The School Bully by Fiona Wilde

Chapter One
     
     
    Anna Fowler pushed the door of the eighth grade classroom at Bridgestone Academy and stood still as it slowly opened. It surprised her that, even after all these years, the hinges still creaked. The door came to a rest and she stood now facing into the classroom, surprised that it still looked so familiar. The hardwood floors – newly polished for the school year – were the same. The color of the walls – sea foam green – was the same. The school was even still using the old-style Venetian blinds on the windows, the kind with the wide slats.
    Anna wasn't sure what she had been expecting. Did she think a school that prided itself on conservative values and education would have really undergone a dramatic makeover since she'd graduated. She still recalled the day she'd picked up her diploma, how happy she'd been to leave the halls of an institution she hated. Each year she'd begged her parents to send her to Belmont High School, give her a chance to get an education away from the arrogant sons and daughters of her father's wealthy colleagues. But her parents had refused. Admittance into the exclusive academy was a privilege, they reminded her. But Anna knew it represented more than that. Having a kid in Bridgestone was another piece needed to complete the social puzzle her parents were so determined to maintain. It didn't matter to them that their small, pale daughter was an oddity among her tall, tone and tanned peers. From the moment she'd entered Bridgestone she'd been picked on by the other kids. No matter how hard Anna tried to get her wavy mass of long black hair to conform to the sleek ponytails the other girls wore it always ended up falling in rebellious tendrils around her face. No matter how much she stayed out in the sun, her skin was always alabaster.
    “Freak,” they whispered, blocking her way and she'd muscle through them, tears stinging her huge, dark eyes as their laughter rang in her ears.
    At home her parents would ask Anna how her day had gone. Their expectant expectations said it all: Please tell us you're fitting in. So Anna would just say, “Fine,” rather than distress them with how Sybil Mince had called her Spider Girl and Myra Watkins had glued her locker door shut. She's not told her parents the worst of it, that when she'd asked Logan Chance if he'd help her open her locker he'd just grinned and walked away.
    “Open it yourself, freak,” he'd said. “And hurry. You're going to be late for bio.”
    She'd gotten the locker open by prying it with a screwdriver she found in the janitor's closet. Myra had spread glue on her books as well. By the time Anna got everything she needed out and cleaned off, she was fifteen minutes late for class.
    Mr. Carter had not been amused.
    “Miss Fowler, I hope you have a good excuse for your tardiness,” he said, scowling at her from under his comb-over.
    “I was...” Anna looked at the threatening faces of her tormenters and knew the truth would just bring more trouble. She decided on a half-truth .
    “I couldn't get my locker open,” she said quietly. The classroom had erupted in laughter.
    “That's because they aren't designed for elves,” Logan chance had offered. The class guffawed.
    Anna raised her dark eyes to look at Logan. Handsome and tall, he was a senior and the captain of the school lacrosse team. To girls and boys alike, he was like the pied piper. His peers trailed him everywhere; an unkind word or taunt from him spelled social doom. Until that day, he'd stayed on the periphery of the teasing, his only involvement laughing at whatever sport they made of her. Now that he was taking a lead role, she'd be fair game for anyone – even the less popular kids looking to curry favor with their leader by joining the hunt.
    Logan had officially sanctioned her torment, and even though he graduated that same year for the rest of her middle and high school years, his influence left a legacy. She’d been one of his targets