How I Run Away and Make My Mother Toe the Line

My mother is Marlene Marie Victoria Thornton. I’m Marlene Marie Theresa Thornton. My mother writes letters to her sister in San Diego, California. At the bottom she signs, “Love to Sister Ginny from your sister Marlene M.V. Thornton.”

Ever since I learned my letters I put my name down on paper like this—Marlene M.T. Thornton. Wherever I go to school—Rochester, New York, or anyplace, kids say, “What’s the M.T. for?” I say, “Marie Theresa.” They giggle, say, “No, it’s for empty!” I get so mad when they say that. I just get myself furious. I think, Why did my mother name me such a stupid name! But I don’t stop signing Marlene M.T. Thornton on all my school papers. That’s my name.

I sign it in big letters. MARLENE M.T. THORNTON. Sometimes a teacher says, “Very nice writing, Marlene.” I tell my girl friend, Lucy, “Nobody better not say nothing about my name. ’Cause if they do, I sure will beat their butt.”

Lucy laughs. “You can do it,” she says.

Lucy is skinny and smart. I’m big and dumb. I know I am dumb. Once I hear a teacher say it. “That Marlene is a dumb kid. But you can’t keep her back. Be like keeping a woman back.” The one who says that isn’t my teacher now, Miss Shelby. That teacher was in Rochester, New York. Sure glad I’m out of that city.

I had to live in Rochester, New York, for one whole year after my momma says she has had enough of everybody. First she kicks out my brother’s father. That’s Lonny Greenwood, my stepdaddy. Lonny Greenwood made my momma too mad, he made her just furious going with another woman. I feel sorry seeing Lonny Greenwood, my stepdaddy, a real nice man, going away. Next, my mean old momma sends my brother, Lance Vern Greenwood, to his grandmother in Washington, D.C. And then she sends me, Marlene Marie Theresa, to my grandmother in Rochester, New York.

My mother says she’s going to live alone, get rid of all the leeches, and that’s that! I was so mad. She didn’t have to kick me out. My little brother, Lance Vern, he was giving a whole lot of trouble. Smoking, stuff like that. “Ten years old,” my mother says, “and thinks he knows everything. Well, I’ve had it. You’re going to your grandmother’s, learn some respect, both of you.”

So I go to Rochester, New York, and live with my grandmother Ruth. For one whole year I live with her in her house. Cute little house with a real attic, backyard, and everything. My grandmother just loves gardening, she grows great big flowers and the best tomatoes.

My grandmother, she could make some mean nasty faces about things, but she was a nice old lady. Didn’t beat me or nothing, unless I did something so bad. Let me eat all the Pop-Tarts I wanted for breakfast. Never said I had to make my bed, except once a week I gotta put on clean sheets. But, still, all the time for one whole year I was saying to her, “Wish I could go back and live with my own sweet momma.”

Every night before she ate supper, my grandmother put her teeth on the table. Put her spearmint chewing gum on top of her teeth. Then she’d turn on the TV news. Pretty soon she’d say, “The world is a nasty, ugly place, Marlene Marie Theresa.” She’d watch some more news. House being bombed. Little kids stole away from their families. Poor men out of work. Pretty soon Grandmother Ruth is making her ugly faces. Looks just like a witch who could scare you. Whew! Every day I would say to myself, “Don’t care if I never see one of my grandmother’s ugly old faces again!”

I wrote my mother a letter. “You going to come get me? I got to look at Grandmother Ruth’s teeth on the table every night. Watch her make ugly faces. She got whiskers, too.”

Wrote my mother another letter. “I’m a real good girl. I never done anything wrong. I sure miss you. You are my own sweet momma. I’ll be so happy to be gone from Rochester, New York. I just don’t like this city.” I signed my letters, “With love to my Dear Mother from Marlene M.T. Thornton.”

One day my mother comes for me. She says, “Guess what, Marlene Marie Theresa? I got a new job, in a typing pool.”

I think, What is a typing pool? I’m so dumb I think she means something like a swimming pool.

Momma says, “New job and new apartment. Isn’t that something?” And she says, “Marlene Marie Theresa honey, you’re going to come live with your mother again, baby. Back home where you belong.” And she smiles at me and calls me Marlene Marie Theresa honey about one thousand times.

I sure was happy. Sure was dumb, too! ’Cause, guess what? After just a little time living with my momma, I’m so low and miserable feeling I could go right back and live with my Grandmother Ruth!

