Munmun(30)

It made me a little happy that atleast the church was taking care of her. But a lot sad that we weren’t, her worthless kids, one scaledup and selfish, the other a scumbag inmate.

So that was Mom.

About Usher meanwhile, Prayer had no idea.

“The same morning you got arrested, he left, I don’t know where to, he didn’t tell me,” she said.

“Ohmygod, Prayer,” I yelled, furious. “What is even going to happen to him. Where will he sleep.”

“I look for him in Dreamworld sometimes,” she said. “I’ll tell you if I find him.”

“Cats or hawks will eat him for sure and if I found out he’s dead, guesswhat, you’re also dead, as in, I will consider you dead forever,” I told her.

“Usher is his own guy, I’m not responsible for him, and anyway he left without even telling me,” she said.

“I will think of you as tragically dead,” I yelled. “Whatashame about Prayer, I will never get to talk to her again, I even forget what her stupid face looks like.”

That was Prayer’s first few visits anyway, before my tongue got fat and dull.

How can I even tell you what a year in kidjail does, if you don’t know. The days went by, weeks, months, I became less myself.

If you’re only around boys you don’t know and don’t like, mostly scumbags and peenfaces, prettyquick you get bad at talking. Your mouth loses most of its programs, reduces prettymuch just to “I’m not intrested,” “Don’t bother me,” “Sorry dave,” “Heck you want,” other sad hard sayings.

So Prayer’s visits got shorter and shorter, because I just didn’t say much, also she had worries of her own to deal with.

“I can’t stay for long, I’m really sorry, Paddy’s got me running the stand everyday now, he’s really kind of turned the business over to me, except I guess for the ownership part,” she would say and I just grunted, tried to care a little harder and couldn’t.

“Sorry I haven’t been in a while, Paddy retired, he just sits in bed allday playing vidpoker with cyberfriends, except I think the friends are all just robots, do you think I should be worried about it, probably it’s fine right,” she would ask with tired eyes and a stressedout mouth, but her worries just bounced off my hard cool thoughts.

My thoughts were about tunneling.

I’m in an eightyear tunnel, I thought everyday, just need to slowly tunnel through time, dig through time at the rate of one day per day, make it to the otherside with reading skills, thinking skills, superstrength.

But after a few months you begin to realize, an eightyear tunnel is an impossible length.

You begin to think, I can’t see the end of this tunnel, how do I know it’s not collapsed in the middle.

You realize, in two years the tunnel gets darker, bumpier, crappier. In two years I’m in with grownups and in grownjail they throw littles in with middles. So you’re in with daves who outscale you by two, three, five, way more frequency of getting pulped, more probability of getting banged, more likelihood of getting told, here are your choices, join a squad or die. Goodluck surviving six years with hopeless grownups, bigger sadder madder than you, more insane too.

You realize, I have no control, even here in kidjail, what if the faceboys get serious and just break my neck one day.

What if a psycho fights me, a true psycho wants a fight to the death and he kills me or I kill him, the outcomes are death or lifeinprison.

What if this tunnel I’m digging is just a pit.

The days crept by and I got sad, mad, meaner to boys than I had to be.

If a kid stepped on my bed, I yelled at him. If a kid stared at me, not even meanstaring, just alone or afraid, I slapped his face.

The guards and parolecops mentioned it, during checkups, they said, “Grumpyrat, you’re not going to fight your way back outside, and infact if you keep getting in fights, you’re never going to leave,” like that’s news to me, like I’m an idiot who can’t figure that out.

They thought I was one of the worst kids and after a year I was thinking, what do I know, maybe they’re right.

I realized the tunnel was not even me digging, it was just the earth swallowing me whole like a snake.





DREAMWORLD


One day about a year after I got jailed, they came in and plucked the worst kids out of the cages onebyone, Puppyneck the king faceboy, Nick the total psycho, Starling the dustaddict, and numberfour, yourstruly.

The guards fished us all out with a net and plopped us in a blank little bedless cage together and I thought, here we go, battleroyale, before anyone attacks me I should probably attack dopey Starling, he fights the least good, let Nick and Puppyneck jack each other up.

But the guards didn’t put the cage down, so we couldn’t get our footing, so no fight.

“Okay, littleshits,” said Wilt. “Here’s what’s happening. We have someone here who wants to run an experiment on violent kidprisoners, ay kay ay, you.”

We just stared at him, Nick spat on the ground.

“Great,” said Wilt. “If you don’t want to be in an experiment, speak now, no one’s saying anything, okay great, let’s get started.”

Then they carried us outside and there was someone huge in the yard.

But it wasn’t an old scientist, instead it was a middlerich girl there waiting for us, our age even. This girl was doublescale atleast, closer to twoandahalf, that’s why they took us outside to meet her, this lucky richgirl’s not squeezing into Littlebighouse.