I am nine and they shove her. Sometimes me too, but usually her. I stand by and I'm silent. She cries and they laugh. I also want to cry, but I need to be strong for her. I'm not strong enough to say stop, so I need to be strong enough to say: "You are not weak. You are not stupid, not dumb. You can cry."

She can cry, I can't. Me, they don't shove. I do nothing and I should be stronger. Me, they don't shove, but I feel the hands in my stomach, their words and their laughter in my mouth. They are bitter, but more bitter are the words I haven't said: "Go away! Leave us alone! Why? We haven't done anything wrong."

***

I am not strong enough, not enough, because she no longer comes. She could no longer handle the words and the shoves and the laughter. I am alone, but that's okay. I can handle it. I need to be able to handle it because they're just boys, they're just words, laughter.

So I am strong, when I stand with my legs spread for a game and they crawl under them one by one and laugh: "Did you see her panties too? She doesn't wear shorts under her skirt!"

They choose teams until I am alone in front of them. The one who could choose first shouts: "You can have her!" My team sighs. I am strong.

"I don't like this," I say, and they shove me and say: "I don't like this." I am strong. They laugh and their words poke little holes in me. Drops well up, but I swallow them. If they saw how weak I am, they would poke even more holes, until I am a hole. They did that to her too when they saw she wasn't strong enough.

So I stand by the wall or in a corner. I put up my hood and look at the cracks in the paint. Big, small. Like the holes. If I don't see the others, I can act as if I don't feel the holes and maybe they won't see me either and I will disappear.

Mum asks: "How was it?" I say: "Good." It's true, isn't it? They're just pinpricks and if I swallow enough, nothing trickles out. I am weak, but I need to be stronger, so I go back, every Sunday, even though I am nauseous, even though their laughter and their words and the games I don't want to play swarm in my stomach. I go back and I shrivel up and I swallow and I don't bleed out.

Really.

***

I am not angry. I have never been angry. They didn't know how sometimes at night, I would curl up around a plush giraffe, smaller and smaller, so I wouldn't be drained. They didn't know there was only a core and a husk left. Not enough to be bitter.

They poke holes, but nothing flows out anymore. Am I stronger now?

***

I am not angry, but if I see them, I will look at them as if they never poked holes. As if I never find holes of which I had forgotten they were there and suddenly I am small again. As if I have never shrivelled up, never tasted bitter.

I will look at them, and if they poke, I won't bleed.

***

Author's Note: This is the translation of a monologue I wrote a few years ago for a creative writing class. I chose to write about my experiences with bullying. The activity on Sundays that I kept going to for four years was a type of youth organisation called "Chiro", where we mostly played games, divided by age groups.