My friend Chelsea and I were walking to the student parking lot to put our stuff away before the pep rally. The school bell had rung for the day and everyone was excited to see the Bayside Barracudas beat the Oakland Orioles in a game of football. As we walked outside, we heard someone yelling for help. Chelsea and I decided to check it out. We walked around the building and the yelling got louder. Peeking our heads around the corner, we saw Loca holding a kid upside down by his ankles. She was standing right next to a huge dumpster. Bianca and Muffy were watching on the sidelines and laughing. We’ve got to stop this. I moved from around the corner with Chelsea right on my tail and marched right up to Loca, tapping her shoulder. She turned around and looked down at me. She was at least a foot taller than us. I gulped.

“What do you want?” Loca says in a deep, mean voice.

“Put him down,” I say, standing my ground.

Loca laughs and turns back around, still grasping onto the kid’s leg. I cleared my throat and raised my voice so she knew that I meant business.

“I SAID… put him down. I’ll tell the principal about your activities.”

“Look, Baxter, this has nothing to do with you. Loca was just giving him his punishment for spilling his cup of ice cream on my new blouse,” Bianca informs me.

“I’m sure it was an accident,” I say.

“It wasn’t an accident. He obviously did it on purpose because he was jealous at how popular we are,” Muffy says.

“You guys are so insecure. Everything isn’t about you. You bully people just to make yourselves feel better. You can’t stand the sight of anyone else being happy, so you sabotage them and most of the time get away with it. But not anymore,” I say.

“Aww, Miss Goody-Two-Shoes is trying to preach to us. Yawn. You think you know everything, Baxter. You need to learn to keep your mouth shut,” Bianca says, getting in my face.

“I’m not scared of you, Bianca,” Raven says.

“Yeah, we’re not scared of you!” Chelsea repeats. 

“Haha! Cute…” Bianca laughs.

“Loca, put the kid down right now or I’m going to tell the principal! You don’t want another week of detention, do you?”

“You want me to put him down? Okay.”

She picks the kid up in her arms and drops him in the dumpster. The posse laughs and gives each other high fives.

“You’re a mess, Baxter,” Bianca says.

“But next time, that’ll be you if you ever interrupt our punishment sessions again!” Loca yells in my face, making Chelsea jump a little. I still hold my ground and stare them right in the eyes. I’m not scared of them anymore. Chelsea and I rush to the dumpster and help the kid get out of the dumpster.

“You okay?” Chelsea asks.

“Yeah, I’m fine now,” he says,” I’m used to getting bullied. I’m a short, geeky freshman with glasses and an allergy problem. Bullies are naturally attracted to me.”

“No one deserves to be bullied,” I tell him.

He nods his head and grins at us,” Thanks for helping. Most people just walk on by.”

“Good thing we’re not most people,” Chelsea replies.

“Come on, let’s tell the principal what happened.”

“Oh yeah! Let’s see if my new cell phone has been good to me,” the boy takes his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and smiles. We look at him confused and he smirks at us. “I have this cool recording feature on my phone – I recorded the whole thing!”

“So… you have evidence that they did this to you,” I say.

“Exactly. Maybe he’ll believe me more.”

“You also have two witnesses,” Chelsea says.

“Let’s show those bullies what we’re made of!” He cheers. We all laugh and walk back into the school building, straight to the principal’s office.