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  “No,” says Mom. “It’s too late. Next time, call earlier. I have to put Linda to bed now. Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye,” I say.

  Mom hangs up the phone. I go back to my room.

  Sue comes to the door. “How was your call?” she asks.

  I say, “Good.”

  Sue turns out the light. She says she’ll close the door after I fall asleep. This is in case there’s a fire. Sue says this is the law in group homes. Then she goes back to the office.

  I think about sleeping with the door closed. I’m not used to that. It’ll be too dark and I’ll get scared—even if I’m asleep. Then I get scared Joe might cut off my hair while I’m sleeping. I saw a native do that in a movie. Or Sue might do something bad to me. Or Rob might come into my room with his snake. I think about all these things.

  Then I think about Mom. I think I have to be real good to go back home. If I’m real good, maybe Mom will like me.

  I’m not too sure about this. I fall asleep.

  chapter four

  When I wake up, my door is closed. This surprises me because I never close my door. Then I see a strange dresser and closet. And the bedspread is green. How can that be? My bedspread is blue.

  This isn’t my room, I think. Where am I?

  Then I see the pure white walls. That makes me remember. This is the group home, I think. Mom and Linda are at my real home. I’m here all alone.

  I’m scared to get up. I think if I get up, Sue will get mad. She’ll sit on me.

  Someone knocks on the door. Then it opens. A man stands in the door. I’ve never seen him before. Where is Sue?

  “Hello, Jason,” he says. “My name is Peter. I’m one of the staff who work here. It’s time to get up now. I want you to get dressed. Then make your bed.”

  I put on my black pants and blue shirt. I make the bed. Then I sit on it. I think I have to be real careful around this Peter. He’s a man, and a man is bigger than a lady. A man can hurt you more.

  I have to go to the bathroom, but I don’t ask. I think this will make Peter mad. I sit and wait.

  Peter comes back. “Are you hungry?” he asks.

  “Can I go to the bathroom?” I ask.

  Peter says I can use the bathroom whenever I want. Then he makes me a big breakfast—corn flakes, an egg, and some toast. I eat lots. Peter tells me he’ll take me to my new school. The other boys have already left for their schools. This is my first day, so I get to go late.

  Peter says I have to make a lunch. I’ve never made a lunch before. Mom made me peanut butter sandwiches for school. So Peter shows me how to get my lunch ready. I make two ham sandwiches. Then I get an apple, a juice box, and some Fruit Wrinkles. This is a big lunch, I think. I hide one sandwich in my dresser. This is in case they don’t give me supper.

  Peter walks me to my new school. It’s not far. It’s a gray school—like a big gray box. I don’t like this school or any school. There are too many kids. There are too many grown-ups. Too many people get me worried. You never know what might happen around all those people.

  Peter takes me to meet my new teacher. Her name is Mrs. Pell. Peter says he’ll pick me up after school. Then he says goodbye and leaves. Mrs. Pell tells me to sit in a desk at the front of the class. I don’t like this because I can’t see behind me. There are lots of kids behind me. In my last school, some kids poked me and threw things at my back. I always had to be ready. How can I be ready if I can’t see behind me? You have to see behind you to know what’s coming.

  I sit sideways so I can see behind me. Mrs. Pell doesn’t like this. She wants me to sit so I’m looking at her. But I can’t—I have to see behind me.

  My last teacher did this, too. I got into lots of trouble. I don’t want that to happen again. Maybe I can sit the way Mrs. Pell wants and still see behind me. I try sitting with my head turned back.

  Mrs. Pell doesn’t like this, either. “Turn around, Jason,” she says. She sounds mad. But she doesn’t have to sit with her back to the class. She can see everyone all the time.

  It isn’t fair, I think. I have to see the other kids. You never know.

  The lunch bell rings real loud. It’s so loud, I jerk in my desk. A kid laughs. I think he’s laughing at me. That makes me mad.

  “Jason,” says Mrs. Pell. A boy is standing next to her. “This is Bill. He’s going to spend the lunch hour with you. He’ll show you around the playground.”

