Day 35 (a future history)

Friday, February 23, 2018

Nothing is getting better. And so much stuff is happening that I can’t keep up with it or figure out what’s going on. I’m going to spend the weekend trying to figure out how to get out of here. Maybe I can take the train, but the train station is all the way downtown, and that’s a long way to walk.

The other thing I didn’t say about Tuesday is that it wasn’t just my school that had all the vandalism. It was all the schools. I didn’t find that out until later though. We were the only school that the soldiers came to, all because of Caleb, and we were the only school with an incident. An “incident.”

The only school with an incident on Tuesday.

Because then Wednesday happened.

Wednesday morning, one of the Nazi bastards came to school early to see if he could catch anyone putting graffiti on lockers. Evidently, Caleb and all of them had been talking big about staking out the school and catching people in the act, but Trevor was the only one of them to actually show up to do it. And he did do it. He caught a group of the basketball players vandalizing Caleb’s locker and burning his stuff.

But he was alone, and they beat him up. Bad.

That’s all we know, and we don’t even know that, because Trevor said it was guys from the basketball team, but they all say they didn’t do it. It didn’t matter, because the soldiers came and took away almost the whole team. All of the black boys on the team. Until they can “sort it out.” None of them have been back to school.

Things like that happened at a lot of the schools. Like gang fights. Gang fights with Nazis.

Parents are protesting.

There was a riot Wednesday night that was supposed to just be a protest, but soldiers went to it and there was fighting and a bunch of people got shot and some of them were killed. Mostly black people.

It’s really scary because I wanted to go to the protest, but mom wouldn’t let me. We had a big fight, and I tried to march out the door anyway, but dad got involved and threatened to lock me in my room except for school if I went out the front door and, like a dummy, I said I would just go out the window, so, now, he’s going to buy bars for my window. That’s what he says, anyway, and I kind of believe him. All I know is that I don’t want to end up locked in my room all the time like some kind of Rapunzel but without all the long hair.

But, then, I was glad I didn’t go because mom was listening to the stuff about it on the radio, and I was listening but trying to pretend not to be listening, and all of the gunfire started happening and there was screaming and all kinds of chaos and mom turned the radio off because she was crying and didn’t want to hear any more of it and all dad could say was how they all deserved it.

And I don’t even know what he meant by that. Black people deserve it? People who protest deserve it? People who don’t like what’s going on deserve it?

I hate my dad.

And that makes me sad when I think about it, because I didn’t used to hate him, but it’s like Trump being president has made him into the worst person he can be. I never knew he was all racist and stuff before Trump started running for president. And I know he used to play football in high school, so now I wonder if he was one of those horrible kind of jock guys that bully people and use girls.

And it makes me wonder what my mom ever saw in him because she spends a lot of her time crying, now, and they hardly ever talk to each other anymore. So I don’t know what’s going on at home anymore either, but I don’t know if I care because I’m leaving. I’m going to. I can’t stand being here, and I’m going to go to California.

As soon as I figure out how to get there.

Day 34 (a future history)

Thursday, February 22, 2018

I’m going to run away. I’m really going to do it. I don’t care if I don’t have enough money. I’m not staying here anymore.

This week has been shit.

Tuesday morning when we got to school, we found out that all of the little Nazi boys had had their lockers vandalized. All 18 or 20 of them. I don’t even know how many there are, though I think they’re adding more. yay It was all stuff like

Fuck Nazis

Nazis suck cock

Nazis are LOSERS

Most of us thought it was pretty funny.

Caleb didn’t. Caleb was going around school calling it terrorism and demanding to know who’d done it. Like anyone would tell him. No one liked him before he had his Nazi goon squad, and everyone hates him now. But Caleb whined to daddy. He actually went to the office before school had even started and called him, so there was a special emergency assembly called during first period. It turns out that Caleb’s dad isn’t just in the National Guard but is a captain or a sergeant or something and is the Nazi in charge of the Nazi babies.

Captain Nazi gave us a long speech about how this kind of behavior wouldn’t be tolerated and that the people responsible should turn themselves in to avoid horrible punishment. He also offered a reward for anyone who would turn in the people who did it.

