Chapter 12
Jason has gone right back to skippin’ school and I don’t understand it at all. I feel like smackin’ his head clean off. Why does he do that? I’m so scared Mama’s gonna get rid of him again and I can’t even sleep good because I have bad dreams about it all the time.
He hates his school so much. Remember that day at the park, when those big kids was yellin’ mean stuff and he left? Then they started makin’ fun of Phil’s name. Well, I remember when we was goin’ down the hill they was yellin’ something about white trash. I asked Jason what they meant because even though he don’t much go to school he still knows lots of stuff. He said white trash is what people who ain’t as good as other people get called.
Sometimes my Aint Nadine looks at us like we’re just as stinky as trash. Mama says that she has her nose stuck so far up her own butt, only she didn’t say butt. I tried to imagine her with her nose up her butt like that and it made a real funny picture in my head.
I don’t know why my Aint Nadine hates us. She used to babysit us when Mama was at work and she would make me and her son, Billy, go outside to see who could run the fastest. Then we had to sit down and read out of our school book to see who could read the best. Billy was a faster runner than me but I kicked his butt at readin’. Aint Nadine didn’t like that so she took the book away from me and kept talkin’ about how fast her little sweetheart can run.
When it was time to eat at her house she would say Mama didn’t pay her enough to feed us so we would get mayonnaise sandwiches while her kids got to eat real ham sandwiches. I don’t really care. When I grow up I’m gonna eat up all the ham in the entire world, just not with mayonnaise though because I am sick to death of it.
Mama says her sisters are always tellin’ her that she needs to make Jason do right and go to school. They are always givin’ her advice. Mama calls it meddlin’ in her life. She says they are quick to judge because they don’t wear the same kinda shoes that she does and that they need to sweep around their own doorsteps.
Mama said the school has already been callin’ her about Jason and she don’t know what to do.
