Bullying Rory Gilmore: Rory's 16th

Chapter 1: 'We've got you now'

"Come on, come and get them!"

Allison Hargreaves was holding both of Rory Gilmore's white school shoes high up in the air like a pair of prizes she'd just won, laughing loudly and taunting the smaller girl with them. She had no intention of giving them back.

It was the day of Rory's 16th birthday. Earlier, when this group of girls, mostly from the year above, had accidentally overheard her discussing her big milestone with a teacher, it inspired them all to put a long-discussed plan into action.

They were going to keep her behind at the end of school and take her somewhere quiet; somewhere no teachers would see a thing and nobody could help her.

Allison and her best friend Becky Quinn, both 17 and both very popular eleventh graders, had their eyes on little Rory for about two years now. 

Becky's younger cousin, 14-year-old Jackie Quinn, had heard all about Rory from her two older friends and desperately wanted to join in with this planned bullying session. 

By all accounts, Jackie felt that this friendless school debater, total nerd and teacher's pet with a boyish name needed to be taught a lesson. 

Allison and Becky weren't instantly sure about letting the ninth grader take part, but seeing how much she wanted it, they decided to let her in on it. They decided it would be funny - as in, extra embarrassing for the victim - to have a younger girl there as "an observer" only. 

While Jackie did actually enjoy watching humiliations without necessarily taking any active role, she knew that in this case, she'd be doing way more than that on the day.

With her exceptionally cute face and slender frame, brunette Jackie looked like a little sweetie with her perfect spacebun hairstyle. But the ninth grader had strong, toned arms and legs (not immediately apparent from her small stature) and already knew how to fight.

Jackie could be very aggressive verbally and had a merciless streak when it came to the weakest, politest and most gentle people around her.

It alienated girls her own age, but won her older friends like Allison who enjoyed her company despite the age gap. It also helped that she was the younger cousin of Allison's bestie, Becky.

Jackie could sense weakness from a mile off. She'd spotted Rory sitting alone in the lunch hall a few times, and only had to observe her briefly to see that this "skinny bitch" was the perfect victim.

It was fairly clear from her general, "don't mind me" demeanour and the subservient way she seemed to interact with everyone.

And the way Rory held herself walking around the school, especially when she had that big yellow backpack on her shoulders, told Jackie this girl must be a complete and total pushover.

The fact that Rory was a tenth grader, and she only in grade nine, didn't intimidate Jackie at all. Not in this case; Rory was a special case. 

She'd sat down with Rory in the lunch hall a few times to "chat", pretending to be lonely and in need of a friend. She was good at that.

From those chats, she'd found out lots about Rory: an only child, single mom, never been in a fight in her life, hates sport, afraid of bullies, total dedication to her schoolwork and love of books.

Jackie didn't go so far as to make friends with Rory, but she had slyly made an acquaintance of her intended victim, and reported everything back to Allison and Becky.

That led to quite long discussions between the three of them about what they'd like to do to Rory if they got the chance.

Some of the more outrageous ideas thrown around included hanging the Gilmore girl by her knickers from the school gates, pushing her out of the locker room after PE in just her underwear or giving her ponytail a little trim with scissors. But they weren't really going to do anything as mean as any of that - it was just talk between over-excited girls. As time went on, they developed a more realistic plan that wouldn't get them into (too much) trouble.

With Chilton being such an incredibly strict school for discipline, Allison and Becky had been very careful up to now. Over the past couple of years since Rory joined the school as a freshman, Allison and Becky had contented themselves with giving the small-built girl some intimidating looks in the halls from time to time that made her jump back in fear.

That was, until now. No matter what the rules or apparent restrictions in place, bullies will always do their thing in the end. Real bullies are especially good at patiently biding their time until the right opportunity arises.

Jackie had long imagined getting Rory in a headlock and keeping her like that for a long time. It looked like she'd have her chance now. 

The trio had Rory trapped in a long-disused basement classroom they'd gone to some trouble to discover and put tabs on, and had no intention of letting her go anytime soon.

"We've got you now," hissed Jackie.

Becky got a kick from Rory's extra embarrassment at being bullied by someone younger. Becky was so close to her younger cousin, thanks to their shared love of targeting weak people they found in school, or just anywhere they went.

"Loser", taunted Allison, a tall and slim but quite sturdy, very attractive and supremely confident blonde, "16 and you still look 12."

"More like 10", chipped in Jackie, to hoots of laughter from the other two.

"Yeah," Jackie continued, "I turned 14 last week and I have bigger tits than you."

Rory went red and scrunched her face up quite rudely back at Jackie, which didn't go down well.

She was feeling particularly betrayed as she'd thought of Jackie as a friend, a younger girl she felt she'd been kind to.

"How dare she insult me? A freshman! I'm not taking that from her!", Rory thought to herself.

"Look at my cousin like that again and you'll get a punch, got it?", Becky warned Rory.

"Yeah and it might even be from me," Jackie chipped in, meeting Rory's gaze without flinching.

Rory suddenly realised this 14-year-old meant business too.

Rory's black waist-length duffel coat, yellow backpack, navy blazer, navy tank top, white shirt, tie, plaid skirt and black tights were still on her.

But no shoes. She stood little chance of getting them back from Allison. That was humiliating enough, nevermind what else they had in store for her that afternoon.

Even fully dressed with all those layers covering her, Rory's small, vulnerable frame was so apparent. It was that look that made her so appealing to any group of bullies she had the misfortune to cross paths with.

On top of that, she still had a high, little-girl voice that made her sound quite pathetic when she tried to reason with them.

All Rory could think about how she needed to get home to her mom for her birthday. But Allison, Jackie and Becky, had been looking forward to this for quite a while now, and were in no mood for going easy on Rory.

They'd even chatted to some of Rory's classmates, who found her endless high-achieving in all subjects, along with her perfect little face and perfect, polite manner with everyone (especially teachers who loved her) a bit insufferable at times.

A few weeks beforehand, the three bullies had found a disused classroom next to the old gym in the basement that would be perfect for their plan. But they still bided their time while continuing to keep a close eye on Rory.

Then one day, the perfect opportunity landed on them. It was October 8th. Once they heard Rory blabbing to a teacher that it was her birthday, they knew this was it.

They made Rory accompany them to their chosen location as soon as the school day ended. It was a deserted place where they knew they wouldn't be disturbed at all.

The trio knew that no teachers ever went down to that dingy old classroom anymore, that it was never locked and that it never seemed to be checked or cleaned by anyone.

They'd prepared well for this, and then all they had to do was find the right moment to capture Rory emerging from her classroom at the end of the school day...