So there’s this guy, Evan, who’s kind of a smart ass. He’s always saying disruptive stuff in class and making teachers mad and, sometimes, making them look dumb. He’s super smart and he knows it. He doesn’t care about any school stuff because he already knows it all. But he really doesn’t try to make people feel stupid. Except for teachers when they act like they’re right because they’re the teachers or people who are really just being stupid. I think he likes the attention he gets from being a smart ass in class because he’s so bored with being in school.

So Evan stood up, just stood up as soon as Captain Nazi-pants offered a reward, and said, “I know who did it.” Everyone got real quiet, and I’m sure whoever did do it was scared. I would have been scared. But I also wouldn’t narc on people bashing Nazis and couldn’t believe Evan was going to, even for a reward. Evan didn’t say anything. He just kept standing there. Everybody was looking at him, and I think he was enjoying it.

Eventually, Nazi-pants said, “Well?”

And Evan smirked and said, “It was your momma.”

Which doesn’t sound very brilliant coming from Evan – that’s the kind of thing a 6^th grader would say – unless he was trying to say the thing that would most piss off Nazi-pants. Or almost the thing that would most piss him off. Because Caleb started yelling, “You take that back! Take it back!” And Evan looked at him and said, “And your momma was watching and sucking a big black dick while it was happening. Two of them, in fact.”

Nazi-pants lost it. He went flying off the stage in a rage but some other National Guard Nazi guy had Evan by the arm and was pulling him from his seat by the time Nazi-pants got there. Caleb was right behind his dad. Evan was freaked out and trying to get away. Caleb’s dad grabbed Evan and punched him in the face. Just punched him in the face! Blood hit the wall and Evan collapsed. Caleb started kicking him and no one stopped him.

Evan is just a kid. Really a kid. He’s in 8^th grade, but that’s because he skipped a couple of years of school. He might only be 10. I don’t know.

I think everyone was too shocked by what was happening to do anything, but the soldiers weren’t shocked; they just didn’t care. Eventually – and it probably wasn’t really very long, but it felt like a long time – Mr. Chambers started yelling for them to stop and headed that way, but soldier dudes got in his way. But Mr. Chambers is a big guy and used to play football and wrestle and stuff, coach stuff, and kept pushing his way through. Then the soldier dudes started attacking him, and he was knocking them all down until one of them pulled out his gun and told Mr. Chambers to freeze.

By that time, Nazi-pants was arguing with the principal, and a few moments later, the police and an ambulance showed up. I guess someone must have snuck out and called 911 during all of the fighting and confusion with Mr. Chambers. Nazi-pants didn’t want to let the ambulance take Evan away, but the police made him leave them alone. I think they may have been trying to arrest Nazi-pants, but I don’t really know. All I know is more police came and, when the more police got there, they made all of us clear out.

At some point, between the police getting there and the more police getting there, the soldiers took Mr. Chambers away. He hasn’t been back to school. Neither has Evan.

Evan, though, is in the hospital. The school did let us know that so that any of us who want to can go visit him. I want to visit him, but I wasn’t really friends with him, so that seems awkward to me. Especially since he can’t talk because of the broken jaw. And broken nose. And cracked ribs. And internal bleeding. His dad is someone kind of important, I think, so I hope he makes bad things happen to Captain Nazi-pants.

No one knows what happened to Mr. Chambers.

So far, nothing has happened to Nazi-pants, at least according to Caleb. He’s been bragging, now, about how his dad can do whatever he wants and no one can do anything about it or stop him. And, according to Caleb, that means he can also do anything he wants and no one can stop him, either. It seems like the teachers believe it, because they are letting Caleb get away with everything, even telling them what to do.

Mom is calling for dinner. More beans and rice, probably. That’s all we’ve had to eat for a week, and I’m sick and tired of beans and rice. But I’m also hungry. Mom is talking about getting chickens, but dad keeps saying no. Mom says we at least need them for the eggs because it’s been almost three weeks since we’ve had any meat, and it was two weeks before that.

But, anyway, all of that was JUST Tuesday, but I’ll have to talk about Wednesday later.

