How nine year olds can ruin lives

You know with the amount of time that I spend bugging around on facebook [instead of doing my thesis!] I was bound to hit upon people from my past from high schools and former workmates. And there were heaps.

Anyway, to cut to the chase for some reason or another I typed in the name of one of my former primary school classmates, for privacy's sake we'll call her Malawi.

Around the age of nine, I was a bit of a little shit.. I was a nine year old on a power trip [well if nine years olds can have power trips then I was on one], there was only three other girls in my grade. One I designated my best friend and the other two I regularly tormented, well I wasn't a tween Goering or anything but you know I would leave them out of things and be mean to them behind their backs.

At one point, it all went terribly wrong, we were out walking towards some sort of sporting event and I asked my best friend "So tell me stuff about Malawi. " I was fishing for gossip [even at that age], and the other girl said "yeah, what does she do?".

She looked at me and said "She has sex with her dog. They walk around naked so the dog can lick them" And being nine.. we were thunder struck. It never occurred to us that she could be lying.

At any point, all of this stuff somehow came out [I still don't know how to this day] and she was taken to the principals office and parents were called in. When Malawi's mum came out she went straight up to me, looked me in the eye and said "You didn't believe any of the things she said did you? She's a very naughty girl". I shook my head mutely. I can still remember the look in her eyes, analysing me. Why would we and how could we be so hurtful?

Afterwards we cornered her, and we were outraged. How could you lie to us?! Why would you lie to us?? And weeping she said "You kept asking and asking, and I didn't have anything to tell you, so I made it up".

At the end of the year, the other girl and I moved away, leaving my best friend and Malawi the only two girls in that playground. I heard that occasionally they still played with each other after I left.

Anyway, I saw Malawi on facebook. From her photo and everything, she turned out alright. She's quite pretty. I thought it would probably do to get it off my chest to apologise for being such a shit. So I've sent her a letter, here's hoping she reads it.

Whenever I was bullied in high school I would think of it and think of her and I tried to not mind so much because I knew a lot of it was karmic. Watch your kids people, kids are cruel.