Free Lunch: List 1

“I’m going to count to three!” Mom growls through gritted teeth. I see her fingers curl into her palms, making fists. “One—”

I grab a toothpick-stabbed mini-bite, dip it in the mustard, and shove the whole thing in my mouth. I savor the juicy explosion of flavor. But it’s gone too soon.

My mom doesn’t shy away from much.
Especially confrontation.

“What are food stamps?” I ask.
“Don’t worry about it,” Mom repeats, but this time, she scowls at me.

She unwrinkles eight one-dollar bills, then counts out 97 cents, mostly in pennies. Her hands tense up, her fingers looking like talons. She says, “I’m a little short.”

Mom smiles this cruel smile, saying, “Did you know, a hundred years ago, parents just kicked their kids out on the street? They had to fend for themselves. Like ‘Hansel and Gretel.’ Too bad it’s not still like that.”

Before I sit in the seat he saved for me, he asks, “What’d you do to your face this time, klutz?”

Students behind me are getting aggravated. “What’s the holdup?” “Come on, man.” “I’m hungry.”

“Growing up, two of my sisters died because they got sick. Antibiotics could have saved their lives. But my parents did not have money for the medicine. Do you think that was fair? No. My life has not been easy. But we made it work. And you will make this work too.”

“Butt pain?” Abuela laughs. “When I was a little girl, my sister had parasites. Parasites are very common in Mexico. They are giant tapeworms that grow inside your intestines to eat your food and steal your nutrients...."

Mom sneers. “You’re not getting both. It’s a waste of money. You can get the notebooks with the hole punched paper. Then you can pull it out if you need it.”

I argue, “But it’ll have the frayed edges. I can’t turn in my homework like that—”

It takes all my willpower to not point out Abuela sent forty.

She wheels past the gawking and horrified mothers, her head held high and proud, saying, “What are you looking at?”

Birmingham Middle has sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. So everyone’s bigger than me. I’ve always been kinda short and scrawny for my age.

I wait until Mom stops grilling Sam about finding work. Then I pull the football waiver from my pocket and slide it into the center of the table. “I want to join the football team.”

Even behind the thin, plastic door, we can still hear it, feel it. Hear the brawl, the screams turning into thuds and gasps for air.

But I have cardboard boxes from our last move. I have thumbtacks to pin my sheets to the walls, creating new walls, and alleys and roofs, so we’re hidden away in a labyrinth.

A huge crater now lives in the wall, like an abstract painting.

She glares at me the way Derek glares at me. Like I’m filth. Dirty and disgusting. Like I’m wrong, and pathetic.