Hasiyna Price and Danette Banks are friends, neighbors and cousins. They've been close ever since they can remember.
In a visit to the StoryCorps booth in New York, the pair talked about how Price copes with her scoliosis -- curvature of the spine -- and, especially, how it affects the way she deals with boys.
As Banks says, kids sometimes pick on others to make themselves feel better.
But Price is no easy target. She has a number of strategies to protect herself from name-calling and teasing, which she says can happen at school or in her neighborhood.
Her methods run the gamut from ignoring those trying to make fun of her, threatening violence -- and giving the cold shoulder.
Still, when asked how she would like people to think of her, Price says, "As the sweetest girl -- if you don't get on my bad side!"
This piece was produced for 'Morning Edition' by Piya Kochhar and Katie Simon.
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