An 8th grader's Life Lesson (For IshiaGreensa)

[GuardianWolves]

it was 10 am at Bancroft private school and all the students were outside on the playground and just having a fun time talking with each other, playing games like tag with each other, etc. So many students were outside that it was hard for administrators and staff to be able to keep track of all the students for each class group. Regardless though, they did their best to keep track of everyone, unfortunately for one unlucky third grader, this was not the case. She had been cornered by a bunch of the meaner older students and were now bullying her because she didn't ever seem to do well in school and was a little bit slow, so everyone just assumed she was slow in everything else, but they didn't know her at all and had just chosen to judge her based on how she did in school. She didn't know why she was as bad as she was in school, she just was, even though she tried very hard to get better at school. Regardless though, she had found herself in this situation and wondered how she was gonna get out of it.

Luckily for her though, an 8th grader happened to walk by and see what was going on ad went to confront the kids that were bullying the third grader "Hey you guys knock it off, just because of how she does in school, doesn't mean you need to bully her, if your gonna judge someone based on one particular thing, without getting to know them better, then how can you know if she isn't trying her best to be able to get better in school?" He told them as he waited for their response and ready to stand and fight to protect the younger girl if he had to, he would not let anyone get bullied while he was still at this school. After a bit of thinking the students had decided that the girl wasn't worth their bullying and just walked away leaving the young girl alone. The 8th grader turned to her and asked "hey, are you okay there? I won't let them bully you anymore." He told her as he looked at her and hoped that she was alright as he helped her to her feet and dusted off whatever he could on her clothes since she had taken a fall.

[Ishigreensa]

Jessica, a girl with gold yellow hair and blue eyes looked up at the eighth grader with shiny eyes and after assessing that he had chased three girls from her own grade off along with some fourth and fifth graders who joined in calling her dumb and stuff, she ran over and hugged him.

She was new to the school, actually, only being about a week or so there.  She wasn't bullied until the third day when the teacher told her to read and she kept stumbling over "easy" words, and then in math the next day, they had math races, and she caused her team to lose because she was too slow to answer her own "easy" problem.

Jessica let go of the hug and she looked up at him.

"They were being mean cause I didn't read the book right," she said a small smile on her tear streaked face.  "Do you know why they so mean like that?"

She then started to follow him around and that made it rather difficult for anyone to bother her at this recess.  She was sorry when the bell rang and he went away and she had to go back to her class.  At least her teacher could stop anyone being mean, but she liked having kid on her side, even if he was huge!

[GuardianWolves]

He nodded and said "I'm sorry to hear that, I won't let anyone bother you like that again." He told her as he added "No, I don't believe I do. Wish I did though." He said as he walked with her and used one of his hands to lightly wipe the tears away from her face and when the bell rang, he let her go back to her class. He then started to wonder if there were any other girls that were getting bullied like her that he could maybe help if he was able to stop the people bulling them in time. Regardless though, he had to go to class and so, he left, wishing he could keep the young girl by his side so that no one bullied her anymore.

He went through classes like normal until lunch time and then went back outside and sat down on a nearby bench, wondering how that young girl was doing by herself in her class and hoped that everyone would treat her better, he wasn't about to get into anything with anyone. He would make sure that the teachers could do something about it. He wouldn't bother and wouldn't have it any other way either. He had gotten a permission slip in his class, apparently the school was gonna be taking some of the classes in the school to Disneyland for the weekend and his class was one of them that was going.

[Ishigreensa]

Jessica started out playing after lunch by herself until she noticed her new friend was outside again.  She came running over to him and then sat next to him.

"Did I tell you my name?" she asked him.  She found her finger going towards her mouth, but she didn't stop it slipping into the corner of it.

"I'm Jessie.  My real name is Jessica, but everyone calls me Jessie."

She smiled up at him.

He didn't see anyone else being bullied, but there was one other girl kind of sitting off to herself, who was in the fifth grade.  NO one talked to her, but they didn't call her names either.

[GuardianWolves]

"Nice to meet you Jessie. My name is Jason. Can you tell me how old you are and what grade your in?" He asked her as he watched her putting her finger in her mouth, but didn't say anything about it right now because he knew that she would be upset probably if he told her something about it, plus, he didn't want her to think he was mean after he had saved her earlier from the mean kids that had been bullying her. "So, do you wanna play a game with me? If so, what kind of game do you wanna play?" He asked her as he looked at her softly and waited for her answer to his question. He noticed another shy girl off by herself, but she didn't seem to be in much trouble, he would try and invite her to come and play with them if she wanted to.

[Ishigreensa]

Jessica shrugged.

