Free Confessions from the Principal's Chair by Anna Myers Page A

off the page of notes about the phone and shoved the empty pad across the desk. Then I held out the pen. "Here, I want a list."
    "Are you going to punish them?" Serenity looked up at me, and her sad brown eyes got even bigger. I couldn't tell if she was hoping or afraid I would punish her tormenters. "Because if you give them detention or something, they will just take it out on me."
    "Write," I demanded. "I want the name of every person who has ever picked on you. I'll get you more paper if you need it."
    She started to write. After a while she stopped, looked over her list, and drew a line across it to separate some names. Then she pushed the paper across the desk to me. "That's most of them, I guess," she said. "The main ones anyway, the ones who make my life miserable." She sat back in her chair, folded her arms, and watched me.
    I studied the list. There were four names, then a line followed by three more names. "What's the line for?" I asked.
    "The first names," she began to count them off on her fingers, "Nicole, Caitlyn, Katelin, pronounced the same, but with different spellings. They call themselves C and K. Anyway those three girls and Ashley, they are the most popular girls in our class. They treat me the worst. The others ..." She paused, shrugged, and then went on, "I guess they want to be popular too. I guess they want to be in that group, and they think picking on me might get them in."
    I didn't know what to say next, so I said, "Hmm," and leaned back in my chair. Then I remembered something. "Now tell me what you do to make them pick on you."
    "Nothing," she said, and her tone was miserable. "Three of them have always been best friends, even in kindergarten, but back then mostly everyone used to get along. Back when we were little, I mean, sometimes, kids would be mean, but the next day we'd play together. Now Ashley is best friends with them too, and they . . . well, they think they're hot or something. That's all."
    "And there aren't even six of them, are there?"
    "No," she said, and she leaned toward me. "Why would you think that?" She didn't wait for me to answer, just went on. "They call themselves the Purples because they all four have purple jackets. They wear them even when it isn't cold, like today. You know how warm the weather is, but they came to school in those purple jackets. Makes me sick."
    I was interested. "Even in kindergarten? They had little purple jackets even back then?"
    "Nah, not back then." She sort of threw up her hands. "Why do you need to know exactly when they got the stupid jackets? What difference does it make?"
    "Well," I said, "I just think they could get a better name than the Purples. They could even call themselves the Four Pack." I realized that didn't sound very principal-like, so I shuffled around the things in Serenity's file while I thought. Then I remembered. "But you do something to make them pick on you. Mrs. Simpson said so."
    Serenity fell back in her chair and put her hands up to her face like I had slapped her. "She said that? Mrs. Simpson said I do something to make them tease me?"
    "She did. Now tell me what you do?"
    "I thought Mrs. Simpson was my friend," Serenity said. "I thought she liked me. She's always nice to me when I come into the office."
    I was disgusted. Her whining voice made me think of Marcy Willis, and I did not want to think about that person. "I am not concerned here with what Mrs. Simpson thinks of you. As a matter of fact, she probably does like you, but she obviously knows why the Purples don't." I pounded my fists down on the desk hard. "I think you have some idea too. You look like a smart girl to me. Are you going to make me ask Mrs. Simpson to come in here and testify? That wouldn't be very pleasant for you, would it?"
    Serenity shook her head and stared down at her sneakers. "I don't have nice clothes," she said. "The Purples all have nice clothes?"
    "Really?" This subject really did interest me. "Where do they buy them? I didn't see