That evening when the sun filled the horizon, the Carolina Beach washed away my anxiety and worries and soothed me by singing a lullaby. I loved visiting this place in both my good and bad times. This ocean healed me and prepared me for the upcoming fights against injustice. Sometimes I felt like this water body was a part of my soul. Seeing a little crab struggling to crawl, away from the sea and towards the shore, it reminded me of my own tussle.

The Covenant Day School, a private school, was a place where all bullies bundled up together. When we shifted to North Carolina, I ended up getting admission in this school. My good days ran and crashed into the bad ones.

I don’t exactly know the reason for me getting picked up by Katherine. She was drop-dead gorgeous, I admit, but turned out totally opposite of what she appeared to be.

The first day we got along fine. Then on my third day at school, I was in a hurry and was cycling to school when, out of nowhere, Katherine’s cycle bumped into mine. I tripped and fell off, my knees got scratched. Her cycle had fallen over me.

“Oh dear! I am so sorry I didn’t see you. Are you okay?” she showed sympathy without trying to move her cycle from my leg.

“Umm ... I’m okay. But can you please move the cycle off my legs?”

“Oh yeah! Sure!” she helped me up, but her gestures clearly showed that this was nothing but intentional.

A few days later, when I walked into the cafeteria for lunch, I caught sight of Katherine spilling food over one of my classmates, Nancy. The other students were going about their activities as usual, which meant this was something usual for them. I could not ignore it, so I stepped forward, took Nancy’s hand, pulled her by my side and glared at Katherine with disgust.

“What are you up to?” my astonishment was obvious. Katherine grabbed my collar, jerked me and with a smirk on her face she barked, “How dare you come in my way?”

I shook her hands off my collar and stepped back. Katherine pulled the frightened Nancy by her side and patted her shoulder.

“Can’t you see she is my prey of the day?” she said as if it was the most obvious thing. A crowd gathered, some enjoying our confrontation. The argument got blown up and I could feel her self-esteem shattering into pieces and her anger rising. I left along with Nancy, leaving behind Katherine surrounded by a bunch of students. I was unaware that this was the beginning of a long war.

Nancy thanked me when we were in the locker room and warned me about the consequences. “Thank you, Julia! But I am really sorry that because of me your whole school life is going to be hell.”

“What does that mean?” I could feel my heart sinking.

“You insulted Katherine in front of so many people and she is a person who holds grudges and takes revenge,” her answer made my heart skip a beat.

“Oh, thanks for informing me. But you don’t worry about it. We’ll see about what she does next when she does it.”

What she did the next time seriously stunned me. I was sitting in the cafeteria, busy eating lunch when she, along with two friends, came and stood next to me with a perfectly fake smile.

“Hey Julia! You know it’s my birthday today,” Katherine said sweetly as if nothing had happened the other day.

Without even bothering to look up at her, I said coldly, “So what has it got to do with me?”

“Actually, I don’t like it if somebody does not get my birthday treat,” she said as if I was dying to get one from her. I was done with eating, so I simply grabbed my backpack and moved, saying, “Thank you, but I’m sure I can live without it.”

Just then an egg smashed on my back! I stopped for a second or two, too shocked to move, but decided to move on. Some more eggs got destroyed. After that the shower of bowls and bowls of flour made me want to tear her apart. I felt helpless, so I kept my head down, ignoring all the attacks and comments, headed for my locker. I cleaned up as best as I could and cycled back to home, skipping the rest of the classes.

Before leaving, I had spoken to a few teachers, but they had all declined to help me as her father was the chairman of the school. All of them feared losing their jobs. The whole scene of me being bullied and then not getting my teachers’ support was making my head spin.

On reaching home, I announced to my parents that I did not want to study in that school as the chairman’s daughter was making my life miserable.

My parents sympathised with me, but told me to be more careful next time as this was the best school and they did not want to spoil my future by sending me to some other school. They too felt that since she was the daughter of an influential man, no one would take any action against her

The next day I went to school and lodged a complaint in the principal’s office about Katherine George, regardless of who her father was. During the break-time, I was called in the office. I had been thinking that it would take a few days for them to take my complaint into consideration and also because the chairman came to the school after every two weeks for a visit. But for some important matter, he was here again this week for the second time, hence I was also called.

“Okay so you are Ms Julia Alfred.”

I was not sure if he was asking or telling me, so I just nodded.

“I heard that you have complained about Katherine’s behaviour,” he asked.

“Yes sir. Katherine George is a bully, when I stopped her she also picked on me,” I said firmly.

“Oh! Kids nowadays are normally like that, she might not be bullying, actually she is just very jovial, she might be just playing around,” he made light of my complaint.

“Oh I see! So you will not be paying heed to it?” I asked.

“No, because there is no solid reason. You have simply misunderstood your friend,” he said sweetly.

“May I leave then?”

“Yes, you may.”

“Yeah sure, thank you sir,” I simply answered as I left the room.

The next day, I sneaked into the CCTV control room when everyone was out. I checked the recordings and took out the video footages of me getting bullied outside the cafeteria and other instances of Katherine bullying some other victims too. It was really humiliating to make public the awful videos of myself being bullied, but there was no other way. I posted those with a detailed article about the incident on the school’s guest section of the website.

Soon the videos were seen over and over again by everyone in the school and many outside it. Now other victims started coming forward and telling about their stories and many witnesses too joined in. It turned out that there were many other bullies in the school and they too were identified by the victims.

The chairman and some senior staff of the school tried to hush the matter and pressure me into taking back my complaint, but those who were supporting me were too many to be silenced. And there was evidence that could not be ignored.

After a long argument and debate, the chairman was forced to conclude that all the bullies would be expelled and would have to apologise in front of the whole school.

“I, Katherine George, apologise for all my wrongdoings that have hurt you people. I am sorry, now I am going to reap what I sowed.”

Nine or ten more students came up and apologised too. It was a very humiliating moment for them, but a very proud one for me.

I hugged Nancy and said, “Didn’t I tell you that you don’t have to worry about me getting bullied for the rest of my school life?” We both laughed and said together, “United we stand, divided we fall!”

Published in Dawn, Young World, July 28th, 2018