The small wooden bench in the middle of the two big maple trees was frosted over. As Ellie walked to the bench with her steaming lunch, she saw her breath steam in front of her. She looked at the bench and put her lunch down. She looked around her and took in the chilly atmosphere. A few moments later, she wrapped her scarf tighter and pulled her hat further down her dark haired head. It was a chilly Friday, and the last school day of 2014. Tomorrow was the beginning of winter break. Ellie sat down on the bench and ate her lunch. She had lima beans. She hated lima beans.
At least it will all be over after today, she thought to herself. Nobody’s going to pick on me for a whole two weeks. Ellie liked the little garden with the maple trees and the sturdy wood bench. She came there to eat lunch at school every day since she discovered it the year before. She came there to be alone with her thoughts, and away from people that made her uncomfortable. It was peaceful and quiet, especially since kids always hung out near the library when it was cold. Ellie liked the cold, too. Not the teeth-chattering, bone-freezing cold, but the chill that blows on your face when you walk.
She heard the dead leaves crunch in the distance. Suddenly, Ellie’s best friend Sabrina came running from behind the bush a few yards away, her platinum blonde hair flying behind her. She skidded to a halt inches from Ellie. Sabrina, despite being out of breath, grinned ear to ear and held up a pale yellow piece of paper.
“Check it out!” Sabrina said after taking a deep breath.
“What’s so exciting?” Ellie said, looking at the paper. “It’s just an announcement for the dance this evening. There was a dance just last month.”
“But it’s the last dance of the year! You can’t miss out on that, Ellie. You haven’t been to any dances this year, have you?”
“No. And I don’t want to. Alexa goes to those dances. Remember her?”
“Ugh, of course I do. She’s that popular kid from last year that’s way too stuck up.” Sabrina checked her nails with a bored expression on her face.
“Yeah, and she also hates me,” Ellie said bluntly. Sabrina looked up from her nails and furrowed her brows.
“She does? Why?”
“Well, I mean, about a month ago one of her stupid friends tripped me, and I spilled my soda and chips all over her shirt. It wasn’t even my fault she was standing right in front of me, but she thinks I tripped on purpose or something.”
“Wow, seriously? That’s pretty dumb. It sounds like something she would think. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. She can’t do or say anything to you at the dance. There will be teachers and parents there, you know, to supervise us. You have to come, Ellie.”
“I don’t know,” Ellie said uncertainly.
“It’s too fun to miss out on!” added Sabrina excitedly.
“You know what? Maybe I will,” said Ellie. Taking a risk was the last thing she wanted to do, but Sabrina convinced her. Besides, if she did embarrass herself, the winter break was right after. People would probably forget. That’s what the bullies do. When picking on a kid gets old, they find another kid to pick on.
“Great, well, I’ll see you there. It’s at 6:00! Remember to bring money!” Sabrina called as she ran back across the blacktop.
“I said maybe!” Ellie stood up and yelled to Sabrina, but she was already out of earshot. Ellie finished her lunch and went to science, her next class. All throughout the class she was thinking about if she should go to the dance. What did she have to lose? The bell rang and she walked to the last class of the day.
When the end-of-the-day bell rang, she packed up and walked home. It took twenty minutes. Plenty of time to think about the dance, and Alexa.  She couldn’t make Alexa hate her even more, could she? She entered her house and went into her room. Ellie sat on her bed and pulled out her phone. She called Sabrina to confirm the time of the dance.
“It’s at 6:00,” Sabrina said. Ellie didn’t say anything for a minute. “Ellie?”
“I don’t know if I should really come. Alexa has been bullying me for weeks, but she’s never had the chance to embarrass me in front of so many people.”
“You have to Ellie! Do it for me. Please!” Sabrina said.
“Fine, I’ll come. But if Alexa even talks to me, that’s it. I’ll leave.”
“Right, that’s fine. I’ll make sure she doesn’t. If anyone messes with you, they’ll have to go through me.” Sabrina said. Ellie could imagine her looking confident while she said it. I will always be a coward, the exact opposite of my best friend, Ellie thought.
“See you there!” Sabrina said. Ellie hung up. She put her phone away and started going through her closet.
