He looked over at the clock next to his bed and felt his left eye twitch with rage. It was six in the morning, exactly, and he was absolutely furious to be woken up a full hour before he needed to be. School wasn't until eight, after all. Huey sat up in his bed, glaring at his brother Riley as he was currently shaking him by the shoulders – something which Huey quickly stopped by shoving him off.

"What the hell, Riley?!"

"You gotta see this shit!" Huey continued to glare as his brother persisted in tugging at his sleeve. Naturally, he had some misgivings about why his younger sibling felt the need to wake him up since the two of them had vastly different opinions about what was and was not important. And judging from the way Riley was grinning, he thought that this was highly demanding of attention. Reluctantly enough, he climbed from his bed, still in his pajamas and strode over to the window with his brother, who quickly pointed down to the street. At first, Huey saw nothing. It was too dark, since the sun hadn't come up yet, so he rubbed at his eyes and tried to focus.

Down in the street, it seemed that Tom was being thrown out yet again. At least, that's what it seemed like: his wife Sarah was screaming her lungs out at him from the bedroom window while he stood outside in true Romeo fashion, pleading with her. That didn't seem to be working, because at random intervals, she would throw out some of his clothing or a belonging of his – and if it was something that could do damage, she was aiming at him. For his part, Tom was standing outside shivering since he wasn't wearing much else besides his boxers. Riley snickered to himself and slid open the window, a gust of cold autumn air rushing through Huey's afro.

"Boooo! 'Ey, Tom! Put some fuckin' pants on! Sarah! …take your pants off!"

Huey sighed to himself and went back to bed as his brother continued to instigate the couple next door, cramming a pillow over his head to partially block it all out. Ugh. It's going to be one of those days.

"I am the stone that the builder refused…" Forty minutes later, Huey's radio alarm clock kicked in, right at the beginning of a song. By now, Riley was done yelling at the neighbors, but he still watched them in amusement. Along with another, taller figure…oh, no.

"Grandad?"

"Hush up, boy. Tom! You better not bring yo' black ass over here this time! Go hang with your new friend, Thugnificent." Grandad had the weirdest cadence in his voice when he tried to emphasize something. He sounded like he was doing a horrible John Witherspoon impression. Huey sat up in his bed and chanced a look out of the window, making a clinical note that the entire neighborhood was now watching – most of them seemed to have gone outside to get their mail, only to get inexplicably transfixed by the drama for today. Huey also made a brief note that this was going to be something that Jazmine was going to be highly upset about, so he began to steel himself for the verbal barrage that he knew to be coming. He went to the bathroom, picked out his hair and everything else hygienic that someone should do before stepping foot out of the house. By the time he was finished, his brother and grandfather were still at it – which didn't surprise him in the least.

Without so much as a word to the contrary (though he did notice neither of them were any closer to being ready than they had been before he went to the bathroom) Huey went downstairs, poured himself a bowl of cereal, collected the newspaper from the front step and started reading, already putting a barrier between himself and Riley for when he finally came down. Soon enough, though, he heard someone coming, and it wasn't Riley. Before Huey even got to look over the paper, it was snatched out of his hands as Grandad leaned back against the counter with a cup of coffee.

"I was reading that, Grandad." Huey had long since gotten used to Grandad's selfishness, but it never ceased to bother him when he was blatantly ignored like this. Grandad still hadn't gotten dressed, which caused Huey to look away in disgust.

"Hush, boy. It's my paper, so my black ass gets to read it whenever I want to." There he goes again, with the John Witherspoon impression.

Huey simply shook his head and drank the milk from his bowl, then put it in the sink before gathering his black coat, his Timberland boots and his book bag. "It's definitely going to be one of those days…oh, damn." Huey rolled his eyes and walked back to where Grandad was reading the paper, occasionally mumbling something under his breath about 'white people'. "Grandad, can you take me to the mall after school?"

Robert Jebediah Freeman looked down at his grandson as if he'd just stepped in something particularly nasty. "Maybe. Why do you wanna go, anyway? I thought you hated the mall."

"I do, but you know what happens next week."

"Next week? Uh…" Grandad looked down at the newspaper in front of him. "Oh! Usher's coming to town?"

"Ugh, no, Grandad."

"Yes he is, it says so right in the newspaper!"

"That's not what I'm talking about—wait, did you say next week?"

"Yeah, next week; the twenty-second to be exact."

"Oh." Suddenly he understood why Tom was being kicked out of his house, but that wasn't important right now. Actually, Grandad may have helped him out just now. At that exact moment, someone came running down the stairs – and they jumped the last three to land heavily on the floor. Grandad was distracted by Riley's sudden and quite hyperactive appearance enough to not take any notice that the two slices of bread he just put in the toaster had just popped out.

"Yo, Huey! Let's go outside and mess with Tom!" Usually Huey wouldn't agree to such things, but instead of being difficult, he walked calmly after his brother.

"Hey! Where's my toast!?" Huey smirked in amusement as he left through the front door, offering Riley one of the two slices of toast he'd swiped from the toaster when Grandad wasn't looking. Yeah, it's going to be one of those days…but I'll have my moments, anyway.