"I don't know.  I just don't want to bother anyone or have them bother us."

She looked down.

"Do you have any pocket games or games where we don't have to move a lot?"

 

[GuardianWolves]

"Sure, I have a deck of UNO cards we can use to play a game of UNO if you want." He told her as he pulled out the deck of cards and began to setup the game for them to play. He then started to play with Jessica until the bell rang, which would be an hour from then. After a bit of playing though, he thought he could notice her moving around uncomfortably on the seat as she played and decided not to bring it up at the moment, because he didn't wanna make her embarrassed about him bringing up something that might not even be needed to take care of and he could be reading it wrong.

[Ishigreensa]

The third grader with yellow blond hair smiled and clapped when he brought out one of her favorite card games of all times.  She squirmed in excitement and played enthusiastically.

Meanwhile, the lonely fifth grader wandered around the yard and eventually came upon the pair of them playing, and just stood there watching them for a while.  She smelled kind of funny, as though maybe she didn't have a bath recently, but somehow, the other fifth graders didn't really notice or care.

If he were to look carefully though, he would see that the real reason she smelled bad, was she had an old damp area in the back of her pants where she had been sitting, and as it started to dry, it was hard to tell how long she had been sitting in wet pants.

[GuardianWolves]

Jason noticed the quiet 5th grader and asked her "would you like to come and play with us for a little bit?" He asked her as he motioned for her to come and play with them and come sit down next to Jessica. Once she was sitting down, he handed her some cards and the three of them started a game again. After a while though, he noticed that both girls seemed to be a little bit fidgety, but he didn't know what they were being fidgety about and just decided to leave it alone and let them tell him if they wanted to and just continued playing the game until they decided that they wanted to play something else or that they needed a break.

[Ishigreensa]

As the older girl, named Anna, a Hispanic girl that spoke English, but still had a little trouble with it sometimes, when she was looking for specific words for what she wanted to say, as she had already peed her pants a while ago, her fidgeting had nothing to do with needing to pee.  Her butt was now almost dry.  

The seat in the classroom still had a bit of a puddle in it, and because she was too nervous to tell anyone what she did, she would end up sitting in it when she went back to class getting her pants wet in cold urine again.

The younger girl, Jessica, however, did sort of have to pee, but she was having fun playing and wanted nothing to do with the bathrooms while her classmates were outside and able to go there, too.  She knew they would be mean to her, but with this eighth grader, she was safe and happy, so she just bounced a bit and kept playing.

[GuardianWolves]

"Hey Jessie? You look uncomfortable, you okay?" Jason asked her as he put his cards down for a moment and decided to see what was wrong after he noticed that she was bouncing a little bit, he had a hunch that it was also because she was just happy at the moment and if that was the case, he wouldn't push the issue anymore because he didn't wanna make her feel like he was asking her about something embarrassing and potentially losing the trust he had started to build.

[Ishigreensa]

Jessica nodded when he asked if she was okay.

"I just really happy," she lied not wanting to go anywhere near those bathrooms where the kids might cause trouble for her.

Anna frowned and shook her head.

"She has to pee," she whispered to them both.  "I know what it looks like because it happens to me, too," she whispered her face now red.  "She probably scared those kids over there."

She pointed at some third and fourth graders near the bathroom.

Jessica frowned.  

"Hey!  I didn't say you peed your pants!" she said getting upset that Anna outed her.

"I know.  I just don't want you to get in trouble.  No one cares about me, so it's okay.  But you might get laughed if you pee your pants at recess."

Jessica frowned.

"But the bullies are over there."

[GuardianWolves]

"I could take you to the nurse's office and you could use the bathroom there if you don't wanna have to use the girls bathroom, okay?" He told her calmly as he added "I just wanna make sure you're okay and comfortable. If the both of you want, we can go to the nurses office and that way Jessie can use the nurses office bathroom and you can get your clothes changed." He told Anna and Jessie as he started to get up and wait to see what they were both gonna wanna do, he didn't want either of them to be upset, or especially be wet for the rest of the day. But, he also knew he wasn't a family member of either of the girls and he didn't wanna overstep where he wouldn't be allowed to overstep.

[Ishigreensa]

Jessica nodded and reached up for his hand, but Anna shook her head and looked at the ground as she mumbled out.

"I don't want the nurse to find out.  I didn't want anyone to find out.  I'll get... get in trouble."

She was starting to shake a little bit.