My mother don’t let me do nothing. Can’t go here, can’t go there. Gotta come right home from school. Gotta do my homework. Every day she says, “You do your homework yet?” Yells all the time. Makes me do all the work in the house.

“Wash the dishes! Sweep the floor! Take out the trash!”

That’s her special thing for me. Take out the trash! “Marlene Marie Theresa, did you take out the trash yet?” Every day, “Take out the trash.” Why don’t she take out the trash?

She says, “I’m working all day. I’m tired when I get home. You gotta do something for this household.”

I say, “I’m doing everything.”

She says, “Now you know that’s not so. Who shops? Who cooks? Who pays the bills? Did you make your bed this morning?”

Every day I gotta make my bed. Why? Nobody sees it. Didn’t make my bed at my Grandmother Ruth’s. My mother says, Gotta keep the room clean. Gotta put everything away. “It’s not nice to show your underpants on the floor,” she says. “Put them in the hamper. Hang up your blouse. Fold those socks together. Put them in the bureau.” Can’t leave nothing out or she yells at me like some old nasty witch.

I say, “Don’t yell at me so much!”

She says, “Don’t you bad-mouth me.”

I say, “You the one with the bad mouth.”

Whap! Slaps me right smack across the side of my head. I cry and do some screaming. Makes me so mad to be hit.

My mother says, “Oh, you’re such a big girl and you’re crying. You’ll disturb the neighbors,” she says. “You better stop that. People need their rest. Everyone works hard. Me, too,” she says. “I am so tired. Just worn out.”

She wants me to feel sorry. I just feel so mad. I think how she always says, “Oh, my temper goes with my red hair!” But everybody knows she gets her red hair right out of the Miss Clairol bottle.

In my room I pull off all the covers I made neat in the morning for her. Throw them on the floor and wish I was back in Rochester, New York. I wipe my face on the pillow and wonder to myself, You gotta stay with your mother? No matter what? Is that a law?

Next day in school I ask my girl friend, Lucy, “You gotta stay with your mother? No matter what? Is that a law?”

My girl friend, Lucy, shakes her head yes. She is eight years old. My mother says, “Why are you friends with Lucy? You’re twelve.”

I say, “I like Lucy.”

We walk to school together every day. Lucy don’t bother me like other people do. I mean staring and all that. I got everything a woman has. Boys stare at my chest a lot. Diane is the prettiest girl in my class. I’m the biggest girl. I’m bigger than all the girls, bigger than most of the boys. Sure bigger than Miss Shelby. She’s scared of me, giggles every time I ask her something. Why’s she scared of me? I don’t do anything to her. I try hard to learn. I don’t want to be so dumb all the time.

Lucy don’t have homework yet in her grade, so sometimes she helps me. Reads with me, helps me with the arithmetic problems, stuff like that. Lucy don’t mind. She likes to help me.

Then my mother says in a mean voice, “You do your own homework. You don’t need an eight-year-old snot to do it for you. You’re having trouble reading. Your teacher says you are not reading on a sixth-grade level. Do your own homework!” And she gives me a slap across the arm.

I say, “Why’d you slap me?”

She says, “Marlene Marie Theresa, you have to learn. You have to do your own work. Won’t always be someone around to do it for you. I want you to learn. I can’t watch over you every minute. You have to learn, and you have to be good!”

“I’m good,” I say.

Then she says, “Did you take out the trash?”

Is that all she knows? Take out the trash! Do your homework! Clean your room! Cook the supper! She can think of one thousand things for me to do.

“I don’t want you hanging around,” she says. “There are a lot of bad boys around. You stay away from them. You study hard and you be good.” She says working hard, doing my own homework, and taking out the trash gonna keep me from being bad.

I’m not bad.

I never do nothing bad till I run away.

What happened was, this one day me and Lucy decide we gotta have some fruit salad. “I want some fruit salad,” Lucy says on the way home.

“Oh, me, too,” I say. “I really want some fruit salad. Don’t you, Lucy?”

“Yeah, I want some fruit salad so bad,” Lucy says. “I can just taste that fruit salad.”

We go to my house to make the fruit salad. My mother is still at work. There’s a note on the fridge for me. The note says, “Marlene Marie Theresa, wash the kitchen floor. Scrub the sweet potatoes and put them in the oven. Set the table and get started on your homework.” The note is stuck to the refrigerator door with a little magnet that looks like a teddy bear.