Day 28 (a future history)

Friday, February 16, 2018

I hate school. I mean, I’ve always hated school, but I hate it even more now. Caleb was right about that stupid student patrol thing. Of course, it’s all boys, the worst boys, and Caleb is in charge of it. I think I hate boys, too. They all suck. And they all think they can do whatever they want now. All the time. Even come into the girls’ bathroom.

We got our ID cards on Wednesday, the same day they announced the Trump Youth Brigade. It’s all so shitty I don’t even know what to write about it all.

They gave us our ID cards in first period. And all the rules that go with them. Pages and pages of rules. We have to use them to get into school and to get out of school. We have to use them to get into the fucking bathroom, and we can only go to the bathroom twice a day. The doors won’t unlock for us if we try to use them more than that. We have to use them to ride the bus, the school bus or the city bus, and we have to use them to buy things. Even a candy bar! We have to use them to check into every single class we have. It’s how they’re going to take roll from now on.

They’re going to keep track of every place we go, because we can’t do anything without using these stupid cards! We can even add money to them so that we can buy stuff directly with our ID cards, and I think mom said that all of their credit cards and bank cards are being converted into something like the ID cards, with an extra chip that does all of the same stuff so that all of the information goes directly to the ID center. Or whatever they’re calling it.

It's got some long stupid name that I refuse to use. We’re all just calling it the ID Center. Or the Nazi Center when we can say that without getting tagged by one of the stupid Hitler Youths. I mean Trump Youth Bastards.

The problem is that I don’t really know anything about Nazis or Hitler or World War II or anything. I just know everyone started talking about Nazis and fascists and white supremacists last summer when all of the protests started. At first, it was all funny and stuff because there was that crying Nazi guy who went to jail and a bunch of those guys always whining about stuff, and that’s all I thought it was: funny.

Until Trump pardoned him and gave him a job. “Because he’s a good guy, a really good guy, and the media really really treated him unfairly. Very unfairly.” That wasn’t funny.

Then people started getting killed and it wasn’t funny anymore. Then, I just started trying to ignore it, because it was horrible. Too many fucking guns and people driving through black neighborhoods and shooting them up. And riots with people shooting each other up and police shooting everyone. And I didn’t want to know about it.

But I also feel like I’m only in middle school and shouldn’t have to know about shit like that.

But now I wish I had been paying attention and that I knew what everyone was talking about when all of that started happening. I just thought it would all pass and nothing bad could happen here. Everyone said nothing bad could ever happen in America. Or to America. I don’t know why I believed that. I knew that Trump was shit and that he was already something bad happening to America.

I wish I could remember all of those cheetos jokes about him. Those were funny. And they’re all gone now because of the internet. I bet Trump is happy about that.

So we went from riots with guns to some kind of war that they won’t tell us anything about. And I wish I lived somewhere I could find out what is going on, but I’m also happy that there isn’t any fighting happening here.

Except there was those tanks. And the attack on the air force base.

And Caleb keeps bragging that his dad is saying they’re going to let the youth brigade have guns and that they’re going to get special training and all sorts of things. I want to believe that he’s just bragging and lying, but I thought that last time.

I need to figure out how to get more money for my California box.

Day 24 (a future history)

Monday, February 12, 2018

Mrs. Madison still isn’t back at school. They said she’s having a sabatical. Or a cebatical. Something. I’d look it up to find out what it means if I could, but I can’t google it, and we don’t have a dictionary.

That seems weird to me, now, not having a dictionary, but I don’t think I’ve used one since, probably, 2^nd grade. I think that’s when we learned about alphabetizing and using a dictionary, but you don’t need a dictionary when you have the internet.

I want to talk to her and find out what really happened to her, but I don’t know where she lives. I tried asking in the office, but they wouldn’t tell me, just kept saying “it’s policy” blah blah blah. Which, fine, I understand that about not giving teachers’ addresses to students because they’d get egged all the time if everyone knew where they lived, but this isn’t like a normal circumstance!, and you’d think they’d make an exception. But, no! It’s policy blah blah blah.

Which leaves the internet… Oh, wait, it doesn’t! Fucking Trump and the internet. What I need is a dictionary for people and where they live, but we don’t even have a dictionary, so I’m sure we wouldn’t have one of those, either, even if they made them.

