Simone could relate personally because she told The Washington Post that she had experienced bullying when she was younger.
She reasoned that if one small gesture could help another student feel better, it was worth doing.
Then there was Maya Gregory, an eighth grader who had also experienced bullying around Brody's age.
Maya understood the feeling of wanting someone older—or simply someone else—to step in.
She gathered friends of her own.
Without Brody knowing it, a small movement was forming inside his school.
Students who had never met him were deciding that his empty yearbook should not stay empty.
The Next Day, Everything Changed
On May 25, one day after the original yearbook incident, older students began arriving at Brody's sixth-grade classroom.
They weren't there because they had been ordered to attend.
They came because they wanted to.
They asked for Brody.
Then they asked for his yearbook.
One by one, students began signing.
But many didn't simply write their names.
They filled the pages with encouraging messages.
They told Brody that he mattered.
They reminded him that he was not alone.
Some students left their phone numbers so he could contact them.
Others spent time talking to him rather than simply signing the book and leaving.
According to The Washington Post, the students asked Brody about his interests, which included chess and fencing, and offered encouragement based on their own experiences.
The book that had looked painfully empty only a day earlier began filling up.
Page after page.
Signature after signature.
Message after message.
By the end, Brody had collected more than 100 signatures and messages of support.
He even received a gift bag.
The transformation wasn't only visible on the pages of his yearbook.
It was visible in Brody himself.
He had begun the experience feeling rejected.
Now dozens of students were making an effort to show him that he belonged.
Brody later described the impact simply: it made him feel that he wasn't alone.
Then His Own Classmates Started Signing
Something else happened as the older students filled Brody's yearbook.
His sixth-grade classmates were watching.
These were the same peers among whom Brody had struggled to get signatures the previous day.
As they watched older students gather around him, some of them began getting out of their seats.
They wanted to sign his yearbook too.
The moment illustrated something important about peer influence.
Peer pressure is often discussed as a negative force. Young people can imitate exclusion, cruelty or risky behavior because they want to belong.
But social influence can work in the opposite direction as well.
Kindness can spread.
When respected older students publicly demonstrated that Brody deserved attention and friendship, younger students were given a different example to follow.
Joanna Cooper told The Washington Post that seeing Brody's classmates begin signing showed the older students that their decision to come into the classroom was already having an effect.
The same social environment that had contributed to Brody feeling excluded was suddenly encouraging inclusion.
It didn't erase what had happened the day before.
But it changed what happened next.
More Than Signatures
Perhaps the most meaningful part of the story is that some students did more than write encouraging sentences.