Galego | English

Young Adults

A Pomba e o Degolado

By Fina Casalderrey

About this book

André’s three years at high school have been no easy ride. He can’t even take refuge in the school’s toilets to at least recover from it all. Héctor Solla and Raúl Pernas, the usual combination of bully and clandestine hit-man, were after him and his classmate Halima Atif during the breaks. Fortunately at home, where things are not easy either, he can find some solace taking care of his grandfather’s birds and chatting under the nickname “Hangman” with “Dove”, a cyber friend who will help him discover that people can be trusted.

Book fragment

Yeah, I like birds, so what? Don’t trust me just because I have that soft spot, that’s a different story. There are things that keep me awake at night, I warn you. Lately I just get up in the middle of the night, I go to the kitchen and get the sharpest knife there, I go straight towards the front door thinking of stabbing in the chest whoever hurt me in my life. They have to grab me, I am out of control. Sometimes they even have to tie me down with ropes until I cool down, until the next time… If you accept my friendship, I want you to know, you’ll be in a high risk group; I tell you, if I see red again…”

I had to intimidate others somehow. The school had become the stage of my daily failures. Every morning, when I went inside, I took a look at those walls and I wanted to run for my life. Standing the bullying every day was too much and I couldn’t tell my Mum. I realised that appearances was all that mattered there. When they they found out that I had a bird in my bag I couldn’t let them to spread the word that I was a sissy, I couldn’t stand going through the same old humiliations, and so I used the same methods as Raúl Pernas and his gang – I faked it.