“There’s this other girl who’s being really mean to my friend. She’s on her case every chance she gets. She’s started some ugly rumors on the internet. There’s gossip all over school, but things get really bad because they’re both in a couple of classes together. My friend won’t even go to those classes anymore.”
“In other words, your friend is being bullied by another girl,” Paula said, incensed on this child’s behalf. “Has your friend reported it to a teacher or to the principal?”
Katie shook her head.
“Isn’t there a zero-tolerance policy at school when it comes to bullying?”
“There’s supposed to be, but it doesn’t always work,” Katie told her.
“What about your friend’s parents? Do they know?”
“She won’t talk to them,” Katie said. “I know she needs to talk to somebody, but she’s afraid if she tells on this other girl, it will just make things worse.” She drew in a deep breath, then added, “And this week it got really, really bad.”
“How bad?”
“Somehow this girl, the bully, made up some pictures that were supposedly of my friend. I don’t know how she even did it, but they were awful.”
Paula stilled. “Pictures?” she echoed, not sure she wanted to know.
“Half-naked pictures,” Katie said indignantly. “But it wasn’t my friend. She would never, ever do anything like that. Anyone could see it wasn’t really her, except for the face, but that didn’t stop the pictures from being shown all over school. My friend didn’t even show up at school today because she was so embarrassed.”
“I’m sure she was,” Paula said gently, understanding the depth of her granddaughter’s distress. “Have you said anything to Cal? He could probably deal with this. I know he’d want to help.”
Katie regarded her with frustration. “He would. He knows something’s wrong, and he even asked me about what’s going on, but she won’t let me tell him anything. Like I said, she’s afraid it will get even uglier.”
Paula thought she understood now. “But she didn’t tell you not to speak to me about it, did she?”
Katie shook her head, looking relieved that Paula got it.
“Want me to speak to Cal or someone else?” she asked, determined to let Katie guide her actions since she’d shown so much faith in her grandmother.
“There’s this teacher, Laura Reed. My friend’s skipping her class and she seems real worried about it. And she defended me today when we went to see Mrs. Donovan. She made sure I didn’t get in real trouble, because she suspects what’s been going on. Maybe you could talk to her,” Katie suggested hopefully. “But not at school. I don’t want my friend to figure out who told.”
Paula nodded. “I’ll be the soul of discretion, I promise. Maybe you’d better tell me who we’re talking about, though. I imagine Ms. Reed is going to want specifics.”
Katie’s expression fell. “I didn’t think about naming names.”
“Sweetie, it’s okay,” Paula assured her. “Between Ms. Reed and me, we’ll handle this very carefully. I don’t think we can fix it, though, without more than you’ve given me so far. And didn’t you just say that she already has a pretty good idea about who’s involved?”
Katie buried her face in her hands. “Misty is so going to kill me,” she murmured just loudly enough for Paula to get the one piece of information she needed.
So, Misty Dawson, who’d stopped by here with Katie from time to time, was the target of the bullying. Paula’s temper stirred. She was such a sweet, gentle girl, dedicated to getting a good education. Paula had never heard a bad word said against her, though there had been talk around town recently about her parents’ marriage being in trouble. Then again, she didn’t spend a lot of time on internet sites where malicious teen gossip was likely to be spread.
She stood up. “Let’s go inside. I want you to show me some of these posts you were talking about.”
Katie turned pale. “I can’t. They’re really ugly.”
“All the more reason for me to see them,” Paula said briskly. “The pictures, too.”
Katie was slow to follow her into her office, but once there she logged on, made a few clicks and then pointed first to the revealing photos and then to a series of posts on a social-networking site. Paula sat down to read them and once again felt her temper stir. “And you’re sure who this teenidol is?”
“A hundred percent,” Katie said, standing behind her to look over her shoulder.
“And there are more posts like this?”
“Lots of them,” Katie confirmed. “I can show you.”
“I think I’ll just print out these for now,” Paula said, tight-lipped with fury. She gazed into her granddaughter’s eyes. “Tell me who’s doing this.”
“Annabelle,” Katie said in a voice barely above a whisper.
Paula couldn’t hide her shock. “Annabelle Litchfield?”
Katie nodded, then asked, “Now do you blame me for yelling at her today?”
“Not a bit,” Paula said, “though it might have been wiser to get me or another adult involved instead.”
“I know that,” Katie said with evident frustration.
“But Misty wouldn’t allow it, even now,” Paula realized. “Why on earth would Annabelle hate Misty enough do something like this to her? What can that child possibly have done to her?”
“Annabelle’s boyfriend, Greg…” She looked to Paula.
“The football captain? Greg Bennett?”
“Uh-huh. He likes Misty. Or maybe he’s just on some kind of power trip because she won’t pay attention to him. Anyway, he keeps asking her out, even though she’s told him no, like, a hundred times. Everybody in school knows about it, because Greg is too dumb to keep his mouth shut about how he wants to get into Misty’s pants.”
The words were no sooner out of her mouth than Katie flushed. “Sorry, Grandma.”
Paula patted her hand. “Not to worry. At least now I understand the root of the problem. Annabelle’s jealous and taking Greg’s disgusting behavior out on Misty.”
“That’s it exactly,” Katie said, then threw her arms around Paula’s shoulders from behind in an awkward hug. “I knew you’d understand. I just knew it. Can you fix it?”
“Believe me, I’ll handle this,” Paula said grimly. Annabelle might be her parents’ little darling and the pride of Serenity because of her beautiful voice, but a bully was a bully. She wasn’t going to be allowed to terrorize Misty another minute if Paula had anything to say about
