I met someone that was one of Mackenzies teachers years ago. She told me that MC was being picked on by a group of boys. She would not tell me what was said but they did say it had something to do with her under-bite. It sounded like this group of boys harassed her for an extended period of time. This teacher said they wrote a letter to the principle about the issue. She did not know how the situation was resolved. I was given the impression that MC was a little nerdy and a very good student. This was a couple of years ago; she had no current knowledge of MC school situation.
Some years ago while playing 'assistant teacher' I witnessed a teen who was shy, non-talkative and seemed to not be able relate to anyone. He kept mainly to himself. He also had no apparent 'physical uniqueness', such as did MC, but occassionally various groups of students would pick on him simply because they thought he was different based on his shyness and his keeping to himself. Now that I think of it, I never saw anyone tease him one on one, it was always groups.
The teen resisted the taunting. Always. The taunters would leave him after a few minutes of teasing and heckling. I and other teachers talked to him and advised him to stand up for himself and try to make friends. He was always polite and thanked us.
The taunting continued through his freshman year and through to his sophmore year. That year, while leaving school for the day I saw a group of teens following behind him, teasing him, and as usual he continued walking and ignored them.
Then a tall teen (~6') had stepped up closer to behind the boy (~5'6) and began to taunt louder. The others in the group (3, one was a girl) kept up but stopped taunting.
They were still on school grounds and I could still hear and see what was happening. The boy said nothing, continued walking and ignored him.
Out of the blue the tall teen reached forward, grabbed the boy's shoulder, spun him around and punched him square in the mouth.
The boy's head and body jerked backwards as he caught his balance while stepping back as he dropped his books. I could see a blood trickle appear from his lower lip. He touched his mouth and pulled away a bloody hand.
The group stopped in their tracks and the tall teen turned his head a bit toward the group and began laughing. The other 2 boys began laughing, the girl seemed dumbfounded.
I couldn't believe it. I started to approach the scene but suddenly stopped when I saw the boy wipe his hand on his pants and calmly walk up to the tall teen. The group simply stood there as the tall teen began taunting again, now in a lower voice.
In a blur the boy tackled the tall teen, brought him down hard to the ground and yelled in a super loud tone: "STOP". I could see some blood had dripped on tall teen's shirt. The boy held his fist back behind his head, as if threatening to hit him. The group was frozen, tall teen was motionless.
Within a few seconds the boy lowered his fist and stood up. He looked at the group and quietly said: "Stop." He picked up his 2 books and walked away.
Tall teen got up, staggered a bit and started yelling names and trash but the group was having none of it. The girl said, "Leave him alone.".
In teachers conference we discussed the boy and not one teacher ever witnessed the boy talk back to his teasers until that day. In fact they all confirmed he stayed out of everyones way. He participated in class only when called upon, was a grade A-B student but other than that he was a quiet, seemingly-calm kid. We agreed the taunting teens must have felt threatened in some way by him. One teacher commented she had heard one of her girls talking nicely about the boy and the other boys around her were peaved.
Having witnessed such, I can imagine what MC must have experienced and I wonder if and how she dealt with the situation? Did she one day stand up for herself, perhaps too strongly, dis'ing a 'lead' taunter to such a degree that it ultimately resulted in MC's demise? Or is this case about something entirely different, not related to her 'tease' situations?
Which one of the following applies in this case?
- Love gone wrong / cheat
- Disrespect / threatened (this applies to my story, above)
- Money / owe / owed / thievery
- Drugs / payment / witness transaction