Juvenile Short Story in anthology. Boy prays for bully to die. Set in Ireland? Read mid-2000s.

[Julia]

Hello everyone! I'm looking for a short story I read as part of an anthology. I was about 13 or 14 so it was in the mid-2000s, but the book/story could have been older. It was in my middle school creative writing classroom and most of the books were fairly old.

The story is about a boy who lives in Ireland- I'm almost certain it was set in Ireland but not 100%. I don't know when it was set, I think mid-20th century? The boy is bullied by another boy and his older brother. At one point they try to beat him up and take his pants off in public because he's wearing purple pants, and the boy is humiliated because a group of girls has to save him. He finally prays to God for the bully to die, and not too long after that the bully and his older brother both drown in a boating accident. I remember a description of the small white coffin at the funeral. The boy feels horribly guilty and thinks he killed them by praying for them to die. He finally confesses this to his mother and she comforts him by telling him that God knows he didn't really want them to die.

EDIT: I'm pretty sure this is a short story, but since it was an anthology it's possible it was a chapter excepted from a longer book. It seemed like a complete narrative though so it was probably a short story.