James

JAMAL

It's way, way to hard. Everyday I come home from school, and I have to take care of my little brothers and little sister. I also make dinner, do my homework then put the everyone to bed. This has happened every night since mama died back home in Africa. It is not fair that I have to everything for my family while other kids are playing outside. I feel like i'm not even a kid just a really young adult.

One day I come home after a really rough day at school, kids making fun of me and my skin color. After I cool off and have a drink I go to the pantry to start dinner. Guess what I see a big thing of nothing. No food at all for dinner tonight. I completely forgot to go to the market after school because I was so mad. Wow what my luck, bad day and no food for dinner. My dad is going to be so mad at me. So I ran to the market and bought the food for the week. Then when I walk to school the next day some boys started to fallow me. We where in the alie behind the school the kids threw me down and kicked and punched me. So I got up and started to fight back, as I punched the first kid the teacher saw me and I got suspended for three days. When I got home my dad was there waiting for me. He was really, really, really mad.

After four days my dad wasn't mad at me anymore. So one morning he had the day off so he brought me to the huge garden right outside our apartment. He went over to a spot and gave me a shovel and we started to dig. I asked him what where we going to plant? He said a lot of fruits and vegetables to eat. Behind his back I put some seeds in that would grow to be great roses. I grew roses because it reminded me of my mother. I couldn't wait to see it all grown, so every moring I would run outside to check on it. One great thing about goining the garden is that we met a lot of people and became friends with really nice man named Sam. Everyday after school I talked to Sam and asked him for his advise on somthings. He told me to never give up and he always said "when the going gets tough the tough get going". So every night I look at the rose I planted and I always know everything is going to be alright.