Come on, come on! Just ONE MORE MINUTE! I stare at the clock. At this time of day, a single second can seem like hours. I turn to my untouched worksheet just as Ms. B (for Boring) says that any unfinished classwork today will be homework. I groan inwardly, stuff the paper into my binder, and turn back to the clock. The next thirty seconds pass by so slowly, I’ll probably have a white beard by the time that the end-of-day bell rings. Then, someone takes pity and rings the bell. I jump out of my seat like a frog and sprint out of the class.

“Ha! Run, Josie, RUN!” Liz playfully calls to me as she tries to catch up but is overwhelmed by the wave of sweaty kids. She tries again and an almost fearful look slides onto her face. But honestly, it’s more smelly than scary.

I reach my locker, twist the lock, grab my backpack, and almost leave my phone in there, but I see it and grab the precious thing before my locker shuts. Then I run out of the hall and jog down the stairs. I hear someone call my name and turn my head, but before I can see who called me, I run into Ms. McNerd (a.k.a. Alexa Finchwurt).

“Hey! Watch it, dirt!” I shout.

Please don’t laugh. I’m tired and can’t think of anything funny to call her. I’m just walking away when I remember the worksheet. I step out of the way from the crowd, pull the now crumpled-up worksheet from my backpack, and shove it into Alexa’s hand. “I expect this done tomorrow, or else,” I tell her, trying at an intimidating voice. She looks at my with wide eyes. I close my pack and run out the big and heavy doors that lead me out of the building. RUUNNN!!! My survival instincts scream at me. RUN AND ESCAPE THIS TREACHEROUS BUILDING THAT WILL KILL YOU OHMYGOD!

Okay, maybe not, but virtually it will be the death of me. My mom tells me that I need to try to enjoy school more, or at least improve my grades, but I’m not in High School yet. I have more important things, like tennis and parties.

I keep running to the bus loop and board 798. Yes, free!

 

My phone exploding, I walk into my house and sigh as I collapse on the comfy sofa. Fingers-crossed that some of these noisy notifications are Tristan, but not all of them, because then he’d be texting me and I wouldn’t be replying, and then he would break up with me, and then I’d lose all my friends because they would hate me, and, and…

Look at yourself, Josie. If you miss a couple of texts, he is not going to break up with you. And you don’t even like him that much! CHILL OUT. My conscious tells me.

“I guess you’re right,” I mumble.

I am. Such. A Weirdo.

“Who’s right now?” a voice says, startling me. At first I think it’s my head again, until I look to my left.

“MOM! Oh my god. You freaking scared me! Couldn’t you have been a little more cautious?!” I loudly grumble.

“Would you rather have me whisper? Because that would be weird.”

I roll my eyes and walk upstairs to my room. She always does that, tries to resolve the situation. It’s annoying. I slam my door and hop onto my bed, then hear footsteps coming from my stepmom’s room and keep listening until they go down the stairs.

I open my phone. Thankfully, it wasn’t all Tristan. He just asked me if I wanted to go out tonight. I text him back.

 

OMG Yes!!

Great. There’s a couple good movies out

Do u want to go?

Yeah sure what movie

IDK we’ll see when we get there

Gr8 ill see u there

Bye

Nice. Problem avoided. I peek toward the homework spilling out of my backpack and onto my desk. I shrug it off and finish my Snapchat streaks.

 

***

I check the time, and it’s already 6:00. The movie is at 6:30!

“Mom!! I’m going to a movie with Tristan. Get the car warmed up. It’s cold,” I call down to her as I grab my coat and shoes.

“No, Josie. You should have let me know sooner, but I have an important dinner with a client and I can’t be late. It’s in 30 minutes,” She sternly calls back.

“Well then can Lillian drive me?” I ask as I walk into the room and get my shoes on at the same time. It’s more of a hop.  

“Honey! Your stepmother has the flu. You know she can’t drive you to the movies!”

“She seemed just fine earlier.”

“What? When she came downstairs to make some tea? Because she knew if she asked you, you would say no?”

“Mom! My streaks are important! Now can you please find someone to drive me?”

“If you had told me earlier, I would have! But you expect everyone to be ready for whatever is on your schedule, whatever you want! You have to tell me these things before you plan them!”

“Okay. Sheesh. If you can’t find anyone to drive me, why don’t you just reschedule the meeting?”

She looks at me with the most unnecessary look of disbelief and disappointment on her face, which quickly switches over to quiet anger. “That’s it. Get in the car.”

“Oh thank god. For a second, I thought that you weren’t going to agree!”

She smiles mischievously.

***

 

“So, where are we going?” Lillian asks. She wanted to come along, even though she says that she is sick. Also, she exchanged a look with my mother before she got in the car. I wonder what that’s about.

“The movies,” I say.

We keep driving, but I don’t recognize this road. “Mom, he’s meeting me at the Foxx theater? It’s that way,” I say as I point to the left.

“Well, you were. You may want to let Tristan know that you won’t be meeting with him tonight,” she sighs.

Huh? I think. “Wait, what? You told me that you were going to drive me to the theater!!”

“No. I never said that.”

“Well then, WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME?!!” I shout in disbelief.

“You’ll see,” Lillian says.

“Oh, so you’re in on this too? What is going on?! What did I do?!”

