Matalada

Whenever she walked past her classmates, they would point at her and laugh. The bolder groups would even call out to her:

“Hey, Mata—gay’s men child, come here!”

At first, she endured it. But one day, she sat hugging her knees and crying until her father found her. After hearing what happened, he fell silent for a moment, then smiled and gently patted her head.

“Endure it if you can. But if it becomes too much—if they’re going too far—you don’t have to endure it.”

So the next day, when Matalada returned to school and passed that same loudmouthed group again, and they started mocking her with the same chant—

“Mata gay’s men child! Mata gay’s men child!”

Instead of clenching her teeth and walking away, she shouted back at the top of her lungs:

“So what if I am—why does it bother you so much?!”

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