Willie is Jake’s best friend, but in fourth grade, he is not in Mr. Thompson’s class with Jake. He is in Mrs. Steele’s class; Willie does not enjoy having her as a teacher because she assigns more homework and is a more exacting teacher. His favorite class is gym. Unlike Jake, Willie does not usually get bullied, because he is “too small” and is “a nice kid [who] minds his own business” (14). In the section of the story that flashes back to second-grade, Willie is in Mrs. Brattle’s class with Jake. They spend all of their time at school together and then sometimes go to one another’s houses after school, as well. When Link is introduced to the class and told to sit with Willie and Jake, Willie does not react to him with fear the way Jake does. He introduces both himself and Jake in a friendly way, and he is not portrayed having any problems with Link moving forward. Although Willie is a continuing character throughout the rest of the Jake Drake series, he essentially drops out of the first story after this moment. Willie helps to establish The Importance of Friendship and Support in Jake’s life and serves as a kind of foil to Jake in his differing reaction to Link, but his role in Jake Drake, Bully Buster is a limited one.

Abby is Jake’s younger sister. She is two years younger than Jake and is a typical sibling in that sometimes she supports Jake and other times she tries to get him in trouble. She is understanding when he explains about Link and even offers her older brother wise advice—but she also exaggerates what Jake has done to her when he kicks the pillow she is sitting on, claiming to their mother that Jake has actually kicked her, and “HARD!” (25). When Jake tosses the remote and it hits her on the knee, she cries out and “[tries] to cry a little too” in order to gain her mother’s sympathy and get Jake in trouble (27).

Abby is both typical and atypical when it comes to her intelligence. She loves age-appropriate things like shows about singing puppets—shows that make the older Jake “want to throw up” (33). On the other hand, her thinking is sometimes advanced for her age. Even Jake has to admit that Abby “[isn’t] stupid like a lot of kids” (29). She is the one who offers him the insight that feeling mad leads to mean behavior. Abby’s own choice is to resist getting mad, and when she easily forgives Jake for being mean to her at their grandparents’ house and for being mean after school in Chapters 4 and 5, she demonstrates that she is able to follow through with this philosophy.

Link is the story’s antagonist. He transfers into Mrs. Brattle’s class when Jake is in second grade. Link is tall for his age and has “blond hair and a pointy nose and long arms with big hands” (13). He also has “beady little eyes—bully-eyes” and gives Jake a bad feeling from the very beginning (14). When Jake reacts to him with fear, he seems to enjoy it, and he is adept at manipulating Jake’s emotions. Link uses both physical and psychological tactics to bully Jake throughout most of the story. He intimidates Jake through implied threats, breaks Jake’s beloved red pen, pushes him, and gets other students to laugh at Jake.

A key part of the story’s theme of The Role of Empathy in Dealing with Adversaries is developed through Jake’s investigation of what motivates Link to be a bully. Jake learns that Link is bullied at home by his older sister. This models for Link that bullying others is an acceptable way to deal with his own hurt and insecurities. Although he tries to disguise his vulnerabilities, the admiration of his peers matters deeply to Link. He boasts on the school bus that he will only join a top Little League team because he is such a good player, for instance, and he gets angry when the jokes about Jake’s name do not continue to earn him the laughter and approval of other students. Link’s need for admiration is so deep that it can actually become paralyzing for him, as when he freezes in fear before the social studies report he and Jake are supposed to give in Mrs. Brattle’s class. Fortunately for Link, Jake makes an effort to get to know him and discovers that there is more to Link than the bully mask he hides behind: Link loves comic books and building models, for instance. It is this latter ability that leads to Link getting some positive appreciation from his classmates for the first time. This diminishes Link’s need to use bullying as a coping strategy. In this way, Link is a dynamic character—although, as Jake notes at the end of the story, Link does not change entirely. He still sometimes bullies others, but he does “stop being a SuperBully” (73).