She makes me sick too. “Whatever Grandmother! I don’t feel like hearing that early in the morning.” She huffs
and puffs under her breath. “Maurice, we gonna have to do something about you. I can’t take your sassy mouth
and you tearing up my house. I see why you’ll mommy ran away from you’ll, but you not going to run me nowhere! This is my house! Yes indeed! I’m not going anywhere.”
“Yeah! Yeah! Like I said, whatever!” I take three pieces of bacon and shove them in my mouth. On my way out
the door, I take Grandmother’s sugar bowl and toss it off the table. She screams and runs to the bedroom to get a
belt. She can’t catch me and I am out the door.
When I get to the end of the driveway, I kick the trash can. A couple of weeks ago, my Grandmother asked me to
start taking the trash out. She was yapping about a ten year old boy needs to have some chores. She better leave
me alone. I bang the trash can with my left foot then my right foot. “This is how I feel about your trash can Grandmother!” I know she is looking out the window waiting for me to go get on the bus to go to school. I know she
hears me. I could care less.
When I get to the bus stop, I see some kids waiting for the bus. “You’ll think you’ll look all cute with you’ll ugly
book sacks.” Sydney ignores me. Her brother Mitch barks at me. “Man please! At least we got book sacks.” He
lets out a cheetah sounding laugh. There is no way I am going to let him laugh at me. I tossed my book sack away
a long time ago. The school wanted to search my book sack every time I came to school. Now I don’t carry one.
I’m not about to have nobody check me every day. I don’t even tell Mitch nothing. I like his nerve talking smack.
Since when? I just ball up my fist and punch him in his nose. He grabs his bloody nose and I hit him again in his
stomach. I am strong. I wish I could fight every day. Sydney runs to her brother. I’ll beat her up too. I wish she
would tell me something. She doesn’t. She grabs her cell phone out of her purse and starts to call her mommy.
“Mommy, Maurice hit Sydney again! He punched him in the nose! We are at the bus stop!” Before she can say
another word I grab her phone from her and throw it across the street.
“You better shut up before you get the same thing he got! Look at you… a little baby calling for your mommy!”
I rag on her telling her how ugly and stupid she is. Her whinny brother is trying to stop his nose from bleeding. I
ought to hit him again, just for being a big baby like his sister. Mitch is twelve years old and bigger than me. His
sister, Sydney, is the same age with me. She is in my class. I clown her every day for being so stupid looking.
Just as I am enjoying laughing at them, I see their mom and dad both running down the street. Their dad has a belt
in his hand. I don’t know who he thinks he is going to hit with that belt. “Come get you’ll whinny children!” I
scream at them and laugh some more. I see the bus coming down the street. If I get on it, I’m going to have to hear
them tell the bus driver, Ms. Olivia, that I beat up their son. I don’t feel like hearing that. All they gonna talk about
is “Write up.” The bus driver will go on and on talking about how he is going to report me to the office.
So instead of getting on the bus, I take off in the opposite direction. I shoot them all the bird and hop skip away. I
ain’t going to school today. Let me see what I can get into on this Friday morning. As I walk through my neighborhood, I see that everybody is leaving for work. Some people are jumping into their cars like they are running
late. Kids have their book sacks. The women have their purses and lunch bags. Men are moving slowly with their
coffee. Everybody in the neighborhood is getting ready to start their day. What shall I do with mine?
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