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As part of a late summer assignment, I received a terrific letter from Zander in Brooklyn, including his answer to the question, “What will happen to the characters in Bystander after the story?”

Here’s an excerpt from that letter . . .

Thanks so much for answering my questions. I really loved your book! I did a little writing about what I thought might happen to some of the characters in the future. I was wondering if you have ever thought about this? Do you think Griffin will continue to be a bully? What about the other characters? I also have to ask the obvious question — were you a bully or where you bullied in school? If not, why did you want to write this book? I’m really looking forward to your answers.

Zander

What I think will happen to the characters after the story:

I think Griffin will still be the bully, but he will be a lone bully with no clique by his side. About twenty pages before the book ended, Griffin’s gang separated from him; they were fed up with Griffin and his ways and felt bad for the people they hurt and picked on. Griffin may form a new clique, but I think the same thing will happen that happened to the original click, they will get fed up with Griffin’s ways. Eventually, Griffin will probably find out that this whole bully thing isn’t working out for him and turn over a new leaf, but I’m not so sure about that either; it’s not exactly Griffin’s way. The other problem is the relationship between Griffin and Griffin’s father. If the way Griffin’s father acts changes, Griffin will change with him. You see, Griffin mimics his father’s actions, and if those actions change, I have a good feeling that a new Griffin will be born. If they would go into therapy, this could be achieved. But since that didn’t happen in the story, it’s unlikely that it will happen now. Thus having Griffin stay the same.

I also think that Mary and Eric will still hang out a lot, they might be considered boyfriend and girlfriend, but I’m not sure. I also think that Griffin’s original clique will turn into Eric’s clique, or Griffin’s original clique will accept Eric as a member; either way, Mary will no longer be Eric’s only friend. Before I finished the story, I thought to myself that it would not be a “…and they all lived happily ever after” ending, and I was right. If the story continued on, I still think this would be true

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I know, Dear Reader, I know.

You are getting tired of my slipshod approach, the endless excuses about how busy I am.

But!

Yesterday I coached two baseball practices, for two different teams. Threw batting practice to twenty-two different boys who are at a point, ages 11 and 12, where it’s no longer okay to just blob it over. They need the ball with a little heat. So my wing is sore.

Today I’m driving off to Geneseo with my oldest, Nick, for a second look-see. He’s a high school senior and we’re getting down to decision time for college. On Wednesday, my good wife Lisa flies down to Atlanta, where she’s going to learn how to perform minor surgery on a cervix — and frankly I do not want to know any more details than that. She comes home Sunday, the day I coach a doubleheader and drive down to Long Island for a week’s worth of school visits.

And, oh, yeah. There’s the job thing, too. Writing stuff.

So the blog suffers.

I wanted to share a few scans and photos. I recently visited a school down in Sicklerville, NJ, where the students filled the halls with creative responses to my book, Bystander. First, some beautiful faces . . .

There were posters and poems. Some students wrote journal entries from the perspective on a book character, and I thought those were particularly interesting and effective. Isn’t that the big lesson in To Kill a Mockingbird, when Scout stands on Boo Radley’s porch and sees the world from his perspective? When she stands in his shoes?

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” — Harper Lee.

So after my presentations were done, and the books signed, we walked around the halls and filled a big box with incredible artwork, posters, etc. I can’t show it all to you, but here’s a few samples:

Most posters were too big to scan. I loved the tagline that one boy came up with . . .

“DON’T BE A BULLY . . . DO THE NICE!”