One morning in February Logan found himself sitting in the headmaster's office at Chilton with another parent. He'd been told over the phone that Nicky had pushed another kid, but he didn't know anything else. The other kid was with him in Chilton's program for gifted children and he was actually a few years older than Nicky.
"I'll just get right to it" headmaster Charleston said. "It's absolutely unacceptable for a child to lay hands on another student. We have a zero tolerance policy for violence"
"So what are you gonna do about this?" The woman who was sitting next to Logan asked him.
"I'm sorry, can I just-" Logan was trying to figure out the right way to ask what he was trying to ask. "Ok. Nicky hurt another kid and I'm gonna talk to him about that, but I didn't hear the full story. What actually happened?"
"What do you mean? Your brat pushed my son. That's what happened" the woman said.
It took every ounce of self control that Logan had to ignore the 'brat' comment. "Look, my son is not a violent kid. This morning he apologized to his sister 5 times for accidentally stepping on her foot. It is absolutely not ok that he put his hands on another child, and I'm gonna make sure he knows that, but if he did hurt somebody on purpose, there was a reason"
"Maybe your son is just a bully" the woman said
"Mrs Lynn" Charleston said. "I didn't witness the incident personally, I only know what I was told. If you want to know what happened, I suggest you talk to your child"
"Can we get him in here?" Logan asked. He was in no way trying to excuse Nicky hurting another kid, but he knew his son. Nicky wouldn't touch someone else unless they did something to him first.
Headmaster Charleston pressed a button on the phone. "Ms Smith, can you please send the children in?"
A moment later Nicky (along with Shadow) and another boy from his class walked in and headmaster Charleston asked them to explain what happened.
"He pushed me" the other kid said.
"Only because you would leave me alone" Nicky said.
"What does that mean?" Headmaster Charleston asked.
"He said that I'm a baby because my brain doesn't work" Nicky said quietly. "And then he kicked Shadow so I pushed him away from me"
"That's not a big deal. It's just a dog" the woman said. "He shouldn't even be allowed to have it at school. This it's not Adam's fault"
"Do you realize that this dog is the only thing that can potentially prevent my son from having seizures? Not only that but if he does have a seizure, the dog is trained to get help" Logan said. "There's no reason anybody should be going near it let alone trying to hurt it. And there's the fact that your kid was making fun of my son for something he can't control"
"Your son is different. Kids think that different things are weird. Of course he's gonna get teased" she said.
Logan felt Nicky tap his shoulder. He turned to look at him. "I don't think she's very smart" Nicky signed. Logan had to hold back a laugh.
"Why don't we send the children out?" Charleston suggested. Once the kids were out of the room, he spoke again. "Now, I'm aware that there's something of a history between these boys, but that doesn't excuse Nicky's actions"
"Excuse me, what do you mean by history?" Logan asked.
"Well Nicky has complained quite a few times about Adam bothering" Charleston said.
"How long has that been going on?" Logan asked. He was a little mad that it was happening to begin with but he was pissed that clearly nothing had been done about it.
"That's not relevant"
"It's absolutely relevant. Not only were my wife and I never told that anything was going on, but clearly nobody did anything about it" Logan said. "I wanna know the full story"
"In September their teacher in the program was informed by Nicky that Adam had said something mean to him." Charleston said. "She received more complaints like that over the months, but Adam never put his hands on Nicky"
"So to me it sounds like my son has been getting bullied for months, by a kid 3 years older than him, he's reported it multiple times and nobody did anything, and today this kid tried to hurt Nicky's dog, but Nicky's the one in trouble because he tried to protect himself and his dog"
The room was quiet.
"Right" Logan nodded and stood up. "Well, I'm gonna take my son home and maybe reassess where I put my money"
Chilton was a very large private school that relied on donations. Logan and rory...they donated a lot. Logan didn't like pulling the money card, it made him feel like his father, but his son was being bullied and the school knew but didn't do anything.
"Mr Huntzberger, there's no need to be hasty" Charleston said.
"Look, my son has been getting bullied for months...by a kid 3 years older than him. Nobody told me. Nobody told my wife. Nobody cared. That was until he defended himself" Logan said. "Why is it that you don't care when a 10 year old is bullying a 7 year old, but when that 7 year old defends himself it's suddenly a problem?"
Once again the room was quiet.
"I'm taking my son home" Logan said and left the room before anyone said anything else. "Come on, Nicky"
"Am I in trouble?" Nicky asked as they walked to the car.
"No" Logan said. They got in the car and instead of going home, Logan drove to Nicky's favorite pizza place.
"Why aren't we going home?" Nicky asked once they were sitting at a table.
"I wanna talk to you about something" Logan said.
"Because I pushed that boy?"
"Kind of" Logan said. "Why didn't you tell me that someone was being mean to you?"
"I don't know" Nicky said. He didn't look at Logan, just stared at his pizza.
"I think you do know"
Nicky didn't say anything.
"Ok" Logan sighed. "Do you wanna tell me what happened today?"
We had the gold program today and when we had a break I took Shadow outside, but Adam also went outside and he was saying that I was stupid because my brain is sick. And he said that I shouldn't be allowed to go to school because my brain doesn't work right. And I ignored him but then he tried to kick Shadow so I pushed him away, but he told the teacher and I got in trouble"
"Well, you know what? You're not in trouble" Logan said. "And I'm gonna make sure that Adam doesn't bother you anymore"
——
"I hate it" Logan said as he and Rory got ready for bed that night.
"I do too" Rory said.
"I mean that woman was try to justify her son bullying Nicky" Logan said. "Because kids think that different things are weird. That's what she said. And Charleston didn't care. All that mattered to him was that Nicky put his hands on that other kid"
"Hey, remember when we were looking into that school for gifted kids?" Rory asked. About a year prior someone had recommended that they send Nicky to a school for gifted children. They looked into the school, but decided against it because Nicky was happy at Chilton.
"What about it?" Logan asked
"We could see about transferring him there" Rory said. "Might be better. He'd certainly be less bored"
"That might not be a bad idea" Logan said. "Put the bullying aside, Nicky still doesn't really like Chilton. He's bored there. He could probably benefit from some higher level...everything"
——
Over the next few weeks Rory and Logan went through all the necessary steps to transfer Nicky to the other school.
His started doing to the new school in March. At the end of his first day, Rory was waiting outside to pick him up.
"Hi bubba!" Rory said when Nicky found her outside. "How did you like it?"
"It was so good!" Nicky said. "We did math, and I got to read really long books, and we did a science experiment where an egg got sucked into a bottle"
"That sounds pretty cool" Rory smiled.
"It's was" Nicky said.
"And was everything ok with Shadow?" Rory asked
"Mhmm" Nicky nodded
"Good"