A bully’s story

I walked down the hallways of East Wood High to look for my new plaything, new kid Johnson, who had just moved from Malaysia to our sleepy town of East Wood, due to his parents' work.

"This will be fun," I thought to myself. I then proceeded to trip him up and laugh along with everyone in the hallway. All he did was just ignore me and the other people.

Now, I may be a bully, but I wasn't always like that. It didn't help much that I looked and was built like a bully, and wherever I went, I was labeled as a bully, so why not live up to my label? I had also lost both my parents in an accident (cliche, I know) and got taken in by another family who had a daughter who was also a bully. I guess you can say I learnt much of my bullying from her. However, unlike my half-sister, who cyberbullies and harrasses her victims, which can be anybody she chooses, I just do minor harrasment to people I don't really like, such as Johnson.

I didn't really like Johnson because he was always showing off how wealthy he was. He always showed up with expensive things that I can only dream about almost everyday and he always had a bunch of people near him. Petty and stupid of me, I know.

Each day goes by like clockwork, and I notice that Johnson never fights back. Why? This is the question I wanted answers to and so I asked him. His answer surprised me.

He told me that he was once a bully himself and he got expelled many times. His parents' work? They were taken by a plane crash 19 years ago. His expensive things? They were just knockoffs.

"How are you still accepted to schools at this point?" I asked him. He told me that he was a volunteer worker that stops bullying all around the world. How this thing works is that the organization sends previously troubled kids to schools with high bullying rates and tries to stop them like that. Kind of like the 'Use a crook to catch a crook' principle.

I refleted on my mistakes that night I went back home. I didn't want to get expelled! I thought about all the people I've harrassed and felt sorry for them for the first time. The next day, I waited for Johnson at the school gates. He never came. I cried myself to bed that night, all the while thanking him from my heart, as he let me see the monster I've became.