The Bully Book (19 page)

Finally, silence. They stopped and all headed for the cabin at the side of the hills. I hid my bike in some underbrush and slid under the cabin's wooden porch. I lay there for nearly 5 hours.

I heard them joking and laughing and playing music. Then Adrian and Donovan's voices were on the porch, above me.

“Remember when we did this last year?” said Adrian.

“I was scared,” Donovan answered.

“Me too, but it worked out real good,” Adrian said. “I'm glad the Keepers picked Jason. Or this year would've sucked.”

“I'm just glad Jason picked us as lieutenants instead of Grunts!” Donovan laughed.

“Yeah, Haskins did pretty good, didn't he?”

“The Book was right,” Donovan agreed. “He was the perfect one.”

“Don't you feel stupid!” It sounded like Adrian grabbed Donovan and had him in a headlock.

“Get off me!” yelled Donovan.

“Say it!” Adrian taunted. “Say, ‘I was wrong'! Say, ‘I'm stupid'!”

“I was wrong!” Donovan gasped. “I'm stupid!”

Adrian laughed. “It's been a good year, bro.”

Donovan coughed and I heard them give a weak high five. “Yeah,” he said.

“Get in here, fools!” Crazypants yelled from inside the cabin. “There's work to do.”

Adrian and Donovan clomped inside.

What were they talking about? I thought. I “did pretty good”? I didn't do anything to help them. They just attacked me. I've been working against them all year.

I wanted to jump out from under the porch and grab them, shake them, and scream, “How did I do good? What did I do good for you?” But I knew that was stupid. They'd overtake me, and here in the woods, I'd have no place to run. The best plan was just to stay calm, lie on the ground beneath the porch, and wait them out. I'd overhear what I could and play the rest by ear.

After a few hours, the sun was setting and Lake-in-the-Woods grew dark. I heard them shoving and razzing each other. I peeked through a crack between two wood planks and watched the three of them board the golf cart, Jason in the driver's seat with Adrian next to him, Donovan standing on the step in the back. Adrian and Jason joked and started up the engine while Donovan stood still, dead-faced in the moonlight. We weren't more than 10 feet apart, but it's the farthest away I've ever felt from someone.

When the noise of the golf cart was distant enough, I crawled out of the ditch beneath the porch and dusted myself off. I entered the cabin and found tables covered in red cloth, and banners hanging up on the walls, painted with golden crowns. On the center table, there were candles burning around a large black box tied with a single white string. I slid the string off of the box without disturbing the knot and, as I suspected, found a red leather binder inside.

On its cover were the golden stencils Daniel Friedman had described to me. THE BOOK in bold letters and a golden crown. It was directly in front of me.

I read it as quickly as someone can read a thing that's ruined his life, which I guess is to say, I didn't read it very quickly at all. With each page I felt another sting. It was describing the last year of my life. As if my whole life had been planned out to this point. And oh yes—

I found out what the Grunt is.

When I first read it, I couldn't believe how simple it was. When I read it again, I got so mad that I tore out half the page and threw it on the floor. Then I picked up the crumbled paper and read it again. Now I think I'll spit on it and stick it here in this journal:

I have a feeling they'll be back soon, but I don't know what to do with this book. I can't just leave it, that's for sure. I can't let them do this to another kid next year, but if I steal it or destroy it, The Evil Three will know. What if they have a backup copy? They'd just replace it.

The Grunt is the person in your class who is most defined by what he is not. Someone who does not know who he is.

The more I read this, the truer it seems. You may not be a good principal, Tony Clark, but you're not dumb.

I look at Richard and Daniel and Clarence. Who are these kids?

They're Grunts and that's all. They've wholly absorbed that identity; their lives revolve around it. Richard became an angry maniac, Daniel a solitary weirdo, and Clarence an obsessive-compulsive. What were they before 6th grade? What carried over from their pre-Grunt lives?

The Evil Three have been gone for some time now. And I've been alone with my thoughts.

I've always seen myself as exceedingly normal. I prided myself on it, nothing weird about me at all. I've been a blank canvas for the Bully Bookers to paint their Grunt on.

I can't imagine this happening to someone like Jason Crazypants or even Colin Greene. They would have fought back, or ignored it and gone on living.

I was obsessed with why I was the Grunt. What made me the Grunt? But I totally accepted that I was the Grunt.

I never once said, This is not who I am. Because, maybe, I didn't know who I was, so I just let someone else tell me.

I never talked about it, not to Dad or Mom or Whitner, because I was ashamed.

