Kiara Fights Back by Marilyn Kaye

Author:Marilyn Kaye [Kaye, Marilyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Holiday House
Published: 2022-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

At dinner that evening, my father asked the usual question.

“How’s school?”

Usually, I just said “Fine.” But this time, I told him about Jim and how we suspected a certain girl was bullying him.

He frowned. “Has this girl been bothering you?”

“No.”

“Well, stay out of it. You don’t want to draw attention to yourself. She could start bullying you.”

“She shouldn’t be bullying anyone, Dad.”

“True,” he admitted, and went back to his lasagna.

“Dad...”

“Hmm?”

“Why did you take me out of elementary school?”

“You know why. People were cruel to you.”

“But that made it seem like I was being punished.”

He stopped eating. “What are you talking about? That wasn’t a punishment. You had to be glad to get out of there!”

“Yeah, but...maybe it was the others who should have been suspended. The ones who called me names and accused me. After I left, they probably just identified someone else to pick on.”

Dad became very quiet. Finally, he said, “I did what I thought was best for you, Kiara. Maybe I could have done more, defended you, told the principal she needed to conduct an investigation into the matter. I don’t know. But I just didn’t want you to go on suffering.”

I couldn’t read his mind, and he wasn’t saying how he felt. But somehow, I knew that at this particular moment, my father was very sad. So I did something I’d never done before. I got up, went over to his chair, and gave him a quick kiss on his cheek.

Then I went back to my seat and continued eating.

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