Fighter Girl

I couldn’t tell if it was actually snowing or if the drifting snowflakes were just coming from the snow laden trees from yesterday’s dump of snow. I stared at the drifting little flakes of light wondering if it we might still get a snow day. When I realized how brightly the sun was shining, I gave up that hope.

My phone pinged with a message from Jessica. “Wanna hang out this aft?”

I said ok, but actually I didn’t want to. I didn’t really know who my friends were any more.

At Ringette practice last week, I heard some of the girls talking about a group chat, but they stopped talking when I came around. I asked Lesley about the group and she and Sophie said they weren’t part of it either. Since it was only some of the team, I wasn’t that worried about it, I mean, I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. My friends say I’m like vegemite, an acquired taste.

Anyway, on Friday Lesley comes up to me and says that she wants to talk to me.

“Sure,” I said, a little perplexed by her tone of voice.

“Can we go somewhere private, like maybe outside for a minute? I want to show you something.”

We went outside the door, past the other kids smoking by the doorway.

“So, you know there is this group chat, right? Some of the others from the team are on the chat. Well yesterday I was talking to Callie and she was telling me that they are saying some really mean things about you. I asked her what kind of stuff and she showed me some messages back and forth saying things about you. I just wanted you to know.”

“Ok, well, I mean is it really bad. Like what kind of things are they saying?”

“What I saw was just someone saying that they didn’t like you. But Callie said there was other stuff too.”

“Girls can be so catty and mean.” I was thinking about all the quotes about girls supporting girls. Real queens fix each other’s crowns. That kind of thing. But it doesn’t seem like it’s really like that in the real world.

During the weekend, I tried not to think about it, but actually I felt pretty bad. Not knowing what they were saying or why they would even say something mean about me. Maybe Callie was just trying to get a rise out of Lesley or telling her some gossip so she would feel bad for not being part of the group. Still, I had kind of a low-key weekend.

Jessica and I met up and went to the mall to walk around and see if we could meet up with anyone. I saw Josh there and tried to talk to him, but he didn’t seem super interested. Jessica blathered on a lot and we watched a bunch of Tic Tok’s. Her For You page seems a lot more interesting than mine. Mine is mostly funny cat videos. There was this one where the cat is given a bit of ice cream and as soon as the ice cream hits its mouth, the cat gets all wide-eyed and is up on its’ hind legs just keeping its mouth wide open. Hysterical.

I woke up late and my mom didn’t want to drive me to school because the roads weren’t very good, so I had to hustle out the door to get to the train and then the bus.

After first period, Lesley ran over to me and said mysteriously, “Meet me at lunch, I have to show you something.”

At lunch I met up with Jessica and we found Lesley by the steps down to the Caf. Lesely was with a bunch of other girls and just said, “hey” and looked away. I didn’t say anything about us meeting up and just went over to a table with Jessica to eat. When we were leaving, Lesley ran up behind me and walked with me to the lockers.  

“Come to the washroom with me,” she said. She seemed breathless and a bit weird.

We were alone in the bathroom. Lesley was looking in the mirror and getting different angles while talking to me at the same time. A bit disconcerting. But then she looked at me and got serious and said, “Callie told me about a video that she saw on the group chat. She felt bad about it and I asked her to download it so that we could see it and they wouldn’t find out we were on it. She sent it to me. Do you want to see it?”

“I guess so,” I said. Not so sure at all.

Lesley pulled out her phone and held it up for me to see. I pressed play. It was just a boring video of me in the school hallway. I was walking alone between classes and was holding some books up to my chest. Nothing unusual there. What was unusual was what was being said. There was laughter and a voice over on the video. “Ew. Why does she even exist. She is taking up good space.”

I went to class and tried to just brush it off. It wasn’t really bad or anything. Just not very nice. I was a bit upset when I got home, but when I got to practice everything seemed normal. We did some good drills and I scored a goal in the scrimmage so I felt pretty good. When I got home, my dad gave me the five dollars and a hug. He gives me five dollars whenever I score a goal. I am pretty good so it’s costing him a lot. LOL.