[GuardianWolves]

"Why not, I don't think it's a good idea that you stay in those wet clothes, you'll eventually get a rash on your bottom, and I don't think that it will feel very good for you, if you have to keep in those wet clothes for the rest of the day. It's better if you at least can wipe yourself off for a while." He said as he tried to keep a calm attitude while he would do his best to convince her to come to the nurses office with them and wondered how much longer that Jessica had before she ended up in the same position that the shy 5th grader had ended up in, but he didn't know how long she had been like that.

[Ishigreensa]

Anna frowned.

"No.  I don't want the nurse to know, please.  Please don't make me."

She started to get tears in her eyes.

"Please."

Jessica started to squirm in earnest.

Tears came to her eyes as she realized that if he continued to fight with Anna to come with them, she was going to pee her pants, too.

[GuardianWolves]

"Alright then, I won't make you do that if you don't want to." He said as he took Jessica by the hand and led her off to the nurses office, while he left the other girl to sit where they had been playing their game and walked through another entrance where the mean girls that Jessica had told him about were most likely not standing and got her into the nurses office and explained what he knew about the situation to the nurse before releasing her hand to let her go and rush into the bathroom, before something bad happened to her clothes.

[Ishigreensa]

The nurse frowned.

"I want to talk to Jessie for a while, so you can see her maybe tomorrow.  I need to figure out how bad this bullying is."

She then took Jessica by the hand to the back to get her to the toilet.

[GuardianWolves]

"From the way she sounded, that might not be the best option, but I don't want her to be bullied either, I'll let you do what's best. I'll see her tomorrow then I guess." He said as he left to go back out to the yard where he went to go check on the other girl and see if she was okay.

Once he sat down again he played another game of UNO with her until he thought he heard the bell ring and went to pack up the cards before he went inside and upstairs to where his classes were and started with his lessons.

[Ishigreensa]

"You didn't tell on me?" Anna asked.

She looked down.

"If I can get my pants to dry before my dad picks me up, he won't know I peed.  I did it before.  If he finds out, I'll be in a lot of trouble."

She shivered.

"I know it sounds weird to you, but I do prefer to wear my wet pants to getting in trouble with him.

[GuardianWolves]

"I didn't tell on you." He told her ignoring the other stuff she had said, thinking it might be better that way instead of getting involved. When the bell rang though, he just went to class, making sure that the young 5th grader got off to her class as well and then went to his own class and sat down in it and started his lessons until the end of the day came and everyone left to go home for the day. Jason went and started walking home and by the time he was home he just did the normal stuff he had to do, before he went to bed later that night and then woke up when it was time for him to get ready for school and he started the walk over to the school. Once he got there, he went to his classroom and waited for the morning lessons to begin, returning the signed permission slip and then when recess claim, he went to go sit down at the tables again and just waited to see what would happen today and wondered how Jessica was doing.

[Ishigreensa]

When Jason came to the school yard that morning, he would have see Jessica sitting by herself near where the third graders line up, and Anna was sitting where he sat with her the day before at lunch.

At the morning recess, both girls walked around until they found him, and then they sat next to him.

"So...." Anna started.  "How come you helped both me and Jessie yesterday?"

She was curious as to why anyone cared about the two kids most everyone else either hated or just didn't care about.

[GuardianWolves]

"Because people were bullying you two and I wanted to make sure that no one makes fun of you just because of things that they think are bad that may or may not be your fault. There's an old saying that people used to go by and that saying is 'don't judge a book by it's cover' it means that you shouldn't judge a person based on what you see, judge them for their actions and themselves as a person, don't judge them until you know them better and can make a better decision." He told them both as he let them sit next to him and wondered why they had asked him such a question, if he had it his way, those kids wouldn't be able to bother them anymore and they wouldn't be able to make fun of these two girls, but he knew that it would just lead to trouble that he didn't need and so, he decided to just go through the school instead.

[Ishigreensa]

Anna smiled.

"I see."

He lost Jessica completely by his explanation, but she crawled into his lap anyway and looked up at him.

"So you protect us, right?"

Apparently, the two girls were also asked to go on the trip, and they were going to be assigned a guardian big kid to watch out for them.

"Come office with us," Jessica asked him.  "All of elementary school go trip, and we have to have big kid watch third grade.  I want you, so come and talk principal with me?  I don't want someone I don't know make fun me."

Anna nodded.

"Yeah.  They said the big kids were going to be assigned to two younger kids each.  I want you to be in charge if they let us pick you."

[GuardianWolves]

"Alright, then. We can go." He said as he let Jessica hop off his lap and would walk with both girls and got to the office.

He then walked inside with both girls and turned in his permission slip for the trip and let the girls ask about him being their guardian big kid during the trip.

While he waited, he started to try and think about how he would continue to gain their trust.