That's the word my grandparents kept going back to everytime I'd ask to do something cool. Like my friends. All my friends went to hang out at the mall on the weekends and they'd been hanging out together without me for 2 years already and I was getting sick of always babysitting my little brothers. They aren't bad but I just get tired of watching them sometimes people think they're mine. Like last weekend we walked the 2 miles to town to get a couple groceries for dinner with the money I earned from cleaning our elderly neighbors house because mom forget to buy food again this week. She usually stayed at some losers house drinking and doing god knows what all weekend until he drops her off either Sunday night or early Monday morning right before we have to go to school. Not that it matters if she's home to help or take care of the boys. They're 6 and 7 , I've been taking care of them since I begged the nurse at the hospital to let me stay with Shawn the day after he was born. I was so surprised and happy he was healthy because mom had drank all through the pregnancy and I was so worried because I checked out books on pregnancy and fetal alcohol syndrome. It was a miracle he didn't have some major disability because of the crappy way my mom took care of herself when she was pregnant. I can say for sure that's something I will do the best I can when I get pregnant I try to do everything I can to give my baby a healthy start. Eat right ,no drinking or using drugs. I don't like the way people are so different when they are under influence of substances. I just don't get why you'd do it when all you get is sick the next day. Anyway, I am always the responsible one in our family I help Shawn with his math and Brian with his reading. I make sure everyone has clean clothes, bathes, and gets to the busstop on time everyday. I used to get made fun of because I brought the same Peanutbutter and jelly sandwichs and stale crackers everyday because its what the church youth group gave us to eat on Sat 2 sandwiches and 2 packs of crackers. Id save it for Monday and Tuesday then I'd only have to worry about the other 3 days of the week. Usually I would sneak into the girls bathroom and wait for everyone to leave and quickly lock the door so I could go through the trash and get the snacks the girls threw away. Sometimes there where whole bags of chips, cookies or even a full packed lunch or two on the days when I found a bunch of stuff I'd be so excited to bring it home to the boys I'd skip eating lunch at all to split it with the boys at night. The boys would be going through the boys trash during the day too. We would sometimes go back to our house at the end of the day and check the lunch trash and fill a big gym bag but we couldn't do this all the time for fear of being discovered. So only about 2 or 3 times a month we'd risk it and I'd go and talk to the lunch lady and ask if I could help her clean up In the back. while I helped with the dishes in the back the boys would fill the bag as much as they could without making it too heavy. After all it was ou supposed to be gym clothes. Then theyd sit at the table and do school work for the 45min until the late bus came. Then we'd run to the bus and smush together on the bench seat and wait listening to our stomachs growling because we hadn't eaten since the night before counting the 29 minutes until we would be home to get to eat our hodgepodge foraged dinner. Some nights we'd have 2 juices and a milk some chicken nugget,soggy French fries, some chips and maybe a few packs of cookies and even a soda if we where really lucky! Those nights where like a party. we'd use the small empty fruit cups we saved, washed and rewashed. I'd fill each of the cups to the top as they where each 4ozs so it was perfect. I loved when I could cook a real meal for us all. I wondered sometimes if my mom wondered what we did for food all week when she wasn't home. I don't know for sure what she did or where she went but, I suspected she turned tricks for drugs. Because she was always high and never worked.
I called and asked my grandparents if I could go out with my friends to the mall. After a moment my grandmother gets back on the phone and says that she doesn't think I should go because I need to watch the boys.
