SAFE BY DESIGN · EPISODE 14

When the Joke Stops Being Funny

One unkind message is a bad evening. The same one every day, from a group, is something no child should carry alone.

Tara had stayed for dinner and eaten almost none of it. Arjun had gone off to brush his teeth. Riya was stacking plates when she saw Tara's thumb hovering over her phone, not typing, just holding still.

“Is it the group again?” Tara nodded and slid the phone across the counter, as if she didn't want to be holding it while Riya read.

She'd gone back into the class chat for homework updates. Since then, someone had started calling her Principal Tara, and someone else had dug up an old message of hers and was posting it again, every evening, under a row of laughing faces.

“It's four days now. I keep thinking they'll get bored.”

Tara, 13