If I just do nothing, then nothing will happen. No damage will be done, and everything will be fine. And so I desperately tried to delude my nine-year-old self as I gazed at the circle of my twenty or so fourth grade classmates on the rug. They were all cupping their faces like one of our schoolmates did all the time. They giggled uncontrollably.

Kneeling on that multi-colored rug that read GREETINGS! in Espanol in bright colors, we waited for the teacher to finish chewing the fat with the principal in the hallway. I guess we sought entertainment in our downtime because someone nudged the person next to them and so on and down the lane it went. Furtive glances shot across the circle, then everyone cupped their hands to their faces and a contagion infected them until the entire room was roaring. 

I knew exactly what my classmates were doing. 

I had seen the girl holding her hand to her face before but never knew why she did it. It was strange, but I never asked why. None of my classmates knew why either. But they cupped their faces anyway. I mean, we had viewed bullying videos distributed by the head of school on our induction day and listened to speeches on empathy, respect, and compassion. But our adolescent minds must have dismissed these lessons––in one ear and out the other––the rebellion further strengthened our apathy. I knew bullying existed, but since I’d never seen it before, I thought that it only happened in public schools. Not in our small, private school! 

My fists pushed into the rug under me, my thumbnails dug sharply into the soft fiber. For a few seconds, I closed my eyes, trying to block out the laughter. I convinced myself that any attempt to stop them was futile and I’d only humiliate myself in front of my classmates who were already ridiculing somebody else. I tried to look around the room instead of at the mockery, flickering my eyelids over the short, stout wooden desks from across the room, small student-made pinatas dangling from the white, dry-wall ceiling, and brightly-colored, laminated Spanish posters dotting the room with the translations for “May I use the bathroom?” and “How do you say ______ in Spanish?” 

But I knew what was coming next: my Spanish teacher would walk over and notice. And I was right. That was the thing about the whole situation, I had been right about everything––except for my inaction. 

She finished her conversation, and already there was a troubled look on her face. Her Venezuelan accent was clear in every word, she asked, 

“What are you doing? What is this from?” 

It only took her a few seconds to realize that we were making fun of one of her younger students. 

Her face slack, she stopped us and continued on with the class. 

As soon as our class finished, our homeroom teacher sat us down in our classroom and directed us to put our heads down on the desks. I can still hear the disappointment, not anger, in his voice as he said,

“I just don’t understand…why would you guys do something like this. Just, why?” 

Silence ensued. Sigh. “Take the next five minutes, and just think.”

Laying my head on the hard, cold desktop, I took in deep, heavy air and wondered if my self-perceived powerlessness was really just an excuse to not have to do anything. Perhaps out of fear of opposition, or laziness, or out of a desire to not get “involved”, I was a bystander. 

During our next recess period, we were then called into the Spanish classroom, where our principal was waiting to reprimand us. She handed us paper and pencils and told us we were to write a paragraph of reflection about what we had done. 

As we started to write, she kept repeating how wrong our actions were, and how we should not make assumptions about someone who might look different than us. She then talked about how bystanders were as much to blame for not doing anything; and that they (I) were as bad as being the perpetrator. 

As she spoke, I thought: I know, I know, I know. I know all this, but I just couldn’t do anything. The entire class was doing it. What could I have done?

 In that moment, I saw that any form or degree of opposition would have been worth it. Just because I didn’t do anything didn’t mean that nothing was going to happen to the young girl. I felt powerless to do anything to stop the situation before it got out of hand, and had used that as a pretense to sit back and watch the damage unravel. But that must have amounted to nothing when compared with the powerlessness the girl must have felt when she walked through the hallway at school every day, a place built as a safe place for learning. 

In the weeks that followed, there were jeers from the other kids about the situation. 

I was still dazed slightly from that class, and I continued my inaction, wondering how I was supposed to make a difference as one kid against forty. That’s when our principal reported that the girl had left our school. Her parents had pulled her out after they had heard about the bullying. I wondered how it could get any worse. I pictured her jumping into her parents’ car in the pick-up line, asking her how her school day––just like mine did. Her poor face quivering in despair, the tears rolling down her cheeks. 

And I was not the only bystander. There were other kids who had awkwardly stared off, not wanting to speak up but also knowing that joining everyone else would be wrong. Even now, I think: What if we had all stood up for her? Maybe we could have stopped ourselves before we went too far. Maybe that girl would have stayed at school. 

I realized that my inaction that day factored into the collapse of someone else’s life at school. And, from that day forward, I promised that I would never have to ask myself “why” after-the-fact again. That I would never pitifully think that I had been right but did nothing. That I would never have to say “what if” again.