And there’s Sally Enyolk – walking out on the stage, blowing kisses and thanking the audience as if she was a superstar – well, technically, according to all these kids in the audience, she is! Sally was wearing a silver glittery dress with silver high heels, and her hair was all teased up and her make-up was three inches thick! She actually looked – all grown up and beautiful. She started to introduce the show by reading off the bulletin board above the camera.
This was my chance, before the show progressed any further, I just want one quick minute. I scampered my way onto the stage before I tried to get Sally’s attention. ‘Pssst! Sally!’ I whispered, but she didn’t hear me, so I said it louder. ‘Psssssssssst!’ There! She heard that. She turned around and looked at me. Her face expression said it all! She looked from me to the bulletin board, to the camera crew, to see what on earth was going on as this wasn’t in the script!
I became anxious as I rolled my eyes at her and stumbled out onto the stage next to her and smiled at the audience and at the camera. This is pretty cool! I’m a celebrity for a minute!
I dumped my schoolbag next to me on the stage floor and politely nudged Sally out of the spotlight, politely snatching the microphone off her and quickly started to talk into it.
‘I just want one minute of your time…’ is how I began my unrehearsed speech. ‘Hello everyone, my name is Karris McApple – yes that’s right, McApple, and yes, I’ve heard all the jokes before… and I love skateboarding. But that isn’t the reason I am here today…’ I looked all around and realised that I had captured the attention of the audience who were silent in anticipation to what I was going to say next. I paused for a minute as the realization of what I am actually doing had just hit me! I noticed the cameraman in front of me cutting his neck with his fingertips as if to ‘cut’ the show and go to a commercial, but, the show had only just started and the audience were hard to amuse at times, so, instead, they decided to go with it and claim they had nothing to do with it – which is the truth ‘the reason I am here today is because… I made a mistake and I want to make up for it by first apologizing to everyone out there that I have unintentionally hurt.’ Hmmm, not bad for an unrehearsed speech, but I’d better get the point – and fast because Security were making their way down the stairs towards me, so I thought I would use them in my favour…
‘Looks like I’m about to be booted off stage by the Security Guards, but before I do, I just want to ask all of you a question; how many of you have your own Facebook account? At least half of the audience put up their hands. ‘OK, and out of you lot, how many have been bullied on Facebook?’
Can you believe that again, most of those kids left their hands up and only a small percentage put their hands down?
‘Well, I’m sorry to know that you kids have been bullied at one time or another on Facebook – I mean, it’s bad enough that you get bullied at school, let alone on the computer as well.’ I gave them a sympathetic smile and continued my quest, ‘well, so have I – well, actually, I did the bullying, not realizing the consequences because at the time that I wrote all that mean stuff, I was really angry. But you know the worst part? It’s not really about what I wrote – well, it is, but it’s the fact that I wrote it to my friend through the Private Chat line for a reason, but unfortunately, the Private Chat wasn’t switched on when I thought it was, so everyone got a copy of the message.’
The whole audience gasped in disbelief, but I could also tell on some faces that they had done the same thing and that they were relieved to know that it could happen to anyone!
‘And when I say everyone, I meant, everyone who I had on my friends list and their friends, and their friends etc… until, it spread like wildfire!’
