This is a story about how my sister saved my life and stopped a teddy bear from beating me up. Well, not really. She technically didn’t save anyone’s life, but she did save them a lot of trouble. I’m not supposed to be writing this because Lily doesn’t want anyone to know, but she has helped so many people and this one story has to be shared.

Ok, before I tell you the story I need to tell you the most important part. Who I am. My name is Shamous and I am in the 6th grade. I am the most amazing person in the world. Lily tells me to stop saying that but it’s true! I am a boy if you didn’t realize that and I am tall and skinny for my age. I have dirty blonde hair that always gets in my eyes and I keep asking my mom to get it cut, but then I remember my elephant ears and stop. I have hazel eyes that I’m told are always wide open, and I look like a maniac when I smile. And Lily is my older sister. Now to the story.

School had started a month or so before all this started. And it all started on that one day I decided to walk home alone…

“LILY!” I shouted at her from across the gym floor, “IM GONNA WALK HOME!” With that I sprinted toward the door without waiting for her response, and she couldn’t chase after me because she had volleyball practice. Lily has light brown hair that is shirt and curly and bounces when she walks. She has big green eyes, but they’re not like mine where they are wide open and take up half of my face. They are soft and warm, always welcoming me to talk to after a bad day at school. She is in the 7th grade, only one year older than me.

I slammed my hands into the door and pushed with all of my might to finally get the doors open.

“They really need some better doors,” I thought to myself. I had walked about one block away from school when I heard the shouting. At first I thought it was the playground two blocks away, but that couldn’t be it, because they were putting a new slide in so it was closed. Was it the daycare one street over? No, it wasn’t open on Fridays. And then I turned the corner, and immediately raced back before they saw me.

There were three people standing on the sidewalk, all of them only a year or two older than me. There was a boy with short brown hair and blue eyes who was very…big and kind of looked like a teddy bear just scarier, a girl who was skinny and not too tall who had black hair and threatening silver eyes and she looked more like a vampire, much in contrast to her teddy bear comrade, and lastly a girl who was very tall and had long blonde hair and blue eyes speckled with gold and-

“(GASP), LUNA?” Immediately after I said it I knew I messed up. I backed up around the corner and slapped my hand to my face, leaving a red mark I’m sure, but Teddy Bear was already looking at Vampire, almost like he was a dog under his masters command. She nodded, and the girl with blonde hair, Luna, was forgotten. I would explain how I knew Luna, but it would take too long. What’s that? You want me to tell you anyway? Ok! Well, she was Lily’s best friend up until the 6th grade when she left her for her “boyfriend” who “dumped” her a week later. I guess she just decided she was then too good for Lily. Oh, that wasn’t too long. Ok where was I? Oh yeah! The part where I get beat up by a teddy bear. I love this part!

He slowly crept toward me and I began to realize just how big he was. And I’m sure right you’re thinking, 

“Shamous you’re so amazing you can defeat that teddy bear and the vampire single handedly,” but that’s not how it works. That’s a story for another time.

He was getting closer and closer, and was almost a yard away from me when I heard a familiar voice.

“Brett if you touch my brother I swear!” It was Lily. I guess Teddy Bear is Brett, from the 8th grade.

“And Alice, get away from Luna.” And the vampire is Alice. I liked vampire and teddy bear better.

They both were stumbling over their own feet running as fast as they could to get away from Lily. I knew that she often had to stand up for people who were being bullied by Brett and Alice, but I didn’t know that she actually scared them.

“Thank you Li-“ Luna tried to say but Lily cut her of.

“It’s fine Luna, now Shamous and I should be getting home,” Lily stopped her.

For several minutes, we walked on in agonizing silence, but I didn’t want to say anything because I was afraid that she would start yelling at me for leaving. Who a, I kidding? It’s Lily. She’s not going to yell at me. Boy was I wrong.