So we’re having subs in her class, a different one every day. Some old lady who used to be a teacher who just wanted us to sit quietly and nothing else. Some young college guy who was an IT major or something but doesn’t have anymore, right now, because, basically, there are no more computers. I haven’t touched my computer in over a week. What’s the point?

He was funny, though, and told a bunch of stories about his friends getting drunk that he would probably get in trouble for telling us if they knew he had. And I suppose he was cute, but ALL of the girls crowded around him at the end of class and it was SO stupid because he had to be, like, I don’t know, at least 22 or something, but Gretchen swears she got his phone number, but she wouldn’t show it to anyone because she didn’t want anyone else to use it. I bet he gave her his cell phone number, so a lot of good that will do her!

Today’s sub was a black guy who wanted to know what we’re studying, or what we WERE studying before Mrs. Madison “left,” because there was no lesson plan. We told him we’re studying poetry but it didn’t matter because the soldiers had taken all our English books.

He asked us what poetry we’d learned and no one could answer. Or no one wanted to. After all our books were taken, it was pretty clear no one wanted to talk about books. I certainly hadn’t told anyone I had a copy of Fahrenheit 451. I even kept it hidden when I wasn’t reading it. Again. Because it’s the only book I have, and I don’t have a lot else to do, so I guess I’m kind of trying to memorize it, just like in the book. Which is kind of funny, I think. And ironic. I think. I think the word is ironic.

I flipped through my English notebook, but the only things I had written down were

Walt Whitman

Emerson

Thorough

I still think Thorough is a weird name for someone to have.

I was thinking about saying something when Abi said, “Walt Whitman.” Then, without really stopping to think, I said, “Yeah, something about leaves and grass.”

And he started laughing! He started laughing and I could feel my cheeks turn red, and everyone else started laughing, too, but I know they were just laughing because he was laughing, not because they knew what was funny. It made me mad which made my cheeks burn more.

But the sub knew, too, and started asking some of them why they were laughing and none of them could answer, which made more people laugh, even me, and it was okay after that.

Then he explained that it was Leaves of Grass and that he would bring his copy from home if he gets to come back.

He talked about poetry for a little while after that and quoted some poems to us that he had memorized, which I thought was cool and was like Fahrenheit 451 and the way I was starting to remember that back, but he did it just because he wanted to or liked to or something not because he didn’t have anything better to do. I never met anyone before who had memorized poems and books and stuff.

Then he told us that poetry isn’t about just poems, and we talked about music for a little bit, and he quoted some songs to us and told us to yell out the songs as soon as we knew what they were, which was funny because it was harder than it sounds like it would be and just because there was no music to go with the words.

At the end, he said poetry can also just be beautiful language, and he quoted some speech my Martin Luther King. I don’t really know who he is other than that he has a holiday and everyone jokes about it being milk day. Oh, and he was killed by someone. His speech was really good, though, but it was a little long. I wanted to write it down, but I got too far behind and gave up. I wish I could look it up, but I have no way to do that at home or anywhere, really. I do remember one part:

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low.

Day 21 (a future history)

Friday, February 9, 2018

We had to get pictures for our ID cards today. I don’t like having my picture taken ever, but this was even worse. We’re going to be required to carry them “at all times” so anyone who wants to can “verify our identity.” If we ever get stopped for something and don’t have our card, we can get taken to a detention center.

It’s bullshit.

We’re also going to have to use them to check into school everyday. They’re going to have some kind of chip in them, like a credit card, and we’ll have to use them in some in some card reader thing when we get to school AND when we leave school! It’s ridiculous!

Next thing you know, we’ll have to use them to get in and out of our own houses.

We also have to use them anytime we buy something, even if we’re paying with money. I mean paper money. They’re going to start making us use the stupid cards for everything!

If they make us use them to go to the bathroom, I’m going to start peeing on the floor!

Getting the pictures done was weird. A lot of my friends were treating them like school pictures and came to school all dressed up. My mom wanted me to dress up, especially because I didn’t dress up for actual picture day, but I hate taking pictures and I’m certainly not dressing up for it.

But none of that’s what made it weird.

