My mouth was dry and my tongue stuck to the roof of it. I remember that all I could do was nod. So Michael pushed his fingers between my lips and forced them open.

"Now, say ‘Yes.'"

I suppose I must have done.

"Say ‘I swear.'"

That too.

"Now you can go but don't forget now."

He unlocked the stockroom door and was gone. I remember going back into the café, wondering if my mother had been worried but she was chatting to someone. What had felt like hours of torture was probably only a few minutes. She said, "Did you have a nice time playing with Michael?" 

The torment went on for two years, until my mother started to favour a different café. The physical violence I received at Michael's hands was just enough to be very painful, never to be visible-the match burns were always on my upper arms beneath sleeves-but it was not this which was the worst of it. The worst was the fear and dread, the imaginings as I lay awake, and went about my school day, and ate and did my homework. There was an undertow of fear which made me sick and which I could never quite turn my mind from. What might he do next? His threats were vague but still terrifying. Once, my mother sent me to get something from the grocer's shop next door to the café and Michael spotted me, waited, propelled me by gripping my arm in a vice, and got me into the store. He then simply put out the light, locked the door and went. I was in there for perhaps half an hour-not enough time for my mother to begin worrying, just enough for her to scold me for taking so long. Then, I had to invent more and more elaborate lies in order not to be sent to the grocer's alone again. 

And so on and so on. And I never told a soul. In fact, I have never told anyone until now. Other things happened at school, people were mean and spiteful, said horrible things about the embarrassing hats my mother wore to sports day or my father's funny moustache, but none of it was beyond bearing, all was what most children gave and took during the school day. I daresay I did my share and I have never thought of it as "bullying". As a matter of fact, I have never thought of what Michael did as "bullying" and I still do not. What he did comes under the heading of unkindness or even cruelty and I think that it might all be taken more seriously if people did use those clear words. Verbal and physical threats and abuse, name-calling and fear-provoking, are unkind and cruel. It's as simple as that.