I was bullied all day every day. But, from a really early age, I fought back. It didn't make it happen less though. I ended up building defence mechanisms around myself that I became known as the biggest freak in every school I went to. I had people try and kill me, follow me home, throw rocks at my house and even burn the whiskers off my cat (they didn't get away with that...I burnt their 'whiskers' off...as well as a few other choice body parts)
My favourite retaliation to a particular bully happened in year 10. A particularly cocky boy in my year (Jesse) had been giving me shit since the day he saw me. I was in Science, in a bad mood because I had just found out several pieces of bad news, and I was looking for an excuse to make someone a target. Jesse was hassling me as usual in Science. I was sitting in the front desk, just infront and to the left of the teachers desk who was actually sitting there (Mr Lindsay was the best...You'll see why.) Jesse would not shut up, saying things about me, my friends, family...The usual topics for bullies. I swore at him quite a bit, but Mr Lindsay seemed to have selective deafness, because no mater which vulgar words I used, he never heard them, but as soon as Jesse swore, Lindsay would bark at him to watch his tongue. I decided that I would give him a chance to save himself, and thus warned him that he had 'exactly 3 seconds to remove himself from my sight or I would do my best to kill him before the teachers restrained me' (exact wording). He laughed at me. I held 3 fingers up just to be sure the message got through his extremely thick skull, and counted down. By the time I reached one, he hadn't moved and was still laughing, saying something about how Mr Lindsay wouldn't let me. I stood up and walked around my desk (my friend Jazmyn who was sitting next to me started putting my books in my bag for me). Jesse had stopped laughing by this point. I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him just outside the classroom door and started to punch every piece of him I could reach. Within seconds of his squealing like a piglet caught in a trap, every student in the surrounding science classes had flocked to the doors of their classrooms to see what was happening. I continued pummelling Jesse, all but oblivious to the cheers and requests from the other students. I was outside, mindlessly trying to systematically disassemble his body, for at least 5 minutes before Mr Lindsay pushed his way infront of my classmates (please note that if he REALLY wanted to get past he would have been there sooner). He looked at me and seemed to be fighting himself...The teacher in him saying he should stop me, and the normal HUMAN part of him telling him to let me beat Jesse to a bloody pulp. In the end, he said, in a rather bored tone I might add, 'Amanda come back in side. Amanda, let him go. Put him down Amanda!' This last being in response to me lifting Jesse bodily about 2 feet off the ground and repeatedly smashing him into the concrete wall. Seeing as I respected Mr Lindsay, I did what he said. To the letter. I let Jesse drop to the ground in a heap and stepped over him, deliberately placing one foot square on his chest to get myself over the little turd. Mr Lindsay just told me to sit down, calm as you like as if nothing had happened, then yelled at Jesse to go to the Deputies office for disrupting the class.
Later that day I was called to the Deputies office as well. Mr Scotton (the deputy) sat me down and asked me what happened. I told him the exact truth. In the end he said 'We have to do something about this. I've called your mother and told her, and she is coming to pick you up. I'm sending you home for the rest of the day. Also, you will be placed on level 1, so teachers will be monitoring your behaviour in class for a week.'
I found out later that Jesse had ended up with a 21 day suspension, followed by being on level 4 which meant he had to get teachers to sign a form after every class, had to sit in the office during recess and lunch and wasn't allowed to go to any school discos, excursions, performances or events for the rest of the year.
Oh, and when I told my mum what happened, she bought me my favourite take away dinner that night.