My group went in, and there were still a few people from another class having their pictures done, and no one was smiling. All these girls all dressed up and not a single one of them smiling. They all had these super serious expressions on their faces, even Katy, who always smiles. Always!

Then Joe went up, the first person from my class because his last name is Anderson, and he, of course, smiled.

And they yelled at him for it!

“Don’t smile.”

“What?” looking confused.

“Don’t smile. Just look at the camera.”

Joe looked at the camera more as a reaction than because he was doing what he was told. He had a kind of bewildered look on his face, but that’s when the guy took the picture.

Then they called “Baker, Abigail,” and, of course, Abi smiled, and the photographer yelled at her, too. Abi argues with everyone, so she tried to argue with the guy, “But I want to have pretty pictures…”

“You’re not getting pictures. You’re getting an ID card.”

“But…”

“You don’t get any pictures, just the card. Now, look at the camera and don’t smile.”

Abi scowled, but he just waited a few moments, looking bored, and took the picture as soon as Abi relaxed her face a little. She was so mad! And stomped off like she was going to try to go get him in trouble.

It would have been funny if it all hadn’t been so weird.

After one more of those, no one smiled anymore.

Until it was my turn, because I was mad.

And I never smile for pictures.

“Just look at the camera. Don’t smile.”

“I’m not smiling.” I wanted to be laughing, so it was actually kind of hard to hold the smile.

“I’m serious, kid. Quit smiling.”

“I’m not smiling.”

I got detention, but I’m smiling in my picture.

It was worth it.

Day 20 (a future history)

Thursday, February 8, 2018

I got my mom to give me 20 bucks this morning before school. I told her it was for school, for book replacement since the soldiers took so many of our books. My mom didn’t want to give me the money. She said we need it for food and that the soldiers would just come take the new books, too. Everyone was talking about how the soldiers came to the schools and took all the books, so my mom already knew about it when I got home yesterday. I told her it wasn’t for the same books but different books and that we had to have books and the school said to bring $20.

She really wasn’t happy about it, but she gave me the money.

It made me feel bad for lying to her.

But I wasn’t totally lying to her! I wanted the money for books. Just not school books.

I took the bus to the mall after school and walked over to the BAM!, which I think I’ve only ever been in, like, once, and I still have only been in it once, because it was closed. Not like closed for the day, closed “until further notice,” whatever that means. I bet the army did it, but the sign on the door didn’t say. I tried to look in the windows, but they were those dark windows to keep the sun out and the lights were out in the store, so it was hard to see in. It looked like the shelves were more empty than full, though.

So I walked back to the mall, but there are no bookstores in the mall, which I knew, but I was hoping maybe I just hadn’t noticed one before. Then I checked at Target, but all of their bookshelves were empty except for a few books on one shelf, and they were all by Donald Trump! The Art of the Deal, Think Like a Champion, Great Again. It made my stomach sick looking at his face and knowing that his were the only books available.

Other than those, they only had a few magazines, but that’s not what I wanted. So I checked every store that I thought might have some books, any books, but no one had any books unless they were Trump books. The person I asked at Target said she didn’t know if they were even going to carry books again, just that soldiers – she said army men, which I thought was funny – came and took them all away.

It all made me kind of frantic. Like when you’ve lost something really important to you that you thought you knew where it was but, when you go to get it, it’s not there and you end up tearing your room apart trying to find it. Not that I'VE ever done that! Only this was something really important that I hadn’t known I’d had and, now, it’s gone, and I want it back. I really, really want it!

After the mall, I took the bus to the library even though it was getting late and I knew I might not be able to catch another bus to get home on. Which I didn’t, and I had to walk, which I wouldn’t have minded if my trip to the library had been worthwhile, but, after walking the couple of blocks from the bus stop, I found the library all locked up, too. There was no sign on the library; it was just closed.

I might have made it to a bus, but I stood there staring at the chained up doors for a long time feeling sick in my stomach and trying not to cry. I hate crying. Probably because it makes me think of how weak my mom is when my dad makes her cry. She acts so helpless, and I don’t want to be like that. Strong people don’t cry.

