Despite All Obstacles Part II

Barbie's Big Move

PART 2: INGLEWOOD TO PASADENA, CA

Saturday, September 1st

This morning.

After momma and I ate Pop-Tarts and bananas with orange juice for breakfast, KiKi, Sisi, auntie, uncle and Derrick came by to help us clear my old home for my new home, all the way up to Pasadena.

"I know this is hard to do Barbie, but cus just don't know how to cope with your poppa's death. Just stay strong," Sisi advises me. I'm just too upset that I have to leave my high school friends. I regress by holding Barbie tight in front of Sisi.

"Will your friends help out with moving?" KiKi asks me.

I shake my head. "No. They have better lives to deal with." Because it's true. They do. They can get to stay here, and I have to move out. Ever since I met them, they made me feel wanted. I don't know if I'll get the same thing in Palm Trees Sr. High, where I may be the only full-black girl from the hood there. You can take the girl outta hood, but you can't take the hood outta girl. I'm hood. I think.

"Aaaawwww! Poor, Barbie. Niecy, you can come back to Inglewood on Sundays for church. At least you're not gonna get shot. Be grateful your momma tryna give you a good education in a safer environment. Your poppa's family don't even live here in Inglewood. They live above us in L.A., in the middle of this couny with the same name," auntie tells me. In her voice, she mocks my pity because she thinks I should be grateful that I'm moving outta this "hellhole".

"Thanks," I sarcastically thank her.

"You're welcome." Grinning at me looking sad. She does this.

"Where's gramma?" I ask my cousins.

"She's taking care of gramma," KiKi tells me. My gramma's their auntie and their gramma's my great gramma. My great gramma has cancer and my great grampa's with poppa from a disease called leukemia. Poor gramma losing both her parents.

"Where the boys?" I ask them, looking around, not seeing those hooligans.

"They're hanging out with friends from school. Of course, poppa and her momma always have to work," KiKi tells me, about her poppa and Sisi's momma. Both KiKi's and Sisi's sons are in Inglewood Heights Middle.

"I know when cus went to Inglewood Heights it was just an elementary school. Now it's both elementary and middle. They changed the third floor into a middle school and moved the kindergarten, first and second grade into the portable at the back of the school for the third, fourth and fifth grade," Sisi says.

"Why didn't they just move the middle school into the portable?" I ask.

"I guess it's because since the big kids can handle the stairs than the little kids, they decide to put the middle school to the top floor," Sisi says.

"Why did they decide to turn the school into a middle school?" I ask, confused.

"Because they aren't a lot of middle schools in this area and the school needed more money for education," momma jumps in.

"Oh," I smartly agree. Auntie looks at me like I better watch it. I swear, she scares me.

Twenty minutes later, everything from the apartment suite is emptied out into three vehicles as we put the furniture into the U-Haul truck and lighter things into auntie's Buick and momma's BMW.

This afternoon.

Momma and I are in momma's tangerine BMW as the U-Haul moving truck with Uncle Markus as the driver and Derrick as the passenger follows us. What's following them is an ebony Buick with KiKi, Sisi and auntie in it for more than a half hour drive to Pasadena.