Poppy Child

Cuts and Bruises

Not a lot happened for the next few months, a few relatives birthdays but nothing extremely important. Although I did notice some changes in Maisy, she became more quiet and went to the poppy field more and more. As soon as she got home she would change out of her school uniform and run to the poppy field, she'd spend hours down there, Poppy of course would follow her. They sat there, just watching the sunset. In those few months I saw less and less of Maisy, I didn't even see her around school very often! Also she stopped having friends over, she gave up her after school clubs which meant she just came home everyday and spent all evening at the poppy field. 

One day, I think it must have been at the beginning of May I saw Maisy walking home on her own which was very unusual because she usually walked with three or four of her friends. I told my friends that I'd meet them at the park later and ran after my sister, she didn't hear me which meant she didn't have time to pull the sleeves of her jumper down. I saw the cuts, the scars and the bruises, they covered her arms. She quickly pulled down her sleeves and walked faster, I caught up with her and saw that she was crying. We climbed over the fence that led to the back of the poppy field so that mum wouldn't see us, I wanted to talk to her privately without mum interrupting. She showed me her arms, the cuts were horribly deep, but I didn't understand why she had so many bruises on her arms.

Maisy didn't want to tell me why she had bruises on her arm so she showed me her diary, I kept the diary entry to this day.

Dear diary,

That's how I'm meant to start these things, right? Anyway my name is Maisy Dean, I am twelve, my birthday was a few months ago but we didn't do anything special. Just went out for a meal with mum and my brother Jamie. For about a month these five girls in year eight or nine have been bullying me, at first I thought it was just a one off but it wasn't, they hurt me everyday. They kick and punch me, shout horrible things at me. They said if I ever told anyone they would put me and my brother in hospital and come to our house every night. Oh and they'd beat all my friends up! My friends have nothing to do with this and the last thing I want is them and Jamie in hospital. I'm not sure if they would or not but its enough to keep me quiet. Apparently they know people that could not only beat me up but they could beat Jamie up as well.

They do this to me every break and lunch time, I've lost all my friends because they think I'm just ignoring them, but every time I go near them and the bullies see me they mouth "We'll get them" so I have to leave them and I can't even tell them why. I've lost everyone, I can't talk to mum or Jamie in case I tell them everything. The only thing I can truly trust to keep all my secrets is Poppy, my dog. I go down to the poppy field with Poppy every evening, I sit there and tell her everything. Over and over again. I usually take a knife or scissors or sometimes a razor blade. I'll tell the story then cut, tell the story then cut and I just keep doing that until I have to go indoors for bed. It helps, it really does, the pain on my arms take some of the pain from the bullies away. I don't know how it works but it just does, all I know is that I feel a lot better after cutting myself.

I looked at Maisy and finally saw the pain that was in her eyes, the reason she was always alone, it all made sense. My little sister, my baby sister being bullied this bad right under my nose. I couldn't believe I didn't notice!

I don't want anyone to see my cuts, its embarrassing. People will think I'm weak, I guess I am, if I was strong I wouldn't be cutting. Weak weak weak. When I first started cutting myself this girl called Julie saw the cuts and told the teacher but all I said was  "a cat scratched me", they believed me as well! But as I cut myself more and they got deeper I have to hide them under foundation and long sleeved tops. It usually works, P.E is the hardest to hide them but I get changed on my own now, so no one sees me.

Anyway, goodbye for now... I guess,

Maisy

I told Maisy it was best if we told a teacher, that the threats were just words, they wouldn't actually beat us up. I wouldn't let them! Maisy technically didn't tell me what was going on, I kind of found out and read what happened although I knew they wouldn't see it that way. She begged me not to say anything to anyone, I gave up in the end but I came up with my own plan to find out who these bullies were...

The next morning I snuck into Maisy's room to find out what lessons she had before break and lunch-time; English and Art. Great, English, the English block was quite big and got very crowded between lessons, art block was quite small and would therefor be easier to find her. I took my friend Mickey with me, we had been best mates since year seven and I could trust him with almost anything. I wanted to tell him but I couldn't, it wasn't my secret to tell. I simply told him that "If we are needed then I'll tell you what the secret is but otherwise I can't tell you'. There were two main reasons I took Micky with me, one because I knew he wouldn't question me for hours about the secret, my other mates would nag and nag at me until I told them. Secondly Mickey was a bit taller than me, therefore making it easier to spot Maisy in the crowds.

The first two lessons of school went quite fast, before I knew it me and Mickey were running to English block to find Maisy, it was a shame Maisy didn't have pink hair or something that would make her look different to the others but she didn't, she had shoulder length, brown wavy hair, deep blue eyes and she was about 5ft1, a bit over average height for her age. Like I said, it would have been a lot easier to spot her if she had pink hair! But eventually in the middle of the crowd Mickey spotted Maisy walking out of the back entrance of English block, so we ran around to the corner and saw her hide near the bins. I could see her shaking from where we were! She sat there for about five minutes, every time she heard a noise she jumped. I guessed this was her hiding place of the day, just as I was thinking that four year eight girls and one year nine boy walked up to her and surrounded her. I recognised one of the girls and the boy; the boy was called Harry, he was in some of my lessons! The girl was called Gabby, she was one of my mates' little sister. They all punched and kicked her and shouted at her, the things they shouted were horrible. They told her to die, that she was worthless, she should get cancer and suffer. They mentioned me and mum a few times, I nearly went up to them but I had to wait, if I went then I would have made it obvious that Maisy had told me. When the bell went Harry gave Maisy one last kick in the stomach and walked away with the others. Boys shouldn't hit girls let alone kick them!

Mickey had guessed what the secret was and the next two lessons before lunch we planned revenge. Mickey was like an older brother to Maisy, he was just as angry as I was. We decided to follow her from art and wait until the others come and find her then we were going to walk around the corner act surprised and teach them all a lesson! We weren't going to hit the girls, that would be harsh, we were just going to scare them a bit. As for Harry, he wasn't getting off as lightly as his lady friends.