Someone tried to bully me once. Only she wasn't very clever (bullies never are) and at first I didn't really understand what she was trying to achieve, so I ignored her. She was a bit bonkers, pulling her trousers down in front of the whole school was a fairly normal occurence, so I just figured she was being her normal odd self. But then she got annoyed that all she got from me in response were confused looks and she tried to beat me up. Failed quite miserably, we didn't get into a fight or anything it was just a really pathetic attempt at physical violence. Anyhoo, even though she hadn't actually hurt me, the penny dropped and I figured she'd only get worse, so I went home and told my mum, who is quite possibly the only person on the planet I know of who's scarier than me. She went absolutely ballistic. My older brother had been bullied when he was at school, by a far more convincing sadist, and his life had been made miserable.
So she stormed into the headmaster's office and really laid into him about it. Demanded the girl got kicked out of school, and he made the usual excuse of the girl having a bad home life. My mum pointed out that she really didn't give a toss about some nutjob's home life she just wanted her kept away from the sane children. The girl disapeared for a few days. When she reappeared she tried to befriend me, I told her where she could stick it and that was that. I don't know if it's just something about my family, but when my brother told on his bully he also tried to chummy up to him afterwards. Tried to take him fishing. Maybe we just appeal to psychopaths.
Another girl tried it on when I was in secondary school, so I punched her right in the face before she managed to hit me and that nipped that one in the bud. Plus, as far as my teachers were concerned, I could do no wrong. So even though it happened right there in the class room I got away with it.
Everyone who says that bullies are cowards are right. They have something unpleasant going on in their life so they look around for someone who looks like an easy target and try to take it out on them. Unfortunately, they're not generally the brightest of people, and standing up to them before they've managed to hurt you generally does work. It puts them off, and they'll look around for an easier mark.
Most people though, have left me alone. I freely admit to being an odd child, and most of the other kids realised that it was a worrying sort of odd and didn't bother me.
