At the beginning of my seventh grade year I thought it would be great, I could not have been more wrong. For the past two, possibly three years, I have had an issue with this girl in my grade. She is probably one of the biggest bullies in the school, yet no one had the guts to stand up to her. She would literally do whatever she wanted, even to the teachers and she did not get in trouble. She would be called down to the office occasionally, but nothing would change. If someone told the office about what she did, she would always figure out who told and then she would end up bullying them for weeks on end, not caring about the impact she had on their lives, them being terrified to go to school because they did not want to look face-to-face with her, the fear of not knowing what she would do. She had been this way towards me for about two maybe three years, on and off.

She and I really didn’t have any major problems until basketball season started, because I made A team, and she did not. She started going around and telling everyone that my parents payed off the principal in order to get me on A team. That rumor had been spread around for about a week, then she decided that she wanted to start more. She told everyone that she should have made A and that I shouldn’t have. No one really believed it because she wasn’t exactly amazing at basketball, but hey, neither was I.

Once the basketball season had finally started, she decided to get more physical with me. When A and B team had scrimmages together, she would always make sure that she guarded me, then she would shove me into the walls and kick my ankles among many other things. Nothing really bothered me, until she started drama at practice, which then affecting my basketball. I ended up writing a student statement about it, almost two weeks into the basketball season because it got too much to handle at the practices. I came home everyday in tears, and wanting to quit the team. For about a week that had been happening, my parents didn’t know what to do. They didn’t even have to ask when I got into the car after practice, they would already know why I was upset.

Once this player figured out that I was the one that reported it to the office, she started taking the basketball issue into the classes that I had with her. It all got worse once I had told the office about it, so I stopped reporting it. At the time of all this happening, my best classes had been Language Arts and Science, and I had only had one class with her, which was Science class. For the entire year up until all this had started happening I had had a 90%+ in that class. After all the drama at basketball practice, and then going into Science class my grade had drastically dropped from 90%+ to around a 64%.I talked to my mom about it, and she understood the fact that I couldn’t concentrate any more in classes with her being in there. I had talked to the counselor about it, and we came up with a solution that I’d move my schedule and get some of my classes switched to help me stay away from the incidents that had kept my mind off my work; the work that I had once been so strong in. I saw my grades starting to improve even though the adjustment to the new schedule was difficult and I felt like I was the one being punished when the girl who bullied me should have been held accountable for her behavior towards me and so many others.

It’d started getting better seeing that the only class I had had with her was science, and I knew how to avoid her in the hallways during school, so then the only problem was basketball, which wasn’t a big deal because getting more into the season our coach started splitting up A and B team during practices where A would be on one half of the court and B would be on the other.

Then, one week I don’t know what happened. She started staring at me in the hallways, and told everyone that I took her spot on A because she was suppose to get on A originally but the coach didn’t like her. I knew that she talked about me all the time during school, but I didn’t really let it bother me because if I told, it’d all get worse like it did at the beginning of all this when I finally told the office about it. I just kept it to myself, but one afternoon when I was at my locker right before last period my brother and some of his friends walked up to me and told me that when they were walking behind her they heard her talking about me and telling them that it didn’t matter if I was dead or alive. I literally broke knowing that someone thought that about me, no matter who it was, or the past that I had with that person. I went to last period in tears for basically the entire class period, texting my mom and telling her about it all. She finally broke and came into the school, though I told her not too many times before when I was explaining what this girl has done to me, and my friends. When she came into the school, even though I had already reported her abuse towards me and my friends once, all they told my mom was that she had to fill out a student statement or else they couldn’t do anything. When I got in the car I was beyond upset at the fact that they did nothing about it--I felt as though the students statements were useless. I felt like I wasn’t heard, like that was a way to make me feel like something was being done when in actuality this girl had a free pass to continue bullying me, and others, like she had done since she had come to our school in the sixth grade. I had so many questions in my head and I began to wonder about who I could trust and what would actually happen if this problem escalated. I felt like I didn’t matter. That was the hardest part for me.

The next few days were awful, she started treating the entire basketball team badly, and she ended up not having any friends on A or B team. Every game that A team ended we’d go into the locker room and someone off of B team would be crying due to what she had done, or said to one of them. I don’t know how she could even be at practice knowing that no one liked her, on the team.

One day our coach decided that she wanted each team to play a “fun” game together. Where she would throw the ball up in the air then you have to play one on one until someone makes a point. A team vs. B team. One of our girls on A beat her, so she looked at us all over us and called us all skanks. Most of the A team was just done with her after that, and then once everyone on the B team realized that she had said that no one talked to her after that practice, even though she knew why, she acted like she didn’t. Numerous people began to report what she had been doing, people were coming to practice and school early to talk to the coach, and tell her about it. I think the coach had finally gotten tired of what this girl was doing to her basketball team and ended up talking to the principal and vice principal about it. I was shocked at the number of reports and behaviors it took for anyone to take action on this issue. I began to realize that this was probably a common issue happening all over the country not just at my school.

The next morning after all this had happened I heard her name get called over the intercom, and I saw her walk into the office as me and a couple of other people were walking by. Then around third period I got called down to the office, and didn’t know what was going to happen. I walked into the office and the secretary told me that the principal wanted to see me I walked into her office and saw there were three chairs, and her desk. She had been sitting at her desk, the Vice Principal was sitting in one seat and my coach was sitting in the other. The of course, that one open seat in the middle of all of them, was for me. They had me sit down and explain everything that had been going on between me and this girl for the past month or so, and once I explained everything the principal looked straight into my eyes and promised me that I wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore, I felt so relieved. That was probably the happiest day I’d had since basketball had begun.

After school, everyone walked into the locker room and started getting ready, the bully wasn’t in the locker room and one of the girls on our team walked out, then ran back in yelling for us to check out the gym. Everyone got finished dressing and walked from the locker room into the gym. The bully had been on the phone with her parents in the middle of the gym, then once everyone was out there our coach called a team huddle in the middle of the court and looked at all over us, then said, “Unfortunately I have decided to remove a player off this team.” Everyone knew who it was about, we didn’t want to do anything until she left but me and the girls who had been messed with the worse by this girl all looked at each other, in shock. I was one of those girls. We didn’t know how to react at that point, though I knew something was going to happen after they had called me into the office, I just didn’t think it’d be that extreme.

That practice, was literally the best practice that our teams had the entire season. Everyone had been laughing, smiling, making jokes and more the entire practice. When we left, we were still smiling: probably because it was the first drama-free practice we’d had all year.
Our season had been perfect after that day, we had been winning. Once B team’s season had ended they all still came to our home games to support us, and we ended up finishing the season with a good record. For the rest of the school year no one on A or B team had gotten bugged by this girl, again. From my point of view, the school year ended on a good note.
To be honest, going through that made me realize a lot about what can happen in just one person’s life. I realized how big of an impact just one bully can be on someone’s life, and how someone can do that to numerous people without showing any signs of having a soul or respect for the human beings around them. Knowing what I went through my seventh grade year, now I know that if it ever happens again, that it won’t be happening for long. I'm not going to put myself through any of that again. For the fact that it took me so long to get myself back on track after the bullying had escalated; to getting my grades back up, to being able to come to school and not be terrified to find out what was going to happen to me that day. I know that if any of this starts back up again that I have to and need to tell someone, right when it happens. No matter if it's a teacher, coach, parents or someone that I trust. If I don't do that, it could continuously get worse and worse, for me. Being able to go to school and know that I don't have to worry about that, is actually an amazing feeling. I'm not going to be put through all that again, because now I know how to stop it and will stop it sooner than I did. And I promised myself that.