  “Okay,” I say. I get my coat and lunch. Then Bill and I go outside. Right away, I go over to the school wall and sit against it. That way, I can see everybody. But Bill doesn’t want to sit by the wall.

  “This is stupid,” he says. “Let’s go sit over there with my friends.”

  He points to some boys. They’re sitting beside the basketball hoop. They look okay, but I want to sit here—where I can see everyone.

  “No,” I say. “I want to sit here.”

  “Well, I’m going over there,” Bill says. He goes over to his friends and leaves me alone. That’s fine with me. Bill is nice, but maybe too nice. Being with someone who’s nice won’t help me right now. Now, I have to watch out for the kids who aren’t nice—the bullies, the bad kids, the ones like me. So I sit by myself and watch while I eat my ham sandwich. I watch while I drink my juice. And I watch while I eat my Fruit Wrinkles—the kind with the funny shapes.

  I see some boys from my class—not Bill and his friends, but some others. They’re the ones I’m looking for. They’re the mean ones. There are always some mean ones. When you’re new, you have to find out how strong the mean ones are. You have to make them fight. Then you know how they fight and you can beat them.

  The mean boys are playing marbles. I go over to their game and grab a marble. It’s the biggest boy’s marble. I think he’s the meanest.

  “Give it back!” says the boy.

  I put the marble into my pocket. “Make me!” I say.

  I’ve been in lots of fights. Even if I’m skinny, I know how to kick and hit. I learned this from fighting my dad. He moved away last year, but before that, he hit me lots. So I know how to fight because of him, and I’m good at it. I know I can beat this boy easy. But then two of them jump me.

  I’ve beaten two kids in a fight before. When I fight, I fight real hard. I fight so hard, I can’t see anything. There’s just a big bubble of mad inside me. I feel that bubble of mad now inside my tummy. It gets bigger and bigger. I think it’s going to burst and I’ll burst, too. I kick and hit. It feels like the two boys are getting bigger. It feels like there are more and more boys. I fight harder and harder.

  Then a teacher stops the fight. The other boys run away and it’s just the teacher and me. He’s big and I get scared. I kick him to make him move away. He grabs me and puts me down on the ground. Then he sits on me. I get more scared. Inside my head, this teacher turns into my dad. I scream and kick harder.

  My dad used to hit me with his belt. It hurt. Sometimes I could hardly walk after. He hit me all the time. Then he and Mom divorced and he moved away. But now it feels like he’s come back. I get all mixed up. I think it’s my dad sitting on me. I get more and more scared. The other kids have all gone into the school. Everything is quiet, except for my screaming. No one will see if this man hurts me.

  The teacher holds my arms. He doesn’t hit me. He just holds me tight so I can’t move. Slowly, the bubble of mad inside me goes away. Now I can see the teacher isn’t my dad.

  “Let me go!” I say.

  “I’m Mr. Warner,” says the man. “I’m your school principal. I’m going to let you up now. I want you to stand quietly.”

  He lets me up slow. I want to run, but he keeps a hand on my arm.

  “Come inside,” he says. “We need to talk.”

  Mr. Warner takes me to his office. He says he wants me to talk to the other boys. He wants me to say I’m sorry. He wants me to give back the marble.

  Mr. Warner calls the other boys into his office. I look at the meanest boy. His name is Larry.
I don’t care about the marble. I think Larry knows this. He knows you have to watch out for the big kids. Whoever is bigger will get you. That’s the way it is.

  Now I know a little about how Larry fights. Tomorrow, I’ll fight him again to find out more. Then I’ll know everything. If Larry knows I’m stronger, he’ll be scared of me. Then he’ll leave me alone.

  I give back Larry’s marble. I say I’m sorry. Larry and I shake hands.

  Then we go back to class. I have to sit at the front again. Mrs. Pell keeps saying, “Turn around, Jason.” She doesn’t know I have to see behind me.

  I try to think about the math she’s teaching. I try to think about three times six, and seventy divided by seven. But I keep thinking about the kids behind me. And I think about Linda. I bet she just got peanut butter sandwiches for lunch today. It makes me feel bad about eating my ham sandwich.

