Thank you SO much to Rob Attack for mentioning The Fence in Rita's Friday Fic Recs! I'm so thrilled that I'm double posting tonight!

Chapter 2

Kindergarten

I'm supposed to be in bed, but I can't go to sleep 'til I talk to my new best friend. Mama's not home, anyway, so I won't get in trouble. I don't even have to tiptoe out of the house on my way to the big bush.

"Hey, Edward…are you there?" I smoosh my face onto the fence and try to see through the cracks. It's almost dark, but I can still see a little bit.

"Yeah." Edward's sitting on his side of the fence. He's got some bushes in his backyard, too. He likes to hide in them, same as me.

"Guess what! My mama won fifty dollars on a scratch ticket today! She was real happy and took me to the red shield store. Look—I got a backpack for school!" I hold my green backpack up to the fence so he can look at it. "It's got two zippers and a pocket on the side…see?" There's a pocket on the other side, too, but it's falling off. I don't tell him about that part.

"Yeah, I see."

I set the backpack down and look through the fence. Edward is quiet and sad a lot, but now he sounds like he's crying.

"What's wrong?" I crawl to another spot on the fence so I can see his face better. "How come your eye is all dark? Did you get hurt again?"

He sniffs and wipes his nose on his arm. "I…fell down...and knocked over a table."

"Oh. Is that why your dad was yelling at you today?"

Mama keeps the windows open when it's hot. I was eating a Pop-Tart for dinner when I heard Edward's dad yelling about something. Edward says his dad gets mad at him 'cause he's always falling down and knocking things over.

Edward sniffs again. "Yeah, that…that's what happened."

"Okay." I look at my green backpack and think about my first day of kindergarten tomorrow. "I wish you weren't gonna have school with your mama at home. Then you could sit with me on the bus."

"The bus is stupid," Edward says suddenly. Now he sounds mad. "So is your school. The teachers are gonna fill your brain up with crazy lies from the gov'nermit! They all hate God!"

"What?" I thought we were going to learn how to count and read books.

"It's true! My dad says…" Edward's voice makes a funny choking sound like he's crying again. Then he crawls out of the bush until I can't see him anymore. "You know what? Your school is stupid, and so are you."

Thanks so much for the amazing response to this little story! I'm truly humbled and love you all!