Ashamed of the person they told me I was.

The Bully Book doesn't work if the Grunt has friends. It says it right here, isolate the Grunt. I see what they did with Melody and me. They were clever.

I have my yearbook here with me still. I opened it up to the page that Melody signed, and read what she wrote:

Dear Eric,

I am so sorry for what happened this year. At first it seemed like we were both embarrassed and avoiding each other. And then I kinda got over it, but thought you still didn't want to talk. Then the thing with Jason happened, and that's, like, a whole other story, but I still thought about you and was trying to make things better for you any way that I could.

I know that it didn't work out the way that I planned. I should have stopped going out with him when I realized that—I don't really know what I was thinking.

I just want to say that I'm sorry and I feel terrible, but you're still one of the best friends I've ever had.

I really hope I didn't screw it up completely and that we can be back to how we were someday.

Have a really good summer, Eric. Call me if you want to hang out.

—Melody

I see what I did wrong.

I played by the rules of The Book.

The Book told them to isolate me, and I helped it along. I didn't try and explain things to Melody. I didn't respond when she tried to talk to me. I thought I couldn't be her friend anymore, because she was wrapped up with the Bully Bookers and The Book.

Just how The Book wanted me to feel.

I should have been better to Colin. We could have gone through this year together, but I saw him as a tool, someone I needed to use to solve the mystery. I treated him like someone in my way, but he could have been a friend.

The Bully Book commanded and I obeyed. I followed every rule.

The Book changed me.

And now I'm going to change it. I've kept my journals with me all year, like a casebook. They're a record of my transformation into the Grunt. All my pain and struggles are in these pages—and now they'll be in The Bully Book, too.

I'm adding my journals to The Book, starting from the beginning. I'll blend them with the pages of The Bully Book itself, so they can't be easily unlinked. This is the other half of the story. The Grunt speaks.

The Evil Three won't read The Book before they pass it on. The first people to read this blend will be next year's Bully Bookers. I don't know how they'll react to it. I don't know what they'll do with it.

Future Bully Bookers: I'm talking to you.

I don't know if my story will speak to you.

If you have any heart at all, you'll stop. If you have any brains at all, you know I WILL STOP YOU.

If you've read this blended Bully Book, you'll know what I'm capable of. I've solved the mystery. I know your plans. And I will do everything in my power to make sure there is never again another Grunt.

Right now, I feel a kind of happiness. Not a carefree kind. I don't know if I'll ever feel that again. But I have the kind of gladness that comes with knowing exactly what you have to do.

I'm going back to my friends. I'll make up with Melody and I'll bring Colin into our circle.

I'm taking back my life. No one's dictating to me anymore.

And I'm exposing the madness.

If you are holding this book in your hands, I have a message for you:

The Grunt knows your secrets. He can't be contained. He has everything to gain … and you can only lose.

My greatest thanks to Nick and Matt Lang for teaching me how to do this.

Hanna Pylväinen was my first reader, and she read the entire novel when I was only supposed to submit a short story in her writing class. But she still won't let me read her book!

Jennifer Allison gave me a chance and sent me to my excellent agent, Erica Rand Silverman. Erin Fitzsimmons designed this book beautifully. And my editor, Phoebe Yeh, has made this book better in immeasurable ways.

I'm forever indebted to all the good people at Team StarKid (who are really just my friends) for their incredible support and love. I don't know where I'd be without you.

Mom, Dad, and Alyssa: I love you all like family, so I'm glad it worked out that way.

The Bully Book
is loosely based on events that happened to Eric Kahn Gale in elementary school. When he was eleven years old, he felt like the whole class was conspiring against him. Everyone used the same insults and nicknames, and there didn't seem to be a safe corner of the room or moment in the day.

Looking back on this now, it probably wasn't the organized, well-run machine he thought it was—but in a tough spot like that, perspective is hard to come by. This is why he was inspired to write
The Bully Book
, his first book.

Eric really wants to know what you think about
The Bully Book
. Please write to him at [email protected].

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www.AuthorTracker.com
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Here are some websites and help lines for those seeking information.

BullyBust:

www.schoolclimate.org/bullybust

National Education Association:

www.nea.org/home/NEABullyFreeSchools.html

The Bully Project:

http://thebullyproject.startempathy.org

Stop Bullying:

www.stopbullying.gov

National Bullying Prevention Center:

www.pacer.org/bullying

The Bully Book Copyright© 2011, 2013 by Eric Kahn Gale.

www.harpercollinschildrens.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.