Becoming Silent
When I went to boarding school I was very excited. I went round to my neighbours to show them my new suit, with its itchy shorts.
When I arrived there, I was a little nervous, but the boys in my dormitory seemed friendly. We exchanged names and sweets.
When I settled in, I began to be beaten up. The head of the dormitory, an eleven year-old (I was still nine) would punch me. I would run off. He would order me back into the dormitory and punch me again.
The twelve and thirteen year-olds used to play a game when they were bored. They would gather as a gang and then hunt for us. Then they would form a ring around us and make us strip. And they would either hurt or merely humiliate us.
When I was ten, three older boys took me to their common room. They made me strip. This seemed OK, as they weren't hurting me. Then they took my clothes away from me and chased me round the room and shouted at me and invited other boys in to look at me. I was scared and I cried. No one cared. The grown-ups didn't know and the boys moved on to another game.
When I was eleven I decided I was grown up. I would be like them. With a few other eleven year-olds, we formed a gang. It was this time thirty-five years ago, before Easter. We stripped each other. We touched each other because it seemed funny. Then we stripped two boys a year younger than ourselves. This was wrong.
And it wasn't funny. But the funny thing was that everyone started to say that I had done it all. And very quickly the whole boarding house decided that I had done it all. So they decided to punish me. Most of them crowded round me as I tried to hide on my bed. I moved away from them, closer to the window. They moved closer. I moved onto the window sill and they moved with me. They were screaming and shouting at me, things like "jump" and "queer" and "homo". I didn't really understand what queer and homo were because I didn't really feel attracted to boys or girls. Not yet. But I knew that the boys hated me and wanted to hurt me, and maybe even wanted me to die.
I escaped. I ran down the road to the music school and hid in a practice room. I curled up on the floor at the far end and screwed my eyes shut. And I died. I broke inside and closed outside and took twenty years to unlock the box.
When I arrived there, I was a little nervous, but the boys in my dormitory seemed friendly. We exchanged names and sweets.
When I settled in, I began to be beaten up. The head of the dormitory, an eleven year-old (I was still nine) would punch me. I would run off. He would order me back into the dormitory and punch me again.
The twelve and thirteen year-olds used to play a game when they were bored. They would gather as a gang and then hunt for us. Then they would form a ring around us and make us strip. And they would either hurt or merely humiliate us.
When I was ten, three older boys took me to their common room. They made me strip. This seemed OK, as they weren't hurting me. Then they took my clothes away from me and chased me round the room and shouted at me and invited other boys in to look at me. I was scared and I cried. No one cared. The grown-ups didn't know and the boys moved on to another game.
When I was eleven I decided I was grown up. I would be like them. With a few other eleven year-olds, we formed a gang. It was this time thirty-five years ago, before Easter. We stripped each other. We touched each other because it seemed funny. Then we stripped two boys a year younger than ourselves. This was wrong.
And it wasn't funny. But the funny thing was that everyone started to say that I had done it all. And very quickly the whole boarding house decided that I had done it all. So they decided to punish me. Most of them crowded round me as I tried to hide on my bed. I moved away from them, closer to the window. They moved closer. I moved onto the window sill and they moved with me. They were screaming and shouting at me, things like "jump" and "queer" and "homo". I didn't really understand what queer and homo were because I didn't really feel attracted to boys or girls. Not yet. But I knew that the boys hated me and wanted to hurt me, and maybe even wanted me to die.
I escaped. I ran down the road to the music school and hid in a practice room. I curled up on the floor at the far end and screwed my eyes shut. And I died. I broke inside and closed outside and took twenty years to unlock the box.