They’re silent. I pull out my phone and frantically text Tristan.

 

Tristie!!

OMG My moms said that they were taking me

to the movies, but now they won’t say anything

 and we’re driving on a completely different road!  

 

Nothing for a minute. And then…

 

. . .

 

Yes! Those glorious little bubbles. What is taking him so long? Is he going to send help? I wonder. But just when I’m on the verge of texting “help,” my mother snatches my phone.

“This has been too much of a distraction from… well, life. Until you can prove yourself, you won’t be getting this back,” my mom says as she shakes it in the air.

Oh. No. Okay, this is officially the worst day of my life. It couldn’t possibly get worse. But then there’s a pothole in the road, and the phone goes flying out of my mom’s hand and lands on the floor. I scream. My mother swerves a little bit.

“Chill out! It’s not like someone died. Your phone isn’t even cracked!!” my mother says. She doesn’t pick it up, though.

We’re silent for the rest of the ride.

 

By the time we get to where we’re going, it’s dark. I can’t see much except for the building in front of us. My mother grabs my arm and we walk inside.

The inner part of this squat building, when we walk in, seems like a children’s daycare. There are circular tables all around and hastily scribbled drawings on the wall. The ceiling is low and the walls are plain concrete as well as the floor. The only thing setting it apart from a daycare room is a kitchen in front of it with a window for serving. So, some kind of… restaurant?

“We are going to serve food to the people here. Wait in here while Lillian and I grab the casserole,” my mom tells me. So I do. But once they leave, I realize that this empty room kind of creeps me out.

“Josie. Come help us,” Lillian calls from outside.

I roll my eyes and sulk out the door, then stop short. Lillian and Mom are carry two humongous containers of casserole.

“C’mon. Grab the third one, it’s in the trunk,” Lillian says.

I reluctantly walk over to the trunk and pick up the heavy casserole container. “Why do we need so much food?!” I shout.

“There are a lot of hungry people,” says a woman that walked out the door when I wasn’t looking. She is helping mom and Lillian.

We walk inside and there are already people sitting at the tables. I walk over to my mom. “Can you please explain to me where we are, and why we are serving these people?” I whisper.

She sighs. “We’re at the homeless shelter. And we are serving these people because they need dinner.”

I almost drop the casserole.

“Oh.”

We spend the next hour or so heaping casserole onto plates and serving them to people as they come to the window to the kitchen. I kind of feel bad that they have no choice in what they eat, and they can’t have seconds. There isn’t enough food for that.

When we run out of casserole, there are still people waiting. Their faces droop as one of the people working here gets out more paper plates and plops mush onto them. That stuff looks worse than school lunch!

We go over to one of the tables and eat our dinner of chicken and vegetables. I’m about to take my first bite when I see a little girl. She is walking away from the kitchen window with a plate full of brownish green mush. She stares at it as if it contains the devil. Maybe it does.

I look down at my food, and sigh.

I grab my plate and walk over to the girl.

“Here,” I say, and hand the food over to the girl. She looks at me with innocent eyes, almost scared, and whispers “Thank you,” so quiet that had I not been bending down I would not have heard it. She scurries off and sits with her family. She inhales the chicken and veggies like it was the best food she had ever tasted.

I walk back to our table. Mom smiles, and so does Lillian. Though I’m hungry, I’ve never been better.

***

 

I wake up the next morning, glad it’s Friday, but I’m starving. I get up quickly and rush downstairs to make myself some cereal. Mom’s already awake.

“Good morning, sweetie. Sit down, I’ve already made breakfast.”

She sets a beautiful, mouthwatering plate of pancakes in front of me, with whipped cream and everything. I scarf them down like I’ve never tasted food before.

“Thanks, mom,” I say as I stand up. Normally I would leave my plate at the table for her to clean up, but I decide to cut her some slack because she had to reschedule the meeting last night to take me to the shelter, and the meeting was really important. I rinse off my plate and put it in the dishwasher. I turn to leave and see my mother smiling wide. I smile back and walk into the hallway.

“Wait, honey,” my mother calls. I stop.

“What you did yesterday,” she says, while coming over to give me a hug, “that was really great. You should be proud.”

***

I jump off my bus with an important goal in mind. My heart thumps in my chest.

I speed walk into the building and lock eyes with my victim. Like I did with a random nerd once for not letting me cheat on his test. Looking back on it, that was kind of stupid, for he wasn’t even in my class. But this time, I’m doing something good.

I walk closer and closer. Almost there. Come on.

“Hey, Alexa,” I say to Alexa Finchwurt. No more Ms. McNerd.

She looks at me, surprised. Her glasses almost fall off. She’s scared.

“I-I just wanted to apologize,” I say, startling myself. Usually Alexa is the one stammering.

She just looks at me, scared and confused.

“For being rude, and-and stuff,” I get out. Then I wave at her and run off. But as nervous as I was before, a smile creeps onto my lips. I feel as if a weight has been lifted off my chest. The weight of all the bad, disrespectful things I have done, each time I do something good. I’m making others feel good while lifting my own spirits as well.

Today, I am making a vow to myself. No more being like this. Being mean, not focusing on school, being rude. I’m going to make myself a better person.

After all, why do something that makes me and another person feel worse? It just doesn’t make sense. I see that now.