But I wanted to cry, and I had to hold it all in all the way to the bus stop. But no bus came, and I had to walk home, which took two hours, and my mom was freaking out by the time I got home. I started to say, “Well, you should get me a cell phone, and I could have called,” but I couldn’t have called, because cell phones don’t work anymore. They disabled all the towers or something. To keep people from calling places they don’t want them to call. Places Trump doesn’t want them to call. So I didn’t say anything except that I had tried to go to the library, but it was closed, and I missed the bus.

Mom was still mad.

Then I almost gave her back the money but realized while my hand was in my pocket that I couldn’t because, then, she’d know I lied about what I wanted it for, and that made me feel even more bad about the lying. But I put the 20 in my hiding box, so that’s good thing.

Right?

Day 19 (a future history)

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Everything that was bad about life before all of this stuff started happening keeps getting worse, and all of the good things are gone. Even the good things that I didn’t know about before. Like books. But soldiers came to the school today and took lots and lots of books from the library and came and took books away from us if we had any that were on their stupid list of books they were taking away.

But they only took library books from us, because those books are in the system, I guess, and they knew who had them. They did go through all of the teacher’s rooms, though, the ones who have books that they loan out to us, and took tons of their books, too. Just took them like they took my dad’s TV, but they didn’t offer to pay for the books. They didn’t search us, though. I guess they didn’t have time. That was good, because I still have my copy of Fahrenheit 451 that I got from Mrs. Madison. I only have about 25 pages left, and I would have been SO MAD if they had taken it.

Mrs. Madison was so mad. I wasn’t in her class when they went in and took her books, but everyone was talking about it after. Evidently, the soldiers had to hold her down while they were taking her books. They had to evacuate the students from her room because of how she was screaming. It was making some of them cry.

Some people said they locked her in her classroom after they took her books, and a bunch of the boys were saying she was raped because there was a lot of screaming while they were keeping her in her class. A bunch of other boys were laughing about it and laughing that some people cried.

Boys are making school even worse than it usually is, lately. There’s a bunch of them that are going around all the time talking about how they get to do whatever they want to now. They slap us on the butts in the hall and one of them, Caleb, grabbed Jenna’s boob right in the middle of class yesterday! That was in Mrs. Madison’s class, and she sent him to the office, but he was back 20 minutes later like nothing had even happened. And he grabbed Jenna’s ass when class was over, too! Mrs. Madison made him stay behind, but I saw him after school, and he was laughing about it and said there was nothing they could do.

Caleb and his group of friends think they are going to get to be part of a new student patrol, but no one knows if they’re making that up. No one has announced anything about that, not even Trump, though I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. But Caleb’s dad is one of the National Guard soldiers who came to the school and took the books, and Caleb said his dad said it’s going to happen.

So maybe he’s talking shit or maybe he knows something he’s not supposed to know. No one knows, and everyone is scared to find out. Even the teachers, I think. Everyone except Caleb’s friends who think they’re all going to be in charge.

But, anyway… Mrs. Madison wasn’t in her class when I got there for 5^th period. She had gone home. Or got sent home. Or got taken away. It really depends on who you talk to. All the boys who had laughed said the soldiers took her away and that she would probably never be back. It makes me so mad that they were saying those things, and I don’t know what to do about it.

I don’t think anyone knows what to do about it either. Everyone is scared, even the teachers. Having soldiers raiding the school doesn’t help.

I think I need to go to the book store and buy some books, because I might not be able to buy any soon. Assuming they didn’t already go to the bookstores and take their books, too. Except I don’t have any money, and books cost a lot. And I can’t order them from Amazon, either.

Not that I even know what books I should try to be getting. Fahrenheit, I know. And Hunger Games. And they took some book about flies, King of the Flies?, from Jimmy, but I don’t know what else. I just know that I want to read all the books they don’t want me to, and I need to figure out how to get some of them.

I used to never care that we didn’t have books in our house; now, I’m kinda mad that we don’t. What’s wrong with my parents that we don’t have any books? And why didn’t they ever tell me how important it is to read? And what is it in these books Trump doesn’t want us to read? I mean, I understand with Fahrenheit – It’s ALL about this! – and maybe I understand with Hunger Games, but I don’t know why they are so scared of us reading these books, and I want to know.

I WANT TO KNOW!!!