Bullies

Really struggling with this one.  There's this kid at school who is giving Nate a hard time. B is a 7th grader, and seems to have a history of being mean or bullying other people. He's been at AISB for a couple of years and his dad is in the marines.  (say no more, right???) They're going home to the US at the end of the year, happily. He's been bugging Nate for most of the year, but it seemed to get better for a while, then when we got back from Christmas it seemed to get worse again. Nate has decided to ignore the kid. I mean really ignore him. Doesn't look at him, doesn't respond when he talks to other people near Nate, basically acts deaf around him. Then, last week Nate told me that a friend had said that this kid B was mad at Nate because Nate doesn't talk to him. Now, why in the hell would Nate talk to him?? He's nothing but an a$$hole to Nate.

Well, yesterday Nate was leaving early in the morning for a basketball tournament in Serbia. They were meeting at a hotel for the bus, and we were a bit late-- really, a couple minutes, and definitely not the last ones there.  And this kid B was telling a "joke" to one of his minions. and yelled the punchline, just as Nate and I were approaching the group "TIME TO GET ANOTHER WATCH!" Nate's face went to stone and we walked past the little cretin. I went over to talk to the coaches and apologize. They said "No worries; you're not the last ones."

As I drove away, I saw the ignoramus lurking right
behind Nate. Nate looked rather stressed, and was plugging in his earphones to block the noise from the fool.  I was wishing I could have given Nate my phone, but I had forgotten my phone at home. I really felt lousy, watching him struggle with how to deal with this kid. As I said, he did this to someone else last year; a girl who he worked to isolate and separate from her friends. The girl went to talk to the school counselor and then that became part of the taunt-- "Why don't you go cry to Ms. Wein." Nate asked me not to escalate the complaint against the kid; just to let him deal with it. But what does that look like?  sigh.....

Who could hurt this face??