I'll do YOU a good turn...
There’s a [controversial?] vein of opinion which suggests that bullies are troubled beings, victims themselves one way or another. In many ways I hope we can sometimes spare a thought for the poor tossers. I know when I was bullied many moons hence I look back on the perpetrator with a kind of gleeful pity. This is a bit of a long one, but then I am a terrible gasbag – so tough.

I had enjoyed a long and productive career in the Brownies; grabbing up badges by the chubby fistful, rising through the ranks with a dark, Machiavellian intensity, and doing good deeds until all the geriatrics in the area frankly begged for mercy. I was a Brownie bloody virtuoso. I became a Sixer (those not in the know – it’s like a lieutenant to Brown Owl’s general) in the Pixies, and I ruled my little group of reports like a fucking despot. But then the inevitable happened. At 11 I became too old to remain in the Brownies and the day beckoned when I was destined to become a Guide.

So – with a brand new blue uniform to replace bile yellow and baby-poo-brown one, a sash bare of badges, and an acute consciousness that I was now at the bottom of the pile where until recently I had been lording it at the top – I threw myself into my new life on Wednesday evening instead of Thursday evening at the leaky village hall. Before you knew it, I was up to my old tricks – sucking up to ‘Mole’, the adult leader, like a Dyson, and generally being a little goody-goody arse.

A few weeks after I joined was the annual Guide Camp event, where we were sent off to large it up under canvas in a field in Withyham. I was put in a tent with seven other girls of varying ages who I didn’t really know at all, but I was the youngest and by far the fattest, specciest and most ginger. There was a leader, of sorts, called Gemma. It took about a nanosecond to interpret the atmosphere in that tent to be one of a relentless and really quite creative hatred towards me, personally. And one look at Gemma was all that was needed to see a laser-like determination to make my four-day stay at Guide Camp an utter, utter misery. After a few minutes it was established that I was ‘spastic Wheezy’, and every time I attempted to join in the conversation my words would be drowned out with a chorus of strained mooing – even if I was replying to a question asked of me. In retrospect, this was quite obviously genius, and if the roles had been reversed I would have laughed like a ‘tard as well every time it happened (every few minutes).

Things started to go wrong for Gemma when we were assigned our first task in tent-groups; lashing together wood we could find in order to make a free-standing wash basin. Would you believe it? I had perfected knot-tying to an art the previous week! So off I go, pushing other people aside, snatching wood out of their ham-fisted hands so that I could do it properly myself, ostentatiously undoing their [perfectly fine] knots and replacing them with my own. Most of the other girls (after a decent amount of ‘stop it you little bitch’, ‘get off, you fat spastic’, ‘moo’, etc) just gave up and took advantage of this saddo to do their work while they sat down and blew through grass whistles. Not Gemma. She was foaming at the mouth with rage that I was taking charge, and pinched and pulled my hair when I didn’t respond to her shouting in my face. I was just putting the finishing touches to the stand when she finally lost it, and, just in time for Mole to see her as she was coming around the tent to inspect our team’s handiwork, Gemma picked up the whole rickety structure and tried to hit me in the face with it. Totally worth it – Mole went postal. Gemma not only had to compose a formal apology and relay it in front of the whole camp at dinnertime that evening, but she was written down in Mole’s little book as a ‘troublemaker’. ‘Hah’, my sneaky little mind thought, ‘that’ll put an end to her tricks.’ Oh no.

Gemma just became more devious in her approach. She and her gang would wait until Mole was otherwise occupied before capsizing my kayak or putting mud in my opaque water-bottle. I managed to drive her to distraction by gaining particular commendation for my skill in recovering from capsizing and also my kindness for relieving a ‘hot and distressed’ sheep by washing it with my own bottled water, which was freshly replaced as a mark of appreciation. She cottoned on to the fact that I was paralysingly scared of the dark, and so would tell ghost stories in the middle of the night which meant that I wet my sleeping bag rather than going outside to the portaloo. The tent was a complete mess, and it wasn’t until the following morning that it was discovered that I had weed on Gemma’s copy of ‘Smash Hits’ with all the pictures of Shane Ritchie drawn around with biro hearts. She wouldn’t admit it was hers – the shame if she did! But I saw her face of real heartbreak when she thought the others weren’t looking.

At last it was the final day. Gemma and the gang had grown tired of mooing at me whilst I packed, and had retired outside to do cartwheels. I was jamming my (dry but slightly whiffy) sleeping bag into its carrier when I unearthed a pair of white kickers. ‘Not mine’, I thought, and looked at the name embroidered in the waist band.

‘Gemma’

I looked at the knickers more closely. There was a long, almost perfect light brown skid mark stretching a considerable distance in the gusset.

I pondered them, then, checking that everyone else in the camp were busy helping take down the kitchen marquee, I sprinted out to the flagpole at the centre of the ring of tents, tied the shitty pants to the cord, and whipped them up to fly proudly about 10 feet off the ground – just out of reach of even the tallest camper, but near enough that the crusty crime was evident for all to see. I scuttled back to my packing, chuckling in a fat, speccy, ginger way.

Gemma cried, and had to be picked up early by her mum rather than go home on the minibuses with the rest of us.

Sorry, Gemma, you poisonous slag!

*pop*
(Wheezy Luv-ah is pootling about on, Fri 15 May 2009, 16:15, 9 replies)

Excellent
Nice revenge
really sneaky and creative
You should fit right in here
( notsosecretagentman, Fri 15 May 2009, 16:45, closed)

Great Story!
Welcome, and have a click!
(The Kwyjibo A big, dumb, balding North American ape., Fri 15 May 2009, 17:01, closed)

Lovely!
have yourself a click!
( SpankyHanky, Fri 15 May 2009, 17:03, closed)

Damn fine work *salutes*
you'll fit in well here.
( wynoh kills threads by his mere presence, Fri 15 May 2009, 18:25, closed)

Yay!
Love this :) *click*
( The Helpful Bear, Sat 16 May 2009, 17:49, closed)

click
for 'almost perfect light brown skid mark'. Do you have a colour chart to compare?
(randomstupidname would really like this signature field to be bigge, Sat 16 May 2009, 19:15, closed)

well!
funnily enough... www.dulux.co.uk/servlet/ColourAvailabilityHandler?name=sulphur_springs_2
(Wheezy Luv-ah is pootling about on, Sun 17 May 2009, 20:48, closed)

Excellent work!
I never made it to Sixer.

I went on a Guide camp as a leader many years later and tried to force vodka down the throat of a fellow leader who was in the early stages of a diabetic coma. In my defence I thought it was a bottle of lucozade - I'd forgotten she was also an alcoholic.

I look forward to reading more of your stories!
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Mon 18 May 2009, 23:26, closed)

Click
For guide camp bullying, and wish I'd been that creative!
Welcome!
(Beer Elf Thought this was like a campfire, anyhow, on, Wed 20 May 2009, 10:41, closed)