A few days later though, Lesley started showing me more videos. This time, I could barely look at them.

At school, I tried to keep up a brave face and just hang out with my friends and pretend nothing was wrong. But at practice, I wondered which of my teammates had written those awful things. Which one called me a slut? Which one a loser? Which one said I was fat? When I was with my friends I wondered if they thought what the others all thought about me. At night, I would go to my room and scroll my phone, trying to forget about it. My parents knew something was wrong.

“Kaylee?” my dad knocked at my door.  “Why don’t you come down and play cards with us? He opened the door a crack.”

“Dad, I’m busy! I screamed. “Go away!”

“Come on, my little pookie, come and hang out with us for a while.”

I didn’t even answer him. Eventually he left.

The second weekend after I found out about it, I ate breakfast and then went back to my room. I couldn’t stop thinking about the videos and that everyone hated me. I was thinking that maybe I could go to a new school, but then I’d have to quit Ringette too. That seemed stupid. I started crying. I thought it was quiet enough but my dad knocked on the door and then walked in. “Everything isn’t ok, Kaylee. Tell me what’s going on.” I could hear my stepmom hovering near the door too, so I came out and sat down and told them about the videos and the chat room.

My stepmom said, “Oh Kaylee, I’m so sorry you are dealing with all this bullying. It took courage to tell us about it.”

I was actually kind of shocked. I never thought about it as bullying. I don’t know why. I guess because I wasn’t the kind of kid who gets bullied. I was popular and athletic and pretty. Nerds and losers get bullied, not me.

“Bullying happens to lots of kids. It’s not your fault. We are going to figure out how to deal with this.” After we talked about it for a while, we decided the best thing to do was to tell the school and my Ringette coach.

On Monday, my dad called the school and asked to meet with the principal. When we told her about what was happening, she thanked me for coming forward and said that she would deal with it. After that I went to class. I heard a bunch of names from my Ringette team being called to the office. I was really worried that everyone was going to hate me even more now because I had got them all into trouble. My stomach was fluttering all day long.

After school, I told Jessica about what had happened and how I had told my parents and now the principal was involved. Hugging me she said, “I’m so proud of you Kaylee. You stood up for yourself.”

Lesley told me that the site had been taken down and everyone felt really bad about it. She said that Callie told her that it was really just Katrina who had been ring leading the whole thing. She was jealous cause she thought Josh liked me and she liked Josh too.

The worst thing was that we had to go to a Ringette tournament in Hamilton on the weekend and, even though things seemed better at school, I was worried that it was going to feel weird being with them all. My dad drove me and Lesley there and she and I just sat in the back and ate chips and watched Netflix videos.

In the dressing room, we all laughed nervously about the game. It was the first tournament of the season, so we were a bit hyped up. “Remember the last time we played their team last year? They were tough.” “Yeah, I wonder what they put in the water out here. It makes them so much tougher.” “Maybe it’s cause they are closer to the US border.” We all laughed and lots of the girls talked to me and hung around me. The coach shushed us so he could do his usual pumping us up before a game speech.

“Well, we’ve played this team before, so we know they are pretty tough. But we also know that the harder they come, the harder they fall. And we are going to make sure they fall. Right?” “RIGHT!” We yelled back. “This is our first tournament and I want to announce that I’ve decided to ask Kaylee to be Captain this year. Not only is she a great player, but she has shown her true strength and spirit in recent months. Now, come on into the centre girls and before we go on the ice, let’s cheer.”

We all yelled “Strawberry Shortcake. Banana Split. We think your team is full of… Shift to the left, Shift to the right. Let’s go team. Fight, Fight, Fight.”

I was feeling really good when we all got onto the bench. Everyone jostling and smiling at me and we were all cheering and pumped up. The coach called me for my shift. I stepped onto the ice, tentative for a second, and then I let the power blast through my skate. I was a fighter.