Roses are red, Violets are blue, Dana doesn’t like the ICI’s, And neither should you. In the story, the mission of the In Crowd Individuals (ICI’s) is to make members of the fringe’s life as unbearable as possible. The ICI’s take pure pleasure in mistreating them. In Joan Bauer’s “A Letter From The Fringe,” the protagonist, Dana, makes a courageous decision that could change the fate of her friends school life. Dana witnessed her best friend, Sally, being bullied by two members of the ICI’s - Doug Booker and Charlie Bass. As she was eating cookies, they told her she was fat and needed to loose weight. Sally took this pretty hard, and told Dana that they were right and that she was fat. Immediately following the mistreatment, Dana saw the bag…show more content… This is because, Dana witnesses her best friend being bullied. Instead of letting the snarky comments continue, she stands up for her and helps her through the aftermath. Dana does this by standing up to Doug Booker and by telling him to get lost. Doug Booker and Charlie Bass were bullying Sally, by saying that she was fat/overweight and how she needed to loose 30 pounds. After Dana interjected and stood up for Sally, the two boys responded with pure hatred that can not be came back from easily. In the short story it states, “Why don’t you and your fat friend just get out of my face, because the two of you are so butt ugly you’re making me sick, and I don’t know if I can hold the puke in!” (2). That is an extremely rude and hurtful insult, that deeply hurt Sally. After this verbal attack, Sally was just sitting their gripping her cookie bag processing what she has just been told. Dana tried telling Sally that they were creeps and stuff like that, but didn’t know exactly what to say. Sally began to cry, and she then admitted that she was overweight. Sally sobbed and said, “I do have to lose weight, Dana.” Dana immediately replied by saying things like, “They don’t have a right to say it! (2). There are all kinds of sizes in this world that are perfectly fine!” That’s when Dana noticed the bag Sally was clutching on to had a balloons on it. It was Sally’s birthday, and the cookies were a present…show more content… The surprise is that, Dana has been tossing around the idea to write a letter to the ICI’s all year. After Dana arrived home from an emotional day at school, she finally decided to sit down and write the letter. In the text it states “How I could write a letter to the ICI’s, explain what life is like from my end of the lunchroom, and maybe things would get better at my school.” (6). She just never really figured out how to write it, until now. The actions that were displayed earlier that day inspired Dana to write a moving, potentially life changing letter. The letter is about how the fringe and “nerds” just want to be accepted, and not looked at like their crazy or weirdoes. They don’t necessarily want to be popular, just accepted by their peers. In Dana’s letter, it states “I think you’ve always assumed that I want to be like you. But I want you to know something about kids like me. We don’t want to. We just want the freedom to walk down the hall without seeing your smirks, your contempt, and your looks of disgust” (7). To add, the letter also talks about how everyone is different, and how boring life would be if things weren’t that way. Dana then connects how not just how people are different, but how animals and things in nature are as well. Dana also wrote in her letter, “Why do human beings think they have the right to pick who’s nest-who’s acceptable and who’s not? (8). In addition,