A few hours later, Ellie had picked out an outfit and was at her school, waiting for Sabrina. She checked her phone. There was half an hour until the dance began. Of course Sabrina wouldn’t have arrived! She’s probably on her way, Ellie thought. She checked her email on her smartphone and played a few games to pass the time. Now there was only ten minutes until the dance started. Where is Sabrina? Ellie wondered.
As if her mind had been read, Sabrina called Ellie.
“Ellie, I’m so sorry!”
“For what? What happened? Why aren’t you here yet?”
“I- I completely forgot I have soccer practice in half an hour. I can’t come to the dance.” Ellie heard the sadness and regret in her voice.
“You can’t?” Ellie blurted. “But it’s my first time ever at a dance! Who will I hang out with? You’re my only friend!”
“Make some new friends, I don’t know! My mom says we have to go now. You’ll be fine.” Ellie heard Sabrina’s mother in the background telling her they were getting late.
“If Alexa teases you, stand up to her. I know you can. Have fun!” Sabrina spoke quickly and then hung up.
Ellie stood shocked for less than a minute, but to her it felt like 20. She finally glanced behind her and turned around. There loomed the assembly room. It had two gray, speaker-like boxes perched on either end of the sloped roof. The dance was being held there in only ten minutes. At least Ellie thought she had ten minutes. A loud voice boomed from the gray speakers. The tired, monotonous voice announced that the dance was beginning. It came on again after just a moment and said:
“I have been informed that a meeting is happening tonight, and quite a few of the volunteers have not arrived. The dance is still on, but there will be less adults supervising.” At this announcement, a lot of kids looked at their friends mischievously. Ellie’s heart sank even lower. Less supervisors? That meant Alexa could get away with anything.
A man came out of the previously locked doors of the assembly room. He was wearing khaki pants, a black polo shirt, and a blue Los Angeles Dodgers baseball cap. He had a stubbly beard and hair that was graying, and he looked like he didn’t want to be there. The groups of students that were hanging around on the concrete began filing into the assembly room, talking and laughing.
Ellie realized she had to do the same, but she knew that throughout the dance, she’d have nobody to talk to or hang out with. Sabrina was her only friend. It’s a dance! Ellie thought to herself. I can have fun. I might even make new friends. She walked into the assembly room and was immediately struck with how colorful it was. There were lights all around the room, and everything was decorated with streamers, which Ellie thought was a little dumb.
The room looked like it had never served as an auditorium, except for a bulletin board in the corner that had flyers for school clubs and Spanish classes the school gave.
Everybody was running up to the DJ and requesting songs they want him to play. In a few minutes, everything was in full swing. The DJ was playing through the songs, the lights were rotating, and a lot of students were dancing in the middle of the room. They had broken up into groups of friends. One of those groups was Alexa and her friends.
Ellie spotted Alexa and decided to stay in the corner opposite her in hopes that she wouldn’t be noticed. She walked to the corner. It had a long metal bench near it. Ellie sat down and looked at the ground. She watched the other kids dance, but never joined in. She thought that if she didn’t talk to anyone, she couldn’t get in trouble.
She stared at the ground for what seemed like several hours. All of a sudden, she realized she had money. She perked up and searched the room. Sabrina had told her to bring money, but hadn’t specified why. Ellie finally spotted why she needed money! Behind a group of chatting 7th graders was a tiny set of food counters. There were a few people around the counters. Ellie decided that she could pass some time or even make friends there.
She walked toward the counters where some volunteers were selling food, remembering to carefully avoid Alexa and her friends. Ellie was amazed when she reached the counters. From across the room they had seemed small and insignificant. Up close they seemed to have grown. Ellie saw that there were more counters than she had seen before. They were placed behind the ones she saw with aisles between them. Ellie now saw there were a lot more kids at the counters than she had thought.
She strolled through the aisles. There was candy, pizza, sodas, ice cream, and more. She couldn’t decide what to buy. She finally chose pizza, a few candy bars, and a can of root beer. She brought them to the register. Even though she didn’t buy that much food, it was still difficult to carry. She looked down and realized her shoelaces were untied. She decided it was okay, as long as she was careful. She walked slowly and carefully across the room, back to her corner. She decided it was worth it to go across the dance floor and risk Alexa seeing her as long as she went quickly.
