For the rest of the week, following Jeremy’s betrayal and defection to the enemy, Sean kept up his vigilance. At lunchtimes, he ate with Scott and the two seventh graders. Sometimes, they were joined by Estelle and Chloe. In the playground, all of the Helping Hands congregated together and moved around as one. While this brought a feeling of safety to all, It didn’t completely chase all of Sean’s anxieties away. A few times, he passed Stacy Klimkowski in the hall and each time, she gave him the nastiest of looks. On a couple of occasions, when he passed Eddie and his cronies, Eddie would punch his hand in a threatening gesture. As a result, Sean didn’t feel particularly safe.
He thought about relaying his fears to Miss Snyder but concluded he didn’t have enough evidence and would be labelled paranoid. So, he kept his thoughts to himself as he strode into the Helping Hands meeting on the following Monday.
As ususal, Miss Snyder greeted everyone with her usual warm smile and then got straight down to business. Pointing to a new body in the room, a sixth grade boy whose whole demeanor screamed, ‘bullying victim,’ on account of him being overweight and sporting extra thick glasses, she introduced, “This is Stewart, who will be joing the group.”
The entire group gave the new arrival a warm ‘hello’ and he squeaked a ‘hello’ back. Stewart sat back down and Miss Snyder continued. “I think the first thing we need to do is elect a president for the group. The president’s main job would be to chair meetings when I can’t be here. They would also be your point of contact should you experience or observe any bullying and they will be the one who can come to me on your behalf. Do we have any nominations?”
“Sean,” Chloe suddenly blurted out.
Sean immediately looked at the teacher whose eyes lit up at the suggestion. “Okay, we have a nomination for Sean Vandeventer. Any others?”
“I second Sean’s nomination,” Scott suddenly put forward.
Before anything else was said the sevemth grader next to Scott blurted out, “I vote for Sean.”
“Me too,” Estelle called out.
Sean looked arounnd the room. Everyone was nodding in agreement, even the newest member.
“I guess it’s unanimous,” Miss Snyder laughed out loud. Then in a more serious tone announced, “Sean, you’re the president of the Helping Hands.”
At first, Sean was very anxious over his new role as president but as the weeks went on, those anxieties waned. It helped the Miss Snyder was at every Monday meeting. Not that there was much to talk about because noone experienced any real bullying, at least not enough to bring it up. However, something in Sean’s mind told him not to relax too much.
It also seemed that everyone in Helping Hands appeared to look up to Sean. He didn’t know whether to be flattered or concerned. Definitely, the latter when one day, Eddie called out, “I hear you’re the president of the ‘Pussy Patrol’ or should I say the Helping Handjobs. I bet you all get gay together.”
Sean didn’t have time for ignorance like this, he simply walked off as Eddie’s two stooges burst out laughing. Then John added, “He must be gay because all he can do is come on girls.” This brought more laughter and Sean could feel himself boiling with pent up anger. Suddenly, he turned around and angrily answered back, “I bet if we all did get gay together, you’d all want to join.”
A brief fear of physical harm entered Sean’s mind but at that moment, he didn’t particularly care. Eddie’s warning rang out, “Watch out Vandeventer or you’re dead!” In spite of that, no physical altercation ever came.