Walking in the door after school all I hear is my dad yelling. “Are you serious? They are seventh graders they shouldn’t be doing these things? Where was the teacher? This is unacceptable!” I walk into my dad’s home office and see my dad is on the phone. His face is red and the veins pop out of his neck. In the chair is my mom, who is trying to comfort my older brother Elliot as he cries. There’s a huge bandage on his arm. My dad slams the phone down on the table and hangs up.
“Dad...is everything okay?” I ask, scared to hear his response.
“Yes, just go watch TV. And take Elliot with you.”
I walk out slowly as Elliot follows. Our younger four siblings are not home yet. I run to the family room and snatch the remote, thinking Elliot is going to try and fight me for it. I was wrong. Slowly, he walks over and on our huge couch, that could fit twelve people, he sits right next to me. Now I know something is wrong. First, Dad is yelling on the phone, then Elliot is crying, and the weirdest thing was Elliot didn’t even fight me for the show to watch on TV.
I look at my older brother, the boy who never showed weakness. He was the one to make us laugh when we were upset. And when I looked at him I saw weakness, I saw swollen eyes from crying, and a huge bandage that wrapped around his arm near his elbow.
Quietly I ask this stranger, “Elliot, what happened?”
After a couple seconds, he looks at me and in between deep breaths said, “Jacob bit me.” At first I thought it was a joke. They were in seventh grade. Why would Jacob bite Elliot? That’s something a preschooler would do. Then I realized he wasn’t joking.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because I told him I didn’t want to do his homework for him anymore.”
I think to myself. Why Elliot? He has done nothing except stand up for himself and he’s the one getting punished. Why? Does this kid have no morals? Haven’t his parents taught him to treat others the way you want to be treated?
“Did it hurt?”
“A lot.”
“Did you get him back?”
“No, I just told the teacher and he sent me to the health room.”
“Where is he now?”
“Still at school.”
Before I could ask my next question, our parents walk in.
“Elliot get your shoes on we have a meeting. Amanda, watch the younger kids until we get back,” my dad says. Elliot, Mom, and Dad get into the car and drive away.
I take care of my younger siblings for what feels like forever. Finally I hear the car pull into the garage. As my parents walk in, with Elliot slowly following behind them, they tell us we need to have a family meeting in the living room. My siblings think it will be something exciting, a vacation, or maybe even a new pet. I’m the only one who knows what we will really be told. Once my siblings see Elliot though they realize this meeting can’t be about something good.
My dad spends 20 minutes telling us the story of what happened, the story I have already heard from Elliot. Afterward, he tells us the meeting was between Jacob, Jacob’s parents, Elliot, Mom, Dad, and the principal. According to him, the meeting was long and the principal was not going to do anything about the incident. Dad said that him, Mom, and Elliot needed to decided what to do next but they wanted us to hear the real story.
Then the family meeting just ended my parents sent us away and told us to go play. We all slowly walk away. My youngest two siblings who are in kindergarten and 2nd grade walk away unfazed. Like everything is normally and nothing happened. Our two middle siblings seem confused but decide to blow it off and watch television instead. Elliot walks up to his room and I follow. I want to make sure he’s okay. I want to know exactly what happened. And I want ot know how I can make him feel better.
He leaves the lights off and lays in his bed. Standing in the doorway, I look at my brother and say, “Elliot, are you okay?”
Without turning to face me, he whispers, “No.”
I slowly walk over to him, sit on the ground near his bed, and ask, “What happened at the meeting?”
He slowly rolls over and says, “We sat at a big, brown conference table and everyone was yelling at each other. Then Jacob’s dad said ‘I don’t understand why it is a problem. Let boys be boys.’ And Dad freaked out at him. Dad stood up and I was scared he was going to start a fist fight. Then the principal calmed everyone down and told Mom and Dad that Jacob would have three weeks detention and had to apologize to me.”
That punishment is useless. Jacob isn’t going to learn from three weeks detention and apologizing. Suspend him or something!
“Well, what are you going to do?” I ask him.
“I want to move schools.”
Where would he go? He only has one more year until high school. I don’t want my brother to go to a different school than me. Not only do I need him at school, but all my siblings need him. Who’s going to say hi to me before I go to lunch? Who is going to stop our youngest sibling from fighting with the other kids in the hallway? Who is going to ride the bus with me?  But eventually I realize it doesn’t matter what I want. It matters what Elliot wants. He needs to go to a school where he doesn’t have the fear of being bullied by some stupid kid everyday.
“Did you tell Mom and Dad that?” I ask.
“Not yet. I am later tonight.”
I realize the only way to make him feel better is to leave him alone and stop asking questions.
When I walk out of his room my parents walk in. I know what will happen. They will ask him what he wants to do and he will tell them exactly what he told me. He wants to move schools.
My dad walks over to me and my four siblings, turns off the television, and tells us, “Guys, I want you to know what is going on. So here is what we have decided will happen with Elliot. He is going to move schools in the next couple of weeks. Mom and I want all of you to feel safe and happy wherever you go. And right now Elliot doesn’t feel like that.”
None of us know how we should respond. So quietly we all just say, “Okay.”