The teenagers don't see the angry young girl at first. They continue sitting on the steps, laughing about what they'd done: picking on a smaller girl much weaker, much younger than themselves. They give each other high fives, slap each other on the back.
The girl marches up to them and says: "Why did you do that? Why did you pick on my cousin? Don't you know any better? That's not very nice what you did!"
"Oh, really!" the biggest kid intones, laughing cruelly. "Well, if you don't like it, too bad! She's just a crippled kid! And be warned: anyone who tries to defend her is next! You'll get what we gave her!"
The little girl stands her ground. She doesn't care what the bully is saying to her. She knows in her heart of hearts that what they were doing to her cousin was wrong, and she intends to let them know about it.
"Well, you hurt her. And you hurt me", the little girl says angrily. "How can you do that to a little kid? Especially to a kid like Rose?"
"Well, I don't know", the bully mumbles. "I guess what we're doing was wrong."
"You BET it's wrong!" the little girl says. "Aren't there enough bad people in the world without you only adding to it? Well, you owe me an apology, and you owe my cousin one, too! What you did was a sin!"
"Oh, you sound like a preacher! Let's have church!" the bully roars with laughter.
"Well, it IS!" the little girl insists, not backing down. She stares up at the bully with as much bravery and courage as her eight-year-old self can muster. Her eyes smolder with anger and indignation.
"Oh, now you're goin' to preach at me?" the bully sneers. "Oooh, I'm so scared!"
"Well, no, but Jesus doesn't like you acting like that! He sees what you're doing, and it makes Him cry! It hurts Him when you're being mean or doing bad things to others!"
"Oh, He's dead! How can a dead man be mad?" the bully shoots back.
"He's NOT dead. He's very much alive! Don't you 'member readin' about the day He rose to Heaven two days after He died? The Resurrection?" the little girl says.
"Well, yeah", the bully says, scuffing the toe of his sneaker in the sand. He looks down, embarrassed at being shot down by a little kid, a kid much younger than himself or his pals.
He realizes the errors of his ways. He suddenly feels guilty. He knows he has done wrong, so he has to apologize. He apologizes to the little girl who he has wronged, then asks to apologize to the little girl's cousin, the one he'd hurt in the first place.
Happily, the little girl takes him by the hand and together, they go to her house, to see her cousin.
~End of part two~
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