They get more attention with negativity, Sarah thought, as she walked the streets of New York City.
Sarah had just moved there from a small town in Louisiana, with her twin brother, Alec, and their parents. The first thing she noticed about her new home on the Upper East Side was that she didn’t fit in. The students at her new school had known each other for thirteen years. They were all filthy rich, and they didn’t appreciate the new country hicks.
Sarah had only been there for three weeks, but nobody had approached her. Was it the way she looked? The way she talks? Or maybe it’s because the rich New York snobs must sense that she never had money before.
The loud New York atmosphere was shocking compared to the quiet countryside, where you could hear the crawdads crawling around at night.
Suddenly her phone buzzed. Someone had posted a picture of her at school with the caption “When you accidentally enroll in a New York school when you should be raising chickens.” The comments were filled with laughing emojis and insults.
Sarah’s face burned with embarrassment. She’d spent three weeks trying to fit in, and now everyone knew who she was for all the wrong reasons.
When she got home, her brother Alec asked what was wrong. She showed him the Instagram post, but he only shrugged it off and told Sarah, “Ignore them, they are probably just looking for attention”
Sarah stared at her phone and at the post. Maybe he was right, but she couldn’t help wondering why being mean made you popular. Being kind makes you invisible.
The next morning, Sarah walked into school with her head held high. Instead of hiding in the back of the classroom like she normally would, she stood up for herself when the girl who had posted the picture made another cruel comment.
“You know,” Sarah said, “if you need to put others down to get attention, maybe you aren’t as interesting as you think.”
A few students laughed, but this time, they weren’t laughing at Sarah. By the end of the day, people were talking about what she’d said.
For once, Sarah didn’t care about being popular. She had come a long way to New York hoping to fit in, but now she realized she didn’t need to change who she was to be liked. She needed to continue to be kind and happy.