Musing about bullies

Two years ago, Beloved Son had to make a speech about social evil, and he chose bullying. I worked with him on the speech and reminded him that the first thing a bully does is the same as the first thing a predator does - cut one out from the herd and hunt it.
Beloved Daughter knows this one only too well. A young girl at school is being treated this way and Beloved Daughter has chosen to make sure it isn't possible for the predators to cut her out of the herd - by  siding with her, by teaming with her in the games where the stated objective is to get her out, by leaving a table full of petty girls to go and sit alone at another table so this girl has somewhere to go.
Girls do this sort of thing so much better than boys. Bullying, I mean.
And so Beloved Son has had cause to discover in this last week. Deliberately, publicly and pointedly excluded from a party by a girl with the face of an angel and the disposition of a Rottweiler, he was so crushed he asked to stay back from school the next day because he couldn't face people, and I let him.
I daresay it's not the last curve ball life will throw at him.