  Mrs. Pell asks why I haven’t done my work. I’m busy thinking about Linda, and it’s loud inside my head. So when Mrs. Pell talks to me, the big bubble of mad comes back. I yell at Mrs. Pell. I throw my math book on the floor.

  Mrs. Pell sends me to Mr. Warner’s office. I wait there until Sue comes to pick me up. Mr. Warner says I can’t come back until tomorrow. I’m suspended for today.

  That’s fine with me. I don’t want to go to that school. There are too many kids. You can’t watch them all. Besides, it’s not my school. I want my school back.

  chapter five

  I walk beside Sue. I watch her real close. When I can, I’m going to run. When you get kicked out of school, grown-ups hit you. They hit and yell.

  Sue looks like she can run fast. She walks close beside me. She asks me what happened. I tell her the boys beat me up.

  Sue says, “Mr. Warner saw what happened, Jason. He says you started it.”

  I say, “No, I didn’t.”

  I think, How can I run away when she’s this close?

  I can see the group home down the street. We’re getting close. Sue walks beside me all the way to the back door. There’s a rule about this in the group home. The boys can only go in the back door. I think this is real stupid. In my house, I can go in any door I want. But I’m in a house that isn’t my house.

  Staff mostly use the front door. I think Sue walks me to the back door because she knows I want to run. We go inside and I take off my shoes like I’m supposed to.

  Sue says, “Come into the office, Jason.”

  We go past the kitchen, into the office. Peter is sitting at the desk. I think, There are two of them. They’ll hurt me real bad.

  Sue says, “You can sit on the bed, Jason.”

  I sit on the staff bed. At night, the staff sleep like the boys do. Maybe I’ll run away sometime when they’re asleep.

  I watch their hands and feet. When hands and feet move fast, you’re going to get hit. Peter watches me from the desk. Sue stands in the door. I hate her standing in the door. I get my hands and feet ready to fight.

  Then I think, Why is it so quiet?

  Peter’s hands and feet aren’t moving. They aren’t getting ready to fight. Neither are Sue’s—she has her hands in her pockets. I’m not too sure about this. My mom yells when I do something wrong. She hits me with whatever is around.

  I look at their faces. Peter is smiling a little. Then I look at Sue. She’s still standing in the door.

  Peter says, “Jason, does it make you nervous that Sue is standing in the door?”

  I’m surprised by this. How does he know what I’m thinking? “Yes,” I say, real low. I don’t want to make Sue mad.

  “We don’t want you to feel nervous,” says Peter. “We need to talk to you, but we want you to feel good about it. Where would you like Sue to be?”

  I think this is weird, but nice. “Maybe over there,” I say. I point to the corner beside the desk.

  “That’s okay with me,” says Sue. She walks to the corner and stands there. I get more surprised when she does this. And the door feels better now.

  Peter starts to talk. He talks low and quiet. He talks slow. I get a bit worried, but not too bad. Peter says, “Mr. Warner says you took a boy’s marble. Then you hit the boy. That started a fight.”

  I don’t say anything. I think if I say nothing, that’ll be best.

  “That’s what happened, isn’t it?” says Peter.

  “It’s not my school,” I say real quiet. Inside me, I feel a bubble of mad start to grow.

  “It’s hard to move to a new school, isn’t it, Jason?” says Peter.

  “I want my school,” I say. “I want my house. I want my mom and sister. I don’t want here. I hate this place!”

  Then I stop talking. I think maybe I said too much. They’ll tell Mom. Then she’ll get mad and not let me come home—not ever.

  “Tomorrow, you’ll go back to your new school,” says Peter. “But this time, Ann will be there. She’ll be there just for you. She’ll help you with your school work.”

  I don’t know about this Ann. “I don’t want to go to that school,” I say.

  Peter and Sue don’t say anything.

  “I want to go to my room,” I say.

  “Okay, Jason,” says Peter. “You can go. But I want you to leave your door open.”

  Then I can’t climb out the window, I think. Now I get real sad. I know they’ll watch me good. I can’t run away. I can’t run home. I can’t see Linda and talk to her.

  I go to my room. Why didn’t Peter yell or hit me? I think. But maybe he still will. If he does, I’ll be ready for him. I sit down on the bed and wait.

  chapter six

  Peter brings me some math. He says I have to do homework until school lets out. I think, That isn’t work from my school. I won’t do it.

