Mr. Canary claps out the rhythm for the girl sitting next to Shelby and the silence before the girl starts her turn seems absolute. Until an eardrum bursting fart noise rips across the room. I can even feel the vibration on the wooden floor and instantly realize that Shelby is the source of the noise. Poor Shelby! I feel embarrassed for her, so I try to think of something to say to ease her embarrassment.
No need – Shelby’s next comment solves the problem. “Oh Maddi, that smells terrible!”
“I’m sorry Sir, Maddi has been suffering diarrhea, I’ll just take her to the toilet and make sure she is okay.” Then Shelby rustles me out of the classroom door as the laughter from the rest of the class drowns out my protests of innocence.
Once outside Shelby breaks into hysterical laughter, humiliating me even more.
But in the end I just give up and join in the laughter. Eventually Shelby says, “Well, Maddi, I may have ruined your image, but at least I got us out of clapping those stupid patterns.”
Thursday
Despite the odd embarrassing moment, I’m lucky to have a good friend like Shelby. Having friends is especially important when you have a Bethany Barker in your class. Bethany is the mean girl of our school, some kids love sport, some love achieving A’s, some love the arts, but Bethany just loves being mean. That’s right folks, a genuine bully in my class.
Generally I don’t have too much trouble with her. Shelby and I are nearly always together and Shelby is simply too loud to pick on. I’ve already told Bethany – whom I secretly call MG (short for mean girl) that I don’t really care about her opinion.
One day MG must have been low on her quota of kids to pick on, when she came across Shelby and I in the playground. MG started making negative and nasty comments about my appearance. Like all bullies, MG always seemed to have a little band of followers. Sarah and Sue (who must be very desperate for friends to hand out with MG) were with MG. As usual, MG would make the nasty remarks and her followers, Sarah and Sue, would laugh at her “amazing” wit.
Mom always taught me the best way to deal with bullies is to ignore them or stand-up to them. I decided to try a bit of both. First I just totally ignored MG’s nasty comments and I kept talking to Shelby.
After about 5 minutes of ignoring MG’s little rant, I saw Shelby’s face begin to show her anger at her friend being insulted. I put my hand softly on her shoulder and said, “It’s okay, I’ll handle this.”
I turned to MG and calmly said, “Thanks Bethany, I’m always ready to accept constructive criticism about my appearance from intelligent, fashionable and thoughtful people like yourself.”
Bethany looked confused.
Then I continued in a calm and confident voice, “But hang on, I just realized, you’re definitely not intelligent, nor thoughtful and perhaps not even fashionable, so I really couldn’t care less about your opinion.”
Shelby burst into laughter, even one of MG’s cronies had a little chuckle.
Books for Girls - 4 Great Stories for 8 - 12 Year Olds Page 17