She walked briskly and avoided looking at Alexa. If Alexa saw her, things could get bad, especially now that she had food. She swerved around the groups of dancing kids, almost dropping her pizza twice. She was almost through the dance floor when a guy that was showing his friends a funny dance bumped into Ellie. At the same time, Ellie tripped over her shoelaces. She tripped and her arms flung out in front of her, allowing every bit of her food to drop on top of her. There was pizza and all over her clothes and soda in her hair.
Ellie realized everyone had stopped dancing and was looking at her. The DJ had stopped playing music. Not one person offered to help her up. She got up shakily and began picking up the plate her food was on. She looked like a mess, with pizza sauce and cheese on her clothes and her root beer drenching her hair. Somebody in the back giggled. They started laughing louder. Soon everybody was laughing at Ellie. Her face heated up, and she knew she had turned as red as a beet. To her utter shock and confusion, the supervising adults were chatting in the back of the room, and the DJ didn’t seem to care.
A group of kids was pushing through the crowd. Ellie washed over with relief, thinking the group had come to help her. Her relief turned to dread when Alexa came out of the crowd smirking and surrounded by her popular friends.
“Wow, it’s klutzy little Ellie,” Alexa taunted. All her friends snickered.
“Who would have guessed? Typical of you, tripping over yourself,” said a girl in Alexa’s gang.
“You’re right, Tracy! So predictable,” said another girl standing next to Alexa. The group snickered again.
“You’re so stupid, Ellie. You thought that you could get away with spilling your food on me a few week ago? You’ll regret it,” Alexa warned. Ellie’s eyes welled with tears, but she told herself she wouldn’t start sobbing.
“I didn’t trip and spill my food on you on purpose, Alexa. One of your dumb friends tripped me,” Ellie choked.
“As if! You’re just a lame nobody, looking for attention. You spilled your food on purpose, and you didn’t even apologize!”
“I did apologize! You didn’t pay attention!” Ellie yelled. At this point, a lot of the kids had shuffled backwards, and were watching the conversation uncomfortably. Others were ignoring it and talking with their friends. Yet none of them alerted the adults.
You have no friends, and you’ll never make any!” Alexa spat.
Ellie couldn’t control herself. Tears streamed down her face and she started sobbing. She covered her face and stumbled into the bathroom. There wasn’t anyone in it. Ellie locked herself in a stall. She sat on the toilet and cried for a long time. So long that the DJ started playing music again and people seemed to forget about the incident. Ellie stepped out of the stall and checked the time. It was 7:24 p.m. The dance ended at 7:45. Ellie locked herself in a stall again.
Why didn’t anybody help me up? Ellie thought sadly. Is Sabrina really the only person at this school who likes me? Ellie had stopped crying, but now she was thinking about how horrible her first dance was going. Don’t worry Ellie, she told herself. After the dance you’ll walk home, and you won’t have to go to school for two weeks. People will forget by then, right? Ellie sighed. If only Sabrina was here. She would know what to do. She so much braver than me. I’m just a nobody, like Alexa said...
Ellie heard some girls giggling outside. It was Alexa and her friends again. They were mocking Ellie. Ellie knew they were going to come in and taunt her even more. She was done crying. She knew she had to stand up for herself. She had to be like Sabrina.
“Hey guys, let’s go in the bathroom and see how Ellie is doing,” Alexa said the last part sarcastically, and all her friends snickered and agreed. In the bathroom stall, Ellie decided she wasn’t going to tolerate Alexa’s bullying.
“Hey you klutz! You can’t stay in there forever,” Alexa said.
“Stop bullying her, Alexa,” said a familiar voice. Ellie sat up. It couldn’t be… Sabrina?
“Who are you? And why are you on that nobody’s side?” Alexa asked. She was clearly not used to being stood up to.
“She’s not a nobody! She’s my friend, and she’s a lot nicer than you, Alexa. Maybe you should try being nice for once.” Ellie got out of the stall she was in and peeked out of the bathroom to see if it was actually Sabrina. Ellie couldn’t believe it was!
