My bullying nearly killed her

Nicky started calling a girl at school names thinking it was a laugh. But things got out of hand...

Penny had thick glasses, wiry ginger hair, and a face full of freckles. She hardly spoke in class and when she did it was usually to make some kind of sarcastic comment, or take a dig at one of the rest of us for not being as brainy as her.

She made me look dumb

One day I put my hand up to answer a question and, when I got it wrong, I could hear Penny sniggering. She shouted out the right answer in a really smug way and made me look a total numb-brain!

“At least I'm not a ginger minger!”

I had to say something back, so I shouted, "at least I'm not a ginger minger!".

Everyone started laughing and joined in shouting "ginger minger" at her. Penny started crying and I got sent out of the class.

Picking on her felt good

I know it sounds horrible, but seeing her cry like that made me feel good.

I don't know why, it was like finding a new power. After that I started calling Penny names whenever I saw her. My friends would do the same and we said some really horrible things. She used to try and say stuff back, but it was always really lame and we'd laugh at her even more.

Sometimes we'd hide Penny's belongings at school. We used to think it was hilarious to see her searching around for it. And when we found out her mobile phone number we sent her text messages and phoned her up, putting on funny voices and trying to trick her.

It was only a bit of fun

I never really thought about how it was affecting Penny. We were only having a laugh with her. I suppose I just thought that, because Penny was so clever, she'd just think we were idiots and forget it. But it turned out it was affecting her a lot.

At school one morning, me and a few of my friends got called to see the Headmistress. She told us that Penny was in hospital because she'd drank some bleach. She said she'd done it because she wanted to get away from the bullying.

I felt absolutely awful. It was only supposed to be a joke, I had no idea Penny had taken it all so badly. I started crying right in front of my friends and couldn't stop. I said I'd do anything to make it OK.

The school arranged for me to have counselling.

The counsellor was really good. We talked a lot about my family and how my big sister treated me like I'd treated Penny. It made me understand my sister a bit better and helped me see that picking on someone else was not a good way to make myself feel important.

I learned a better way

After a while I talked to Mum and Dad about everything and then my sister. It was good to get everything out in the open. Now if something bothers me, I talk to my family about it, and my sister doesn't pick on me anymore.

“I sent her a letter saying I'm sorry”

I sent a letter to Penny saying how sorry I was. I still haven't heard back from her. She went to a different school after what happened. I hope she's happier there.

I've found that saying nice things and making other people feel good about themselves makes me feel much better than making fun of them ever did. I think I would like to be counsellor when I'm older.