Pride and Prejudice

So, here I am, sick enough that I've called off work. Two hours of sleep last night, my chest feels like it has a truck resting on it, my nose feels like someone has stuffed cotton up there and I can't keep anything down. My stomach feels like I have a hot poker stirring it.

I stumble down the stairs at noon, call work, let them know I am not coming in. I curl up on the couch that Chris has so graciously vacated for me and watch him play a video game. I doze off. A couple of hours of fitful rest go by and I drag myself up and head for the bathroom to wash my face and see about fluids. With fluids obtained I return to my little sanctuary called "the couch" and I decide I better get my homework done for the week. Book in hand, pen and highlighters nearby with index cards, I begin the arduous task of trying to study.

Before long the doorbell rings and lo and behold our boys are home from school. Fretting over Mommy, I now have my every whim catered to, complete with a cool rag on my forehead to reduce fever.

Doorbell rings again and oldest boy goes to door and opens it. I can’t see who it is, but a feminine voice calls out "Tell yer folks they might wanna be getting' outside, some'ting is happenin' to yer sister"

I leap up off the couch and jam my feet into my shoes and race out the door, all the while praying she hasn't been hit by a damn car. As I reach the door that leads out of the foyer into the great outdoors, my daughter appears, looking no worse for the wear.

"What is going on?" I demand while my eyes quickly race over her to see if I missed anything the first time around.

She starts to ramble, her words tumbling over each other so badly that I can't understand what she is saying. I hear the adult feminine voice reply "Those girls were trying to beat her up" So I look to my daughter who nods her confirmation.

Now I am pissed, this same girl has stalked and harassed my daughter all year. By her own account, my daughter has never said or done a single thing to offend her. This girl has on more then one occasion struck my daughter's face. I am beyond words with fury.

I step out into the blinding sun, cold wind tears through my sweater and for a brief second I think of going back in to get my coat, then I spot our apartment manager waving at me from her van. "Hurry up and we'll catch them" she yells at me and so I grab a hold of my daughter and dash down the stairs and into the waiting van with her, off we go.

Sure enough, just up the hill from our apartment there stands a large group of kids. My daughter and her friend, who for some reason was in the car with our manager, both point out the offending child.

I leap out of the van and stalk towards her. Apparently I looked pretty scary because she started to take off. Apartment manager calls out and asks me if I want the police involved and I respond with "Might as well be you that calls the police because someone is going to"

So, to make a long and rather boring story short, I'll leave out the verbal argument I found myself, two other adults, and about ten young kids in this child over whether or not she did indeed assault my child, here is what did happen.

Daughter arrives with friend. Friend and daughter see girls approaching, begin to speed up. Friend takes a hold of my daughter’s arm and tries to steer her in a direction that is not the same one the two girls are coming from. One girl rushes them, grabs my daughter's free arm and starts pulling on her, screaming obscenities at the young lady who refuses to abandon my daughter. A struggle ensues, the violator grabs my daughter’s backpack and she uses her witty little brain to slide out of the backpack and leave it behind while running for home.

So, in the end, my daughter was physically unharmed for the most part. Young violator was served with a citation and charges are now pending for assault.

I have had to put some new rules in place, and my life will, at least for a while, be complicated by the fact that on my days off I will be transporting both my daughter and her young friend home from school. The young lady who stood by my daughter's side lives not far from us and her mother will be bringing them home two days a week. The fifth day, which neither of us were able to cover as far as transportation goes, has been solved as well by Chris, he will be going to the bus stop each week and waiting for the girls to get off the bus and her friend will stay with us until her mother can come pick her up.

I don't understand why children have to be so mean and nasty to one another. While we waited for the police to show up, several of the young men from the neighborhood stood gathered around us, many of them asked my daughter why she didn't fight back, why she ignored the girl. For my daughter, the answer was simple "It takes a bigger person to walk away then it does to stay and hit someone" I felt an incredible amount of pride for her at that moment. I can only hope that this doesn't backfire in my face.

I also felt that old familiar companion of rage creeping up next to me as I listened to the filth this child was spewing. Anyone on this planet who thinks that only white people are capable of racial prejudice is simply fooling themselves. We are a white family. We have black neighbors, oriental neighbors, Hispanic neighbors, and we get along with them just fine, yet here is a child, an eighth grader, who is issuing forth the worst racial slurs I can recall ever having had directed at me. For the first time that I can ever remember, I wanted to strike a child, this child, for what she had done to my daughter. I don't like the feeling it gave me. Had she gotten in my face there is a high likelihood that I would have hit her.

I think I need to get some lessons from my daughter about walking away.