zeb 15.pmd - with love by Cari

Zebidiah Jones
...and the school bully.
Written by Cari
Illustrated by Kylie Jayne
First Published 2005
by Positively You Publishing
PO Box 2098
Geraldton WA 6530
Copyright c Cari Taylor 2005
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted
in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publishers and copyright holders.
Other books by the same author:
Through the eyes of a child
Between Heaven and Earth
Pocketful of Today
Zebidiah Jones series
Zeb was having a great day. It was recess and he and
his friends decided to play soccer. They got the ball,
they made their teams, they got ready to play. Peter
kicked off. The ball was heading straight towards
Zebidiah when all of a sudden.....
..another boy ran in front of Zeb and grabbed the
ball. At first the boys thought he was playing, but
when Zeb asked for the ball back, he marched right
up to Zeb, right close to his face and said,
‘What did you say?’
The boy was much bigger than Zeb, he had to take a
step back to look up. ‘May we please have the ball
back?’ Zeb asked again. The boy laughed at Zeb.
‘It’s my ball now,’ he said and walked away.
Zeb, Peter and their friends sat down on the grass
shocked. They watched the boy walk away. They
looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders, stood
up and walked back to their classroom quietly.
Chris was the first to ask, ‘Who was that guy -why
did he take our ball?’ They all shrugged their
shoulders again. The bell went for class to start. The
boys went to their class still amazed at what had
happened.
When lunchtime came the boys decided not to play
soccer. They decided they would play cricket. They
gathered up the bag of gear and walked to the oval.
Zebidiah unzipped the bag. He was about to get out
the bat, when suddenly THAT boy came out of
nowhere and grabbed the bag. Zeb got angry, ‘What
are you doing?’ he asked the boy. ‘Taking this bag,’
the boy answered. ‘But you can’t,’ Zeb told him. ‘We
are playing with it.’
The boy laughed at Zeb and left with the bag.
‘We’ve got to do something,’ Zeb said. All the boys
thought and thought about what they should do.
They decided to ask a teacher.
As the boys went off looking for a teacher they
wondered how they would tell what had happened.
When they found the teacher on duty, Peter blurted it
all out. ‘A boy took our soccer ball and then he took
our cricket bag, and we don’t know why. He won’t let
us play with anything.’
The teacher sat them all down to get the whole story.
By the time they finished telling the story the bell
had gone to finish lunch. ‘We’ll have to deal with this
tomorrow,’ she said. ‘It sounds like someone is being
a bully.’
Zebidiah Jones had never met a school bully. Neither
had any of his friends. They didn’t even know what
one looked like.
For the rest of the day Zeb couldn’t forget what had
happened. What exactly is a bully he wondered.
He’d have to remember to ask his Dad.
Zeb was glad to see both his Dad and Mum at home
when he got there. He rushed in the door telling
them about the day he’d had, he ended by asking
‘What’s a bully Dad?’ His Dad made Zeb sit down
with a drink and start all over again, slowly.
Zeb took a deep breath and told the story all over
again. Now that his dad understood he knew what to
say. ‘A bully is someone who is mean to other people.
Sometimes they just act tough, sometimes they want
to fight, sometimes they are just plain old mean.’
Zeb couldn’t stop talking or thinking about the bully.
He wondered what would happen the next day.
What the teacher would say? ‘What do you think she
should do?’ asked Zeb’s Dad. Zeb thought and
thought.
Zeb decided the bully should say sorry. ‘He needs to
know it’s not nice to bully other people and be told to
stop.’ Zeb thought some more. ‘Maybe he’ll get time
out in the solution room, maybe he’ll get suspended.’
Zeb was getting excited.
‘You know Zeb, sometimes kids are bullies because
they are sad or angry. He might not have any friends
or anyone who cares,’ his Dad told him.
‘That is no reason to be mean to us,’ Zeb told his
Dad. ‘No, but how would you feel if you had no
one?’ his Dad asked.
Zeb was excited to go to school the next day. He
couldn’t wait to see what happened. At recess the
teacher called the boys together and went over what
had happened. Then it was time to meet the bully.
His name is Stuart.
The teacher sat them all down, Stuart talked first.
He said he was sorry for being so mean. He has no
friends because he is new at school. The teacher told
Stuart that it was wrong to be mean to others, and
that being mean was no way of getting friends.
The teacher thought it best to leave it at that. The
teacher thought Stuart would not need detention as
long as he promised it would not happen again.
Zeb knew it was hard to not have friends. He had
none when he first started at this school. Zeb knew it
must have been hard to say sorry. He was glad it had
all worked out with everyone talking. They all shook
hands and left.
At lunchtime that day the boys decided to play chase.
While they were running around they saw Stuart
talking with some other boys. Zeb hoped they would
be his friends. He hoped Stuart wouldn’t have
another bad day.
The Zebidiah Jones series:
Zebidiah Jones
Zebidiah Jones and every day is a good day
Zebidiah Jones and his goodnight dream
Zebidiah Jones and his imagination
Zebidiah Jones and that grumpy feeling
Zebidiah Jones and his new baby sister
Zebidiah Jones learns of the truth
Zebidiah Jones and his first day of school
Zebidiah Jones and being a big brother
Zebidiah Jones and the art of listening
Zebidiah Jones and the importance of practice
Zebidiah Jones learns about patience (and the long deep breath)
Zebidiah Jones and the art of making friends
Zebidiah Jones and the art of being a friend
Zebidiah Jones and the school bully
Zebidiah Jones.... the spark of good
is within us all.
ISBN 1-921129-20-4