Bullying as a Plot Issue
In Pagan Eyes: Declaration, bullying is a central issue. How does a child become the target of a
bully? Often being a new kid or one who
has a bad haircut is enough to attract ridicule. As a first year teacher, I
received all the students the other teachers didn’t want. One of them was
Marie*, the most bullied kid in the district. No other student would be her
friend because she didn’t want to become a target too.
Marie ate lunch in my room. Over several lunches, she told me her story.
In grade school, she’d been a happy, athletic child, and then her father left.
Money became tight and the growing Marie showed up in her mother’s too big
clothes. She was no longer a star athlete since she didn’t even have shoes she
could keep on.
A few kids would snicker about her clothes, others gloated
over her loss of athletic skill, and still others implied she must have done
something to cause her father to leave. Because it was a small town, the rumors
and bullying behavior traveled with her to middle school, which was in the same
building.
Marie’s overworked mother didn’t complain about her
daughter’s treatment. Picking on the
girl had become such a sport, that teachers didn’t even want her in their
classes. This is why an intelligent,
capable student ended up in my remedial class.
She confided that once she drove into another city with her
aunt, where no one knew her. Enjoyed a movie and a fast food meal without
anyone ridiculing her, which was an unheard of treat.
Bullies can be very dangerous, not with just their fists, but
their implied threats often cause teens to take their own lives. There’s
nothing funny about it, but it is a very real part of growing up. The emotional
damage bullies inflict travels with the victim into adulthood.
I wanted a story of how a teen survived bullying that didn’t
result in a school shooting. Facing down the bully is possible.
Declaration
Pagan Eyes
Book Three
Rayna Noire
Genre: YA Paranormal
Publisher: Sleeping Dragon Press
Date of Publication: August 2014
ISBN-13: 978-0692254363
ISBN-10: 0692254366
ASIN:
Number of pages: 241
Word Count: 75,156
Cover Artist: Dawne Dominique
Book Description:
Ethan finds himself trapped between the world he knows and the world that could be. A sadistic bully, an unsympathetic principal, and an unreachable love interest make high school difficult for Ethan. He feels like he’s living a lie, trying to blend in at school in an effort to keep his head attached to his body.
The support his Wiccan family provides is negated by fear of not being the son his father wants. An impromptu trip into the future saves him from an enraged bully while instilling doubts about where he really belongs. Somehow, he has to find a way to survive in his own world tossing aside his mask and doubts.
Book Trailer http://youtu.be/gU5lJ-YKzsc
Keywords: Paranormal, Young Adult, Suspense, Romantic Suspense, Coming of Age, Wiccan, Pagan Eyes Series
Excerpt:
Ethan hid in a dark doorway, panting, while he considered his options.
No way Caulb and his felons in training would give up once they figured out he
outsmarted them. Shouts echoing in the cavernous hallway alerted him. Danger
was closer than he’d thought. Great. Weren’t schools supposed to be crawling
with staff members looking out for the welfare of the students? Yeah, right.
Too bad, he’d left his cell phone in Leah’s car. Not that it would have done
him much good since the school used a dampener to keep students from texting in
class.
If high schools were a theme park, then tenth grade was the roller
coaster. It started uneventfully. The most stressful part had been fending off all the helpful staff
members, who wanted to redirect him to the middle school, assuming, since he
was shorter than a good portion of the girls, he wasn’t old enough for high
school.
The voices veered off to the left, down the science corridor. A window
of opportunity opened up. Ethan shot up the hallway to the gym, where the
wrestling team practiced earlier. His father had nagged him to try out for the
wrestling team. Even the coach asked him to give it a go, because they needed
someone in his weight class. Most of his matches would forfeit due to not
having anyone in his class or he’d end up wrestling a girl, the coach said. No
thanks. He already had enough things to be teased about.
The dimly lit hallway stretched as if it were endless. Maybe this was a
dream and he’d wake up soon. Caulb’s voice filtered down the hallway. His bass
timber was menacing enough without the eerie quality of it bouncing off the
metal lockers and taking on an almost mechanical quality. Caulb was a deadly
droid, on the mission of annihilating anyone who didn’t conform to his
standards. Unfortunately, no tip sheet existed to specify what his standards
were. All Ethan knew was, he didn’t meet them.
The gym doors came into view. Sanctuary. He swung the door open with a
gasp, unsure what he was going to say. All he had to do was stick close to the
coach. Maybe he could say he needed to use the phone to call home. His eyes
darted around the empty gym. Where was everyone? An image of the wrestlers in
their spandex suits came to mind. They were dressed in their team apparel when
he’d seen them earlier, which meant they were probably at an away meet, and why
no one was in the gym. The lights illuminated the wooden floor and abandoned
mats.
He took a few steps into the gym, stopped, and turned slowly, seeing no
sign of following bullies, or an almost friend who stabbed him in the back. His
lips pulled down into a frown, remembering the different expectations he’d had
for the night, much different.
About the Author:
Rayna Noire is an author and a historian. The desire to uncover the truth behind the original fear of witches led her to the surprising discovery that people believed in magick in some form up to 150 years ago. A world that believed the impossible could happen and often did must have been amazing. With this in mind, Ms. Noire taps into this dimension, shapes it into stories about Pagan families who really aren't that different from most people. They do go on the occasional time travel adventures and magick happens.
Website www.raynanoire.com
Twitter www.twitter.com/raynanoire
Facebook www.facebook.com/AuthorRaynaNoire
Amazon Author Page http://www.amazon.com/Rayna-Noire/e/B00J8XP14A/