“That’s a cute teddy bear,” Lucy says. She pulls it off to look at it, and the note falls down on the floor. “Oh, oh, sorry,” Lucy says. “I got your note all messed up.”

“Well, who cares?” I say. “Just a stupid old note.” And I say, “Marlene Marie Theresa, wash the floor,” in this high funny voice. Lucy laughs. So I say, “Marlene Marie Theresa, put those sweet potatoes in that sweet potato oven.” Lucy laughs some more. So I put my hands on my hips and I go all over the kitchen, wriggling, and saying how I should do my homework and all that, and Lucy almost falls down she is laughing so much.

“Oh, stop,” she says, “I’m gonna pee my pants.” And then we laugh even more. And we are still laughing when we open the can of Salada Fruit Salad. Looks so good, full of those little red maraschino cherries and grapes and all sorts of nice juicy stuff. I dump it in a big red bowl.

“You got any walnuts?” Lucy says.

“Sure,” I say, “’cause my mother just bought a whole bag full. She loooves walnuts.”

“Walnuts taste wonderful in fruit salad,” Lucy says.

We shell about half the bag and throw the walnuts in the fruit salad. Lucy tastes the fruit salad. “Still needs something to make it perfect,” she says. I taste the fruit salad.

“Tastes real nice to me,” I say.

But Lucy says no, and we decide this fruit salad gotta have cottage cheese in it. We put in my mother’s diet cottage cheese and stir it around.

“Now it tastes real, real juicy,” I say.

“Well, I don’t know,” Lucy says. “Don’t you want it to be perfect?”

“Sure,” I say, so Lucy looks in the cupboard for something else to make the fruit salad perfect.

“I got it,” she says, and she takes down a package of semi-sweet chocolate chips. She opens the package. I get a little bit worried. First my momma’s walnuts, then her diet cottage cheese, and now her semi-sweet chips.

“My momma wants those semi-sweets to make cookies,” I say.

“Oh, she won’t miss a few,” Lucy says. She dumps a whole ton of semi-sweet chocolate chips into the fruit salad. I grab the package out of her hand. Chocolate chips spill all over the floor. “See what you done,” I say to Lucy.

“You done it,” she says.

“You done it, you skinny string bean,” I say.

“You done it with your big hands,” she says.

We are both laughing like fools again.

“Clean it up,” I say to Lucy.

“You clean it up,” she says.

“You’re smaller, so you do it,” I say.

“You’re bigger, so you do it,” she says.

“Beat your butt if you don’t,” I say, and make a real ugly face like my grandmother’s face when she watches TV news.

“Not afraid of you, Marlene Marie Theresa.” Lucy sticks out her tongue. She knows I never touch her. I always say, Beat your butt, but I never touch nobody. Not afraid, just don’t want to. I say to myself, Marlene Marie Theresa, don’t hit nobody. It’s not nice.

I rather hug Lucy than hit her. But I grab her anyway, just for fun, pretend I’m gonna make her clean up all those semi-sweets. She’s a fast little booger, ducks away. We’re pretending to fight, all over the kitchen. The semi-sweets are getting mushed by our feet. “It’s a chocolate floor,” Lucy says. “Yum yum!” We laugh so hard we sit right down on the floor, squash some more semi-sweets.

Right about then my mother comes home. Sees Lucy and me sitting on the chocolate floor. Sees walnut shells all over the counter. Sees her empty diet cottage cheese container. Sees semi-sweets rolling and squashed all over the place.

She starts screaming and hollering. “Marlene Marie Theresa Thornton, what are you doing? This place is a wreck! Are you going crazy? What is this mess?”

Lucy and me look at each other. My momma is screaming real loud, but we can’t stop giggling for a second.

“Lucy, you get on home,” my mother hollers. “Marlene, clean that mess up. Go on, Lucy! Go on, go on!”

“Don’t bad-mouth Lucy,” I say. “She didn’t do nothing.”

“Yeah, I did,” Lucy says. “I spilled the chips on the floor, Mrs. Thornton.”

“No, she didn’t,” I say.

“Yes, I did,” Lucy says. “Mrs. Thornton, I did it.”

“Both you fools shut up,” Momma says. She shoves Lucy out the door, and smacks me hard three or four times, saying how I always make so much trouble for her. Then she runs to her room, slams the door.

