premise: And if anyone had noticed, maybe I could have just tossed the whole matter off in a casual way. ``Oh, that... it's nothing much...'' No, it's too easy to forget that something which I hardly ever think about now was then a very great concern. I was aware what could happen I could see that any weakness was pounced upon by the other boys and I knew that I wasn't big enough or belligerent enough to bully my way out of it.
hypothesis: any weakness was pounced upon by the other boys