Michelle Nhung Le

Posted on: 10/8/2021

I remember not having many toys in my childhood years. I don’t have many memories playing with toys I liked that were mine, but there’s one, my absolute favorite, even until this day. It’s a gift from my aunt from her trip to Japan when I was four or five, and it has remained as the only stuffed animal in my bed since then. She is a cream colored bunny with wide black eyes and a cute little white fluffy tail.

I appreciate her so much and was so proud of her that one day I decided to bring her to school. It was just another normal day in third grade. I showed it off to all of my friends, and they all loved it. I kept her with me all day, or so I thought. Lunch break came and all of the sudden she wasn’t there anymore. The next thing I knew was a boy yelling “X has it! He’s in the boy’s bathroom!” X was the bully in my class, stronger and almost twice as big as I was. I remember panicking but not knowing what to do. I was terrified to for one, go to the boy’s bathroom and to face that big scary kid. I stood outside of the bathroom and yelled at the door for my bunny back. Whispers and laughters bounced around, but soon all of us third graders realized it was turning into something serious. X wouldn’t come out and he wouldn’t give it back. At this point my fear turned into rage and I felt tears coming down my flustered face. The yelling was replaced with the trembling and hiccuping. That was the only one of two times I cried at school. The second one was two weeks ago. Anyway, finally, a group of guys went into the bathroom and came out with my bunny. She was wet and missing an ear. They told me X dunked it into the toilet and pulled out an ear, and I didn’t want to keep listening. I was mad ,more than upset, and partly scared to tell Mom how all this happened. I don’t want to admit that I got bullied. And that was the day I decided no one, no matter how big or tough, could ever, first, dunk my bunny into a toilet and, second, bully me ever again.

The unfortunate event happened to my bunny stuffed animal made me appreciate her even more. I brought her back home that day, gave her a bath in the washing machine, and asked my mom to sew her ear back on. She’s been through the first bully with me, and that make both of us stronger than ever. In the end, a toy is loved when it is all patched up and used, right?

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