I pick up chocolate chips. Think I’d rather see my grandmother’s teeth on the table with chewing gum on top than be beat up all the time for nothing.

Momma opens her door and hollers some more. “That cleaned up yet? Marlene Marie Theresa Thornton, you better clean that up good! You better clean that up in a big hurry. I can’t take much more of this.”

I pick up some more mushy chips, thinking about Momma pushing Lucy. She shouldn’t have done that to my girl friend. Just thinking about it is making me so mad. My momma’s a mean nasty person. I kick some chips. Don’t want to clean them up. Maybe I won’t. It’s her floor. She can clean up her own stupid old floor. Why’s she always hollering and screaming and hitting on people? I walk out the back door.

I walk down the street. It’s a hot night. Lotsa people out on their stoops and steps. Two dogs humping each other. Somebody is making something real good for supper. I smell hamburgers. Wish I had a hamburger. Keep walking. Cross the street. Go past the school and tell myself I’m running away.

That’s good, I say to myself. You run away, Marlene Marie Theresa. You run away, make her sorry for being so mean.

I keep walking, down another block.

“Hey, Marlene.”

I look around, see Diane from my class. “Hey, Diane.”

“Whatcha doing?” she says. She’s got big beautiful eyes.

“Nothing.”

“Where you going?”

“No place.”

“Uh-huh,” Diane says. She’s a medium-size girl. Real pretty. So pretty. She is beautiful. Wears her hair in lotta little pigtails. Wears a lotta little rings on all her fingers. She’s on the porch of this old empty house. Windows all boarded up, stuff like that.

“Whatcha doing?” I say.

“Fooling around. Playing cards.”

I look around. Don’t see no cards.

“We’re playing in there,” Diane says. She means the empty house. “Want to play?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe.” I’m leaning against a garbage can. Phew! It stinks.

“It’s me and my brother and my cousin,” Diane says.

“You got any food?” I say.

“Sure. Chips and soda and a whole bunch of Hostess Twinkies.”

“You got any hamburgers?”

Diane shakes her head.

“Okay, I don’t mind Hostess Twinkies.”

We go inside. Glad to get away from that garbage can. “Gimme your hand,” Diane says. It’s dark inside. “You afraid of this house?”

“What for?” I say. “Just an old empty house.”

“Oh, you know—some kids say it’s haunted. They’re dopes.”

I give her hand a big squeeze. Wonder if she could be my second best friend, after Lucy.

They got candles in the kitchen and a table and some chairs. Diane’s brother, Andrew, is tipping back on one chair. He’s wearing a big straw hat. I say, “Hi.” He says, “Hi.” I don’t know the other boy. He’s John, Diane’s cousin. He’s cute. I say, “I’m Marlene Marie Theresa. You can call me Marlene.” He gives me a cute look.

“How old are you, Marlene?”

I say, “Guess!” ’Cause I know he’ll guess wrong.

“Bet you’re sixteen,” he says.

I say, “Yeah? I’m twelve years old.”

He laughs like I said something so funny and gives me another cute look.

We play some cards. I eat two Hostess Twinkies. “Want some chips?” Andrew says. He’s real nice, keeps giving me chips and soda and stuff.

Then John says, “You’re sixteen, right?”

And I say, “Twelve.”

And he laughs. “Oh, he, hem hem, he he.” A real weird laugh. The more I say, “Twelve,” the more he laughs. Oh, he, hem hem, he he.

Andrew says, “She’s twelve. Marlene’s twelve.” He puts his straw hat on my head.

“That’s right,” Diane says. “She’s twelve, just like me.”

John laughs real hard, like we are all being so funny with him.

“Well, how old are you?” I say.

“I’m fifteen,” he says. “Or am I eighteen?”

We are having such a good time. We play rummy and poker and eat all the chips and Twinkies. John says, “Who wants some beer?” He goes out and in a little bit comes back with a six-pack.

Andrew bangs down on his chair. “Where’d that come from?”

“I had it hid,” John says. “Pretty snarky, huh? Hey, Marlene, let’s you and me take some beer and go upstairs.”

“Upstairs?” I say.

“Yeah,” he says, “there’s a real great mattress up there.”

“Oh, you dirty buzzard,” I say. And everybody laughs.

