Stand up for your sibilings

In West Virginia we had to stay with Erma and Uncle Stanley. I hated Erma she was rude, racist and I couldn't stand her. She was unbelievably negative but mom said that I should have compassion for her because of her terrible life. Mom and Dad wanted to go back to Phoenix to grab some items we had to leave. When they left they aid Lori is the oldest and in charge but we all have to obey to Erma... great. I wished we still lived in Phoenix, I enjoyed life much more there. After they left, Brian asked if we thought they'd come back, I said of course but I was really wondering the same question. Erma treated us even worse after our parents left. One day we were all watching TV together but Erma had been drinking since before breakfast and was acting strange. Erma told Brian that his britches needed to be mended and ordered him to follow her upstairs to Grandpa's bedroom. Not too long after I heard Brian and his sounded very upset. I went up to the room to find Erma on her knew in front of Brian grabbing at the crotch of his pants!! It was so unbelievably messed up, I shouted at her to leave him alone. Brian was crying and holding his hands protectively between his legs. Erma got mad towards me and called me a bitch. By this point Lori ran into the room and I started telling her what was happening. I called Erma a pervert and she tried to slap me but Lori caught her hand and told us to all calm down... she did the same thing when mom and dad fight. Erma ended up slapping Lori so hard that her glasses flew across the room. Keep in mind while all of this is happening Lori just turned thirteen. Lori slapped her back, then they were going back and forth at each other, pulling hair, flailing around, flying all around. Uncle Stanley finally woke up and broke them up. Erma ended up locking us in the basement with no access to a bathroom or food. Through all of this I learned that Brian and Lori will always be there for me and vice versa. We got yelled at by dad but we stuck together, Brian even tried making me laugh that night but I was too stunned by dad's reaction to laugh. I also learned that not all family is good nor trustworthy.

Forced

I was living in Battle Mountain when a boy named Billy who took an interest in me. One afternoon, I was playing hide-and-seek with some of my neighborhood friends. I found the perfect hiding spot where I know it would be hard to find me but then I got an unexpected visitor. It was Billy Deel, he hadn't even been playing with us. I got mad because I didn't want him hiding with me and the space is very small. We were bickering back and forth before he started talking about kissing. Billy told me that a kiss only counts if your eyes are closed and then said close your eyes. I didn't want to close my eyes and then all of a sudden he kissed me! I was completely disgusted by what was going on and wanted it to stop immediately! He aggressively grabbed my hair and bent my neck sideways and stuck his tongue in my mouth. The more I pulled away from him, the closer he pulled me to him... once he got on top of me he started tugging at my shorts. With his other hand he unbuttoned his pants, to stop him from what he wanted I put my hand down there. I was so young I had never touched one before but I knew what it was once I felt it. I did not have much room for self defense so I decided to bite his ear. The response I got was a scream and a punch to the face, my nose started to bleed. Luckily the other kids heard the noise and came running over to where we were. Billy and I got out and struggled putting our clothes back on. He had told all the kids he kissed me so I yelled back saying we just got into a fight. The next day I went to Billy's house to return the ring and tell him I didn't want anything to do with him. He ended up telling me he raped me, I was too young to know the real meaning behind that word but I knew it wasn't a good thing. Usually when I am confused about a word I'd go to my dad but I didn't think it was the best idea in this situation...

Being a Daddy's girl

I love my dad, I have ever since I was little. I was always daddy's girl. He would tell us the best stories, tell us about the glass castle, teach me new things, check up on us and even gave me a star as a birthday present because we didn't have the money. Except he had slip ups, he would drink a lot, lose his jobs for silly reasons, fight with mom, spend money on alcohol, lie to us, cheated on mom, the way he taught me how to swim. Brian was not a big fan of dad, he could see what I couldn't. I remember once my dad had asked

"Have I ever let you down?", then Brian said Yes but in a very low voice. I'm not saying my dad wasn't a good dad he just wasn't as good as my naive eyes perceived him to be. Lori wasn't a big fan of him either, she didn't have hope in him and didn't like his actions. His drunk nights were the thing I hated most about him. One year mom planned this wonderful Christmas and we had all been able to buy presents for each other, we even got a tree! Except dad started drinking that morning and continued into the night, we took him to mass when he could barley stand. We got kicked out of the service because of him and when we got home we tried to calm him down but nothing was working. My dad said out loud "Let's really light up this Christmas" and threw his lighter into the Christmas tree. Everyone was absolutely stunned and then we started to grab blankets and water. By that point the whole entire tree was ruined along with the ornaments and all of our presents... he was laughing the whole time. No one ever told him how badly he had ruined Christmas, we just all shut down for the night. One time I thought I may have gotten him to stop drinking because for my tenth birthday I asked him to stop drinking and he locked himself in his room for a week. He tortured himself so badly. I really believed he would stop completely but after some time he started back up again.

Beat for being poor

I was going to a new school called Welch Elementary in West Virginia. The people that live here are different than I expected. They have very heavy accents and there are also a lot more black people than I thought would be here. When I met the principal with my mom and Brian, I could not understand a word he was saying. My mom had to translate everything he said to Brian and I. In the end, he didn't understand what we were saying. The principal ended up getting annoyed and confused and placed us in special classes for students with learning disabilities because he couldn't understand us. Even though Brian and I are much smarter than the education levels of those classes we did what we were told. One girl I noticed looking at me funny that day ended up poking a pencil between my shoulder blades. I was extremely nervous for lunch because of this and I had no one else that could be with me. Once I got out on the playground I noticed a group of girls coming in my direction and they didn't look very friendly. The one girl asked if I thought I was better than them. I have never had that type of mentality so I told her what I believed, that we are all equal. I got beat up pretty bad by the girls. The bullying never stopped, I got beat up everyday and got called poor, ugly and dirty. Which at the time was all true. I have never been bullied about not having money or being poor so this was a different experience, I didn't even want to tell my parents. After a while I told my mom that three black girls were giving me a hard time because were poor. She told me there was nothing wrong with being poor.

Jeanette: The flames

There is one day in my life that I know I will never forget. I was three years old and I was getting hungry so I decided to cook some hot dogs. Crazy right, a three year old that knows how to cook hot dogs for herself. Looking back I can not believe my mother let me do that so young. I was wearing this ballerina dress that had a big pink tutu around the waist. We had a black dog named Juju and he was watching me cook the hot dogs. He looked hungry so I decided to grab my fork and take one out for him. I bent down to give him the hotdog and when I came back up, I felt really hot. It was on my right side, when I turned to see what was causing it, it was my dress, it was on fire. I was terrified and frozen out of fear. I did not know what to do, I was so scared and so young. I just watched the flames crawl up my dress, it came extremely close to my face before I became unstuck and cried out for help. It was horrible, the feeling, the smell, the fear, once it hit my face I screamed out again. Finally, my mom ran in to help me, she came back with an army blanket to put out the flame. She grabbed me and my brother and ran us outside to get help. Our next door neighbor gave us a ride to the hospital immediately. She even dropped everything she had and took us, without a second thought. Once I got to the hospital I realized what happened to me was very serious and creating quite a fuss so I kept as quiet as I could. I remember saying something to the nurse that made her respond to me in a strange way. She had told me that I was going to be okay and I responded by saying "I know, but if I'm not, that's okay, too." I was very mature for my age, I was
able to hold a conversation with the nurses. The doctors told me I was lucky to be alive, even if things were worse I would've been okay with that.