multiple, but settled on an inner city middle school. Her first year was tough; the students here weren't so much catty as gritty. They came from backgrounds she never could have imagined and her heart went out to them. She quickly became confidante to the troubled ones; the kids trusted her and her colleagues admired her.
    Anna was happy, both professionally and