So then we’re playing cards, and the boys are drinking beer, and me and Diane are taking sips. “Oh, um, this is so good,” I say, but I don’t like beer taste. Wish I had some more soda.

Andrew, all of a sudden, gets up and leaves, just goes straight out the door. “Where’s he going?” John says.

And Diane says, “You know old Andrew always gets sick when he drinks beers.”

John says, “I forgot.”

“No you didn’t,” Diane says.

“Not my fault if Andrew has a weak stomach,” John says.

I say to myself, Marlene Marie Theresa, John knew Andrew would get sick. So then I don’t like him so much anymore. And anyway, with Andrew gone, it’s not so much fun. John is getting fresh with Diane, too, pulling her braids and grabbing her, and this and that, and a lot of stuff.

So Diane says, “I’m gonna leave. You’re too nasty. You coming, Marlene?”

“Yeah, I’m coming,” I say. “Can I stay overnight with you?”

“How come?”

“I’m running away.”

John falls down laughing. “Running away,” he says. “Oh, he, hem hem, he he.”

“Why you running away?” Diane says.

“’Cause my momma’s so mean to me. Can I sleep over to your place?”

“You gonna make your momma toe the line?” John says. “Oh, he, hem hem, he he.”

“Yeah, you can stay at my house,” Diane says.

“I don’t want Marlene to go,” John says. He grabs my arm.

“Marlene wants to go,” Diane says. She grabs my other arm.

“You stay, Marlene,” John says. “We’ll have some fun.” He pulls my arm hard.

“No, I had enough fun,” I said, “and I’m getting sleepy.”

“Okay, let’s go upstairs and sleep on the mattress.”

“No, I’m going with Diane,” I say.

He twists my arm. “You’re staying.”

“No, I’m not,” I say.

“Yes, you are, ’cause I say you are.” He is grinning. He’s pulling one arm. Diane is pulling the other.

“No, I’m not staying with you,” I say again.

“Yeah, you are.” He gives my arm an extra hard twist. Burns it.

“Oh, you mean buzzard!” I pull my arm free from Diane and sock John in the stomach, sort of, but lower even. He goes, “Oh, uh,” and gets this real weird, nasty expression on his face. Then me and Diane run out.

Diane’s momma is already in bed. “That you, honey?” she calls. We’re going up the stairs.

“Yeah, it’s me, Mom,” Diane says.

“Where’ve you been, honey? It’s almost ten o’clock. Late.”

“Just outside.”

“Your brother, Andrew, came home early.”

“Yeah, I know, Mom. I got a friend who wants to sleep over. Okay?”

“Okay, honey, but don’t talk all through the night.”

We go into Diane’s room. Her two little sisters are already sleeping in the bunk beds. Diane and me get into her bed. I wish I wasn’t so big. I get way over to one side. I don’t want to take up all the place. “Your momma sounds real nice,” I say.

“Yeah, she is.”

“She ever yell at you?”

“No, not much.”

“She ever beat you?”

“No.”

We’re whispering so we don’t wake up her little sisters.

“My momma’s sick,” Diane whispers.

“What do you mean, sick?”

“She’s got arthritis bad. It hurts her to do things.”

I say, “Oh.” I try to think of something to say to Diane to make her feel better about her momma being sick. After a long time I say, “Well, she’s an old lady, anyway, I guess.” But Diane doesn’t answer, ’cause she’s sleeping already.

I really like Diane’s house when I see it in the morning. The living room is something. Beautiful red carpet on the floor, all the furniture polished, picture of flowers on the wall. “This is so nice,” I say to Diane. “This is beautiful.”

Diane and I go into the kitchen. “Let’s have some French toast,” Diane says. “We’ll make it with cinnamon. Do you like jelly or syrup?”

“Jelly,” I say, giving her my best smile. She is so nice. I beat the eggs and she gets the bread and jelly.

Diane’s mother comes in, wearing a long green robe with a zipper. Just as pretty as Diane. She don’t look sick to me. Not till I see her fingers, all bunched up and funny-looking.

“Now, who’s this?” she says, smiling at me real nice.

“Marlene Marie Theresa Thornton,” I say. “You can call me Marlene.”

“Marlene Thornton,” she says. “I thought so. Your mother is looking for you everyplace in the world, did you know that? You’ve got that poor woman scared to death.”

Diane puts a big blob of butter on the pan. I don’t say nothing.