“SHAMOUS EUGENE WHY DID YOU THINK IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO LEAVE WITHOUT EVEN ASKING IF IT WAS OK? I WAS SO WORRIED AND I COULDN’T LEAVE AND I KNEW THAT BRETT AND ALICE WOULD BE THERE BECAUSE THEY ALWAYS WALK AROUND THAT PART OF TOWN BECAUSE THERE ARE A LOT OF YOUNGER KIDS IN YOUR CLASS AND IN FIFTH GRADE that live around here and are easy for them to pick on and I just want you to be safe and-“ That was as far as she could get before she started crying. 

“I didn’t know I’m sorry Lily just please stop crying I don’t know what to do when I see people crying!” I begged and then gave her a hug. She pulled herself together and then started walking again. Every once and a while I heard her sniffle and every time I must have been cringing or something because she would look at me and laugh. 

As soon as we got home, she went up to her room and I just happened to be walking past the door to her room that was all the way across the house from my room, so I decided to listen to what she was doing. I heard the scratch of pencil on paper and I wasn’t really interested,  but I guess I was leaning on her door too much or she heard me, so she opened the door and I fell through the doorway.

“ (cough cough) Sooooo… what’u doin?” I said so smoothly you could practically go ice skating on my words, one point Shamous.

“ Just minding my own business, you?” She replied. Point Lily.

“ Oh just making sure you were doing your homework ya know, the usual.”

“Really? Have you done your homework? Did you finish your reading essay and your science research and started planning your board game for extra credit and done your math worksheet?” She was good. And scary.

“Erm, yes?”

“First mind your own business, second go do your homework!”

After that, I realized that Lily started putting things in Luna’s locker. And that Luna was still being bullied by the Terrible Two, but she didn’t seem bothered by it as much. And then, I noticed something strange. My sister was writing notes in her room every night. And Lily was putting them in Luna’s locker every day before she got to school. One day I got a glimpse of the small, white piece of paper decorated with my sister’s perfect handwriting, and on it was just a lot of things that were good about Luna. At first I was very, VERY confused, but then I realized that Brett and Alice must have really brought down Luna’s self-esteem. And they continued to bully her. Until the weirdest day of all…

“ I will not let you put me down like this anymore. I am a human being just like you and deserve just as much respect as you two. So stop or I will, um, I will, I will-“ I heard a confident voice.

“She will tell me and I will take care of you.” Lily. But who was the other girl? Could it be? No. I don’t know he I ever thought that. I couldn’t be-

“Luna?” She was standing there looking taller then both Alice and Brett.

“ Oh gosh, no need to do that bully her we would never, never did, never will, we wou-wou-wouldn’t-“ Brett stumbled through his words almost as much as he was stumbling in real life.

“ JUST SHUT UP AND RUN!” Alice nearly broke my eardrums, and by the looks of the two girls standing in front of them, theirs might actually be broken from that shrill screech. Luna looked like she was about to faint, and Lily must have seen it too, because she immediately helped Luna sit down on the curb.

“I-I never thought I would be able to stand up to them.” Luna stated?

“Why did you anyways?” I made my presence known.

“Be-because I saw Lily putting the note in my locker the other day, and I thought that if she could defy them in the smallest way as to go against what they were saying to me, and it didn’t even effect her and she had no reason to feel sorry for me or help me after what I did to her, then I could at least tell them that they didn’t control me anymore.  Hey, why did you help me anyway?” Luna had a way with changing the topic.

“Because I knew that you wouldn’t have just left me without a second thought if there wasn’t an unseen force. I’ve just been waiting these last few years trying to o figure out what that force was. I never stopped caring about you, and was just a silent observer,”Lily replied.

“Ok, um, so, I’m gonna go home before this gets too mushy gushy and we all start spilling our deepest darkest secrets, even though I have none because I’m so awesome!” I replied quickly with my sharp reflexes and keen ears that detect when I no longer care about a conversation because I am not the main topic of conversation.

“Shamous!” Lily warned,” What have I told you about saying that?”

“Ummmmm, I’m gonna leave now.” And with that we all raced to our neighboring houses and all was well with the world except for the ongoing struggle which is to tame my awesomeness so that it doesn’t blind anyone or anything that looks in my direction.