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Oskar indulges his revenge fantasies by reading books and newspaper articles about murders and imagining killing his tormentors. He has a knife and he keeps it with him at all times, but he never dares to use it on his tormentors or even threaten them with it.
One snowy evening, as he is staring out the window holding his knife and muttering, "Squeal like a pig!", he sees a taxi pull up to the front of his apartment building. A middle-aged man emerges, carrying several suitcases, and enters the apartment building, followed by a girl of about Oskar's age, presumably the man's daughter. From the noises Oskar hears a little later, he guesses that they have moved into the empty apartment next to his own.
A few days later, after showing his class his knowledge of all things relating to murder, he is again humiliated by Conny. That evening he goes out into the courtyard of his apartment complex, where he takes his anger at Conny out on a nearby tree, stabbing it with his knife, repeating everything Conny said to him and shouting, "Squeal like a pig!"
Suddenly he sees his new neighbour sitting on top of the jungle gym in the courtyard. She seems strange in a number of ways. She is much too lightly dressed for the winter, but the cold doesn't seem to bother her, and although she has lived in the neighbourhood for several days, he has never seen her at school.
In addition, he sees that the windows of her apartment have all been covered over. Thinking that such a strange child may be more willing to be his friend than his more normal classmates, he approaches her. The girl jumps down lightly from the jungle gym and says, "Just so you know, I can't be your friend."
To save his pride, he says, "What makes you so sure I want to be your friend?"
A few days later, his mother tells him about a murder that took place about a mile away from their home and warns him not to go beyond the courtyard of the apartment complex after dark. Fascinated by murders, he picks up a newspaper and discovers that this murder was particularly gory: the victim's blood was drained.