My wife called me at work to tell me that our son James had been kicked off the bus. This was when he was in intermediate school. She said it wasn’t as bad as what it sounded. She said that when the principal called her, he said that James didn’t need to be in trouble. He said that the only reason James was being kicked off the bus for a week was because of a zero-tolerance policy for fighting. Here is the story that we got from the principal and James.
When the bus arrived at school that morning, another boy got off the bus before James. That kid’s mouth was bleeding. The principal asked him why his mouth was bleeding. He said that James Wheeler hit him. When James got off the bus, the principal asked him if he hit the other kid in the mouth. James said, “Yes I did.” When asked to explain, James said that the kid he hit had been picking on another kid on the bus. James was taking up for the other kid who was smaller and a little slow. James also told us that the kid he hit had bad teeth, so it didn’t really take much to make his mouth bleed. He said what he did was more like swatting at him rather than balling up his fist and punching him. The principal thought it was a good thing that James was taking up for a little guy on the bus. We were happy that he had done the right thing.
A few months ago, we were sharing stories about James’ childhood with his fiancé and this story came up. James stopped us because he thought at some time, he had told us what had really happened. This was the first time that my wife and I had heard that there was a different story. It turns out that James had traded video games with the kid with the bad teeth. The bad teeth kid didn’t like the game he got and wanted to trade back. James wasn’t going to do that. A fight broke out and James popped the kid in the mouth.