Christopher Paul Curtis by Bucking the Sarge Page B

KeeKee had run out of black crayon, the little female had a red mouth but didn't have any eyes.
    Under the male, KeeKee Wilson had printed “Bo.”
    Under the tall female holding Bo's hand she'd put “Me.”
    Under the little eyeless female, KeeKee had printed “Mommy.”
    I leaned my back against the magnetless fridge and slid down until I was sitting on the kitchen floor.
    This was the kind of thing I was talking about, this was the scraps of a nightmare. This was the stuff that you couldn't get used to. This was the kind of thing that would make you want to get that box of cornflakes and put a serious beat-down on Darnell Dixon, Little Chicago and the Sarge.
    There's always something desperate and fake when you have to deal with someone who's about to get evicted. They'll say anything to try and get another rent-free week or two. That makes it easy not to listen to what they have to say, 'cause you know there's a pretty good chance they're lying. It's nothing to make your heart hard to that. Even if you feel bad for them odds are they're not doing nothing but playing you, and who wants to get played?
    People will throw their babies in your face or have their sick, dying mommas cough on you or they'll tell you the check's in the mail or that the Department of Social Services computer is down or that they've got the inside word on what next Thursday's number is going to be or any of a million other stupid excuses as to why they haven't paid the rent in three months. It gets real easy to let those excuses slide right by you 'cause it's real obvious that they are what Ms. Warren calls rhetoric, or speech designed to influence.
    What's hard is a stupid little picture drawn by a little mostly-As student who's got a dope fiend momma. What's hard is knowing that that girl was gonna be living in a busted-up Impala until her momma drags her into some other hole to live. What's hard is wondering, and I know some philosopher somewhere has wondered this and probably figured it out to the day, how much longer that little girl has before she's beaten down so bad that being room C's Citizen of the Month doesn't mean a thing. What's hard is knowing that KeeKee may be six or seven now but that in three or four years she'll be thirty.
    That's the kind of thing that'll have you back-slid up against a fridge with a stack of tests and essays and certificates in your hands so heavy that they've pinned your arms to the floor.
    That's the kind of thing that has “irrational, inappropriate episode” written all over it.
    I don't know how long I'd been sitting on the kitchen floor. I don't know how long Little Chicago had been watching me from the door.
    He said, “Darnell, come here,” tee-hee, “I think your boy's nutted out again.”
    Darnell looked in. “Soft little punk.”
    Tee-hee. “What you gonna do?”
    “Nothing, you drive the pickup back and just leave him here. I'll send Patton Turner by later to pick him up.”
    Little Chicago said, “Who?”
    Darnell said, “You know him, Patton Turner. Luther'll be pattin' his feet on the pavement and turnin' the corners to get his soft self home.”
    It was dark when I started walking. I'd picked up all of KeeKee's tests and her library book and the picture she'd drawn and was carrying them and the fridge magnets in one of the plastic grocery bags. I didn't know what I was going to do with them, but I couldn't leave them. Forty-three-oh-nine North Street had just gone from being KeeKee's home back to being the Sarge's house.

It's funny how when you're young there're some things that old people do that seem to be so tight that you can't wait to do them yourself. Things that make you stay awake the night before they're 'bout to happen 'cause they got you so hyped that you can't even sleep. Things like when I just turned thirteen and the Sarge woke me up to tell me, “I've noticed the rapport you have with the men over at their group home, it seems to me like there's a genuine affection