I Tried to be Good
aspiewriter.wordpress.com | Nov 17th 2012I tried to be a “good girl.” A good girl listens to her teacher, and these instructions were clear.
“Your too skinny, drink this.”
I stood there looking at the glass she held out in front of me. The clear jellied slim with the yellow floating ball.
I tried to drink it; I did, but the minute the slim touched my lips anything inside my stomach found its way outside. It’s a good thing I never ate breakfast or it would have been worse. I refused to drink it; I cried, I screamed, and I was brought to the office.
This time grandma got the call, and she was furious. My teacher expected Mom to show up and instruct me to listen, to behave, and to drink her slim. She didn’t expect Grandma.
If you thought a screaming, crying second grader could cause a commotion, you should have seen Grandma. My crying was nothing compared to what happened when she got there.
“How dare you!” Her voice was loud and filled the whole office. She walked past me sitting on the chair against the wall, past the startled school secretary, and went right for the woman with the witch’s shoes and evil potion.
I’ve seen grandma mad before. Whenever my father would snatch the meatballs from her pan, everyone heard the whomp. Dad would come out of the kitchen rubbing the red welt grandma’s wooden spoon left across his knuckles.
But now she was even angrier than that. I wondered if Ms. Montour was going to get whomped with that wooden spoon too.
“Raw eggs are you crazy?” Grandma’s voice grew even louder.
“She’s too skinny. She needs more protein.”
That’s when the yelling really began. Grandma didn’t like back talk.
I tried to listen but the room felt like it started spinning. All the words jumbled together so I couldn’t understand them. I covered my ears, closed my eyes, pulled my knees to my chest, and rocked back and forth on the chair until it stopped.
“Come on.” Grandma took my hand from my ears, “let’s go home.”
I didn’t look at anyone when we left; I only followed grandma out of the building. I don’t what she said to Ms. Montouri that day, but she never tried to make me drink raw eggs again.
Original Page: http://pocket.co/sh3LQ
Shared from Pocket
No comments:
Post a Comment