“You better call your mother up, honey,” Diane’s mother says. “She was walking up and down the street last night asking everybody for you.”

“Can I eat some French toast first?” I say. That French toast smells so good.

“Sure, honey. Want me to call her?”

I don’t know if I do or if I don’t. Diane’s mother is looking at me like she wants me to say yes. I say, “Okay.” I sit down and eat French toast with Diane. Real good. Then Andrew comes in and he wants some French toast. “Love it with cinnamon,” he says. We start talking about playing cards and their Cousin John. “He sure is a mean buzzard,” I say.

“Thinks he’s so cute, too,” Diane says.

Then Diane’s mother comes back and says, “Marlene, here comes your mother down the street.”

I get so scared I jump up out of my chair and run out the door. The sun is shining hard, and the sky is real blue. My mother sees me and yells, “Marlene Marie Theresa!” She comes right up to me. “Where have you been? You stayed out all night!”

“I’m running away,” I say.

“You had me real scared. I didn’t sleep all night.”

“You’re too mean and nasty,” I say. I walk fast.

She walks right beside me. “Come on home,” she says.

“I don’t want to come home.”

“Now, you know you don’t mean that.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Where you going to go?”

“I don’t know. Someplace. Long way from you. You just scream all the time,” I say. “Scream and beat me. Tell me I’m bad.”

“Well, I’m tired from work,” she says. “Chocolate chips all over the floor. No sweet potatoes cooking for supper.”

I cross the street. She crosses the street, too. She takes my arm. “Come on home,” she says again, and she starts saying Marlene Marie Theresa honey, like she did when she got me from my grandmother in Rochester.

“You just want me to take out the trash, work, all that stuff.”

“I love you, Marlene Marie Theresa honey.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” I say.

“Yeah, I do,” she says. “I really do. You’re my first baby, honey.” She gets tears in her eyes. That makes me feel so mean, but I keep on walking. Don’t want to stop walking yet.

Momma fans her face. She’s got lotta little bubbles of sweat on her forehead. “I really love you, baby,” she says again. “Love you and your brother, Lance Vernon. Wish he was back home with us, too. Maybe in a few months we’ll take a little trip to Washington, D.C., and get him. How’d you like that, Marlene Marie Theresa honey?”

I look at her sideways. She’s smiling at me so nice. “Whew! It’s a real hot day,” I say.

“Oh, it surely is,” Momma says.

“That sun sure is hot,” I say. We pass the school playground. There’s a fountain there right outside, near the school. I stop, take a drink. The water tastes real cool.

“This water tastes so good,” I said. “Take a drink, Momma.”

She takes a drink of water. “Oh, umm, this is good water,” she says.

“Drink some more,” I say, and I hold the handle for her. “Don’t it taste good?” I say.

“Oh, this is the best water,” she says. “Glad you told me to take a drink, Marlene Marie Theresa honey. This water is really fine.”

We start walking again and we’re holding hands and pretty soon we’re hugging and kissing and all that stuff. I tell her about Andrew and Diane, and then I tell her about John. She gets so mad. She says she will march over to John’s mother and tell her, “You keep your son away from my daughter!” She squeezes my arm and kisses me some more.

We go home. The kitchen is all cleaned up. House sure looks nice. No red carpet on the floor, but who cares. Momma has pretty little round blue and black rugs. Lampshade with a bluebird painted on it. Plants just filling up the windowsills.

“You hungry, Marlene Marie Theresa honey?” she says.

“No, Momma. Diane fed me good for breakfast. Gave me the best French toast and jelly. Real good.”

“Okay,” she says, “then what are you going to do now? Got all day Saturday.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Just fool around.”

“Well, first take out the trash,” she says.

I look at her. Can’t believe my ears.

“Then you better wash the kitchen floor. I did it once, but it’s still sticky from where you and Lucy messed around.”

I look at her some more. Am I going crazy? Take out the trash? Wash the kitchen floor?

“And then you can do your homework,” she says. “You don’t want to get behind. You have to work hard to keep up. You have to work harder than some others.”

“Oh, yeah,” I say. I’m thinking, I gotta run away again?

Momma squeezes my arm. “My, didn’t that water taste good, baby!”

“Yeah, it really tasted wonderful,” I say.

Momma gives me another squeeze. “It was the best water,” she says. “I’m never going to forget that water!”

“Me neither,” I say.

Then I take out the trash.