Who wasn't my enemy when I was ten?

I was the class overachiever. Full marks in every spelling test, ridiculously well-read for my age, the first to volunteer for anything, the loudest singer in the school choir, the overall star performer.

Oh, and let's not forget this vital fact: because I'd been pushed around by some little prick the year before and hadn't told anyone until he was found out, I'd been told to tell an adult the instant someone gave me shit. So not only was I the overachiever, I was also the tattle-telling goody-two-shoes. I may as well have wandered around the playground with a target painted on my chest.

See? Even you hate ten-year-old me.

If it's names you're after, here's a few: there was Emma, one of the bitchy overlords of the playground, who told my on-again-off-again best friend Julia that if I was invited to her birthday party, neither Emma nor any of the other girls in class would go. Then there was Stewart, the token troublemaker and every teacher's worst nightmare, who nearly broke my finger in a hockey match and never let me forget it.

But here's the really sad part: when I was ten, my arch nemesis was my year 5 teacher, Miss Marriott. She was newly qualified, liked teaching PE best (my overachieving did not extend to the sports field), and had absolutely no idea how to deal with a kid like me. She didn't think I was anything special academically, and she believed that I brought all my problems on myself.

Yeah. Bitch.

I'll never forget that one afternoon when I came running out of school, crying hysterically, to my mother. I'd spent an entire day getting ripped on in class and being ignored by my teacher, and I seem to remember wanting to run away and die. Ma being Ma, marched me right back into school and went apeshit at Miss Marriott, who at first tried telling her that I was partly to blame.

"How dare you tell me she started it? Don't you have any idea of the grief she gets? Would you like to be the mother of a child that's miserable all the time because she's being bullied at school?" By the end of it, Miss Marriott was speechless and Ma was so angry that she was in tears. It was only the second time in my life that I'd seen my ma cry, so I was freaked out, let alone my teacher.

*snif-snif* Is that the smell of someone getting burned?

The day was saved by my to-be year 6 teacher, Mr Newell, who liked teaching music best (he ran the school choir) and knew exactly what was going on with me. He calmed Ma and I down, and no doubt had a few words to the Marriott after we left. Once I turned eleven, life got a little easier knowing I had someone in the classroom to back me up.

But here's a learning for you to take away, kids: when it comes to playground bullying, there's no bigger bully than the teacher who turns a blind eye.