“Ugh, you’re so pathetic. That klutz tripped over herself! Who does that?” Alexa looked around at her friends, obviously expecting laughter. Instead her friends looked at the ground or at Sabrina, avoiding Alexa’s gaze. They were probably realizing how unfriendly Alexa had been to them.
Ellie stormed out of the bathroom and faced Alexa. Her face had turned pink, not from embarrassment, but from anger. She saw a few groups of kids had stopped socializing to watch the argument. None of them tried to help, though. That made Ellie even more mad. She was fed up with bullies and bystanders.
“Back off, Alexa. And don’t call my best friend pathetic! You’re just a bully, and all your so-called friends know it!” Ellie told Alexa angrily. Alexa stumbled backwards in shock. She had never seen Ellie so confident. Whenever she had talked to Ellie in the past, she was weak and shy. Alexa was silent for a few seconds.
“Fine. Whatever,” Alexa said finally. Her face was turning red. “It doesn’t matter anyway.” She walked away, but her friends didn’t follow. They walked in the other direction, towards the food stands. Ellie snapped back to reality. A group had gathered around Ellie and Alexa, but they returned to dancing when Alexa left. It was then that Ellie finally realized Sabrina was tapping her shoulder. Ellie turned around.
“You finally stood up to her!” Sabrina grinned proudly.
“Uh… yeah I guess I did, huh?” Ellie smiled awkwardly and they both laughed.
“Alexa’s never going to mess with you again, Ellie,” Sabrina said. “I knew you had it in you.”
“Thanks for standing up for me, but why are you here?”
“Oh, that. Well, I felt real bad about ditching you, so I convinced my mom that it was only a day less of soccer practice.  she let me come to the dance after all. Who knew they let people in late? I actually arrived about forty minutes ago, but I couldn’t find you anywhere.”
“Oh, yeah. I was kind of crying in the bathroom,” Ellie answered sheepishly.
“Oh. Well, are you okay now?”
“Definitely,” Ellie assured her. “Hey, where is everyone going?” Everybody was leaving the assembly room.
“I think the dance is over. Want to come to my place? My mom said you can sleep over.”
“Sure!” Ellie said happily. She and Sabrina walked towards the exit of the room behind a large group of kids. Alexa passed them. She was crossing her arms and looked furious.
“You and your friend are losers, Ellie. You’ll always be a nobody.” Alexa passed them and ran out the door. Ellie and Sabrina looked at each other. They were both thinking the same thing.  Alexa seemed a lot less intimidating without all her friends around her.
Ellie went back home and told her mom she was spending the night at Sabrina’s. She also explained what happened at the dance, and told her parents she was fine now. She had lots of fun at the sleepover. She spent the rest of the winter break with Sabrina. They went to Six Flags, Lake Tahoe, and even visited Sabrina’s grandparents in New York. Ellie didn’t think of Alexa even once during the break. She felt like she had a weight lifted off her back now that she had finally stood up to Alexa.
Ellie had thought that after the break, everyone would have forgotten what happened at the dance. But everybody that witnessed Ellie and Alexa’s conversation had told all their friends, and it spread all over the school. Unlike Ellie had thought, she wasn’t teased or ridiculed. Instead, she and Sabrina were heroes.
The principal made an example out of them when she talked about the importance of standing up to bullies, and why you shouldn’t be a bully or a bystander. Ellie could imagine that Alexa and her friends felt very awkward during that assembly.
Sabrina came up to Ellie and told her a friend of hers had found out Alexa got detention for bullying. She wouldn’t be messing with Ellie, or anyone else, for a long time. They also found out they had been written about in the weekly school newsletter, which Sabrina was very excited about. Ellie, on the other hand, had never had so many people come up and talk to her in her life, and she was pretty shy.
Sabrina and Ellie met a few people they really liked, and they all became friends. Soon two guys named Mike and Brandon, and girls named Amber and Reagan, who were friends with Alexa before they realized she was a bully, became friends with Ellie and Sabrina. They helped Ellie get out of her shell and become more social. Alexa lost a lot of friends, but she had learned her lesson. She changed her attitude, and she soon regained her friends. She became nicer and never bullied anyone ever again.

THE END