I didn’t tell my parents, any teacher, or even my sister because of fear. The bully had threatened me against telling anybody. Looking back, I should have told somebody.
The main event I would like to tell you about is the day the bullying all ended. Happy it was not however. That day, I got a text on my mobile off the bully, who had obviously got my number. It told me to wait outside of the school gate at 3.30, because my time was up. I was petrified, as you might expect. But I lived in fear of these bullies, so I met up with them after school. They waiting till everyone had disappeared, then they hit me and dragged me to the nearby field.
Next, they threw up a stick onto one of the electrical wires, and told me to climb up the pylon, and fetch the stick. Highly dangerous. The pylon was rusty, and very unstable. But I lived in fear, so I did so. I started climbing the metal mountain, and as my feet and hands touched some areas of the pylon, pieces would fall away, down to the ground. I was petrified. The only noise drowning out the jeers of those below was the sound of my heart beating in fear. All of a sudden the jeering stopped. I stopped, struggled round and managed to look down. I saw the bullies huddling round in a circle formation. I wanted to go down, but I was too scared to, just in case they noticed and I wouldn’t know what they would do to me. So I stayed up the pylon, looking down.
It was up there for about 30 minutes. They seemed to have forgotten about me. I was starting to get dark, my legs and arms were aching from the holding on, and I felt the pylon move under the strain of the every growing wind. My heart was still beating heavily, so heavily I didn’t hear the sound of nearby sirens.
Suddenly, these other people ran to the circular crowd out of the blue. There were 3 of them, 1 in blue, and the others wearing bright yellow jackets, with “Paramedic” written on them. They had brought a stretcher board, and were dealing with a person lying on the ground, which I’d only just seen since the circle had dispersed.
There was some conversation with one of the bully’s and the blue person. They both looked up and saw me, the blue person beckoning me to come down. I did so, slowly.
They then took me to the hospital and treated me for the slight cuts on my body.
What had happened was as I was climbing up the pylon, one of the metal pieces had fallen away, and had landed on the main bully’s head, knocking her unconscious. The others had crowded round her, and one of them phoned for an ambulance. She was rushed to hospital at same time as me for internal bleeding in the head, and possible brain damage.
She died on the operating table, after being admitted in hospital for 5 hours.
Her mates came clean about how they had been bullying me, and what had happened that evening, and they were expelled from the school.
My life slowly got better after that, but I was racked with guilt because I felt I caused the death. I was taken to court for manslaughter, but I was found not guilty.
The message of this is that bullying is dangerous, not to the victim, but to the bully as well.
However, this is just a story.
Chris Pilkington
