What is remembered: too ugly.

I was about nine, certainly not older than ten, when an older boy tripped me up in a dark downstairs corridor at school. My "myssy", or knitted woollen hat, fell off, and my rucksack went flying too. Flat on my tummy on the floor, I knew I was little, helpless, humiliated. He towered over me and said something I've never forgotten: "You're too ugly to be raped." He was twelve or thirteen, thereabouts. I went home, looked in the mirror, and addressed myself: "That's the way it is, Anna. You're too ugly to be raped. Just too ugly."