Basketball and Bullies. T. K. Valentic

is this about?" Betsy asked Jane.

      "I don’t know, but I know that Jake and Charlie got into an argument with Chad this morning. I think it has something to do with him taking money from Emily. She's Charlie's cousin."

      "What happened?" Betsy asked.

      “Chad wanted me and Emily to pay him a dollar every day. I’ve heard he’s doing that to some other kids too. Charlie saw him trying to take my money this morning and he stopped it."

      "Well that’s good," Betsy said.

      "For today at least; I don’t know what I’m going to do tomorrow when Charlie is not there," Jane said.

      "We’ll think of something," Betsy reassured her.

      When four o’clock rolled around, there were quite a few kids seated in the auditorium. Jake, Alexia, and the four other student council members were sitting in chairs on the stage.

      Jake as the student council president brought the meeting to order. He looked a little nervous and cleared his throat several times. "Um, I’m glad so many of you came to our meeting. I’m here to announce a new club that we are organizing to deal with a serious problem that has cropped up at our school."

      "What problem? More pizza in the school cafeteria," someone called out.

      "More pizza in the cafeteria would be great, but no, it's not pizza," Jake continued, "As your class president I made a promise to each of you to make this school a better place. Lately, there have been a few students who are making life miserable for some of our other students." Some of the students, mostly the popular ones, looked at each other and shrugged. The students clearly had no idea what Jake was talking about.

      Alexia stood up, "I know some of you don’t know what has been happening. These bullies pick on the fourth graders or kids that look a little different than the rest of us. It’s not right and we at Morristown Middle School Student Council are not going to allow it to continue. Our new club will try to prevent and address the bullying that has been going on lately. We are going to organize small groups to watch out for the kids that we know are getting picked on. We will be a safe place where kids getting picked on can come for help if they don't want to tell a teacher." There was a hush in the room as the kids looked at each other trying to determine who exactly Alexia and Jake were talking about.

      "Chad and Wyatt," Betsy said in a loud whisper that almost everyone heard.

      "Besides, it will be fun to getting to know some of the kids that we don't know well and we will be doing a service to our school community. We are even going to have t-shirts," Jake finished.

      "Now I know that dealing with bullies may not be your problem, but these bullies are tormenting these kids every day. They are shy and may look different, or they may not wear cool clothes. These kids stand out as easy pickings for a bully. We want to put a stop to the harassment and to do that I need your help. We need to stop the bullying going on at our school."

      Out in the crowd, Charlie stood up. "I’m in," he said cracking his knuckles.

      Andy Wells also stood up, "I’m in too. My little sister came home crying last week because some kid took her lunch money." Several other kids stood up as well, each one relating a story that had happened to a friend or a younger brother or sister.

      Alexia stood up again. "We have a sign-up sheet in the back. You can sign up when you leave, and our first club meeting will be the day after tomorrow."

      Bill Little stood up. "Hey Jake, are you fighting Chad Martin today."

      "No, that is not going to happen. I could seriously hurt Chad," Jake answered. "Fighting Chad will not be a permanent fix to our bullying problem. Violence is never the answer. Anyone else?" Jake looked around the room but saw no more hands. "Okay, I think we are done for now. Thank you for coming and I hope all of you sign up."