  I sit on the bed. I look at the pure white walls. I think, Get me out of here! Get me out! The words shout inside my head. I want to go home, but I don’t know how to get there. Where is my house from here?

  Joe comes home from school. Peter tells him to change into his play clothes. Joe goes into his room and changes. I think, Why is he doing what they say? They aren’t his mom or dad.

  Peter tells me I can come out of my room now. Joe and I go to the living room and play cards.

  “You get kicked out of school?” Joe asks.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I don’t care. It’s a stupid school.”

  Joe says, “I used to get kicked out of school a lot. I still do, sometimes. But that’s dumb, you know. Because you fail your year.” Then he says, “The staff here are okay. Sometimes they say dumb things. I think some of the rules are stupid. I don’t want to be here forever. I want to go live with a family.”

  “Don’t you have one?” I ask.

  “Not a good one,” he says. “They hurt me. I want a real mom and dad—ones that care. That would be awesome.” Then Joe says another thing. “They don’t beat you up here.”

  “I saw what happened to Rob last night,” I say. “And the principal did that to me this afternoon.”

  “He put you in a restraint?” says Joe.

  “Yeah—if that’s what you call it,” I say.

  “Okay, but did he hit you?” asks Joe.

  “He grabbed me and put me on the ground,” I say.

  “What were you doing?” asks Joe.

  I don’t say anything. I don’t want to talk about that.

  “Did he hurt you?” asks Joe.

  “My arms hurt after,” I say.

  “Yeah,” says Joe. “They say they won’t hurt you, but sometimes they do—a little. But it isn’t the same as getting beat up. Staff don’t mean to hurt you. They’re just stopping you, that’s all.”

  “Maybe,” I say. I’m not too sure about this.

  We play more cards. Rob and Dave come home from school. We all wash our hands. Then we have to sit quiet on the sofa again. This is to show we’re ready to have snack. I think this is stupid, but I sit like the other boys. Then we all have apple juice and some trail mix—peanuts, raisins, and Smarties. Yummy!


  Peter tells me it’s Quiet Time. That means I have to go to my room. When I’m in my room, Peter brings me some more math. I don’t want to do math. I never had to do math at my house. I’m not used to all this work. I’m not used to all these rules. There are too many staff at this group home. There are too many boys. I think, Get me out of here! Get me out!

  The bubble of mad is inside me again. I pick up the math book Peter gave me. I throw it at the pure white walls. “I don’t want to do this work!” I say, real loud.

  I feel the mad bubble start to grow. “No!” I yell. Inside me, the mad bubble grows and grows. “No!” I yell again.

  I pick up something else and throw it. I don’t even know what it is. I pick up another thing and throw it, too.

  Peter runs into the room. He grabs my arms. I think he’s going to throw me against the wall like my dad used to do. So I kick him. Peter lifts me into the air and I scream. Then he puts me down onto the bed. My face is pushed into the pillow and I can’t breathe. Peter puts my arms behind my back. Then he sits on me.

  I turn my face to breathe. I yell, “Get off me!” I scream and kick. The mad bubble gets bigger and bigger. It gets so big, it blows up.

  I scream when it blows up. All of the madness comes out of me. Then it goes away. After it’s gone, I lie on the bed and cry. Peter says, “It’s okay, Jason. Just cry. It’s okay to cry.”

  I keep crying. I’m so scared. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what will happen to me here. And there’s a big man sitting on me. It makes me think of my dad and how he hurt me.

  Peter says, “It’s okay, Jason.” But it isn’t okay. Nothing is okay. I’m so tired from all this crying.

  Peter lets go of my arms. He stands up. I don’t move. My arms are sore. My eyes hurt from crying. The bed is wet under my face. I’m tired.

  I fall asleep.

  chapter seven

  I wake up from a bad dream. My dad was in the dream. For a second, I think he’s here with me in my bedroom now. Then I know he isn’t. I’m alone.

  I look around me. I’m in a dark room, but the door is open. Then I see my bedspread is green. I remember I’m in the group home.