Ok, maybe I was overexaggerating. I'm told that I do that a lot. But what happened to me wasn't as horrible as I made it seem. I mean, it was still horrible. But we'll get to that part later.
It all started when I was in juvie. Yes, you heard me. A weird place to start a story, unless you think of me as one of those "rebellious, no good, slackers who skip school and try to run away". Which, yeah, I have tried to do that stuff before (school is boring and I'm only twelve, give me a break). But that's not why I'm here. Not this time, anyway.
It's because I stole something.
And no, it's not jewelry or anything like that. No, the thing I stole was more valuable than any jewel or priceless item. How valuable was it? Well, think of the most valuable item that you can possibly think of... and multiply it by six. That is how priceless this item was. And you want to know what this priceless artifact was that sounds like it could make rich men cry from not being able to buy it with their boatloads of overflowing cash?
It was a suit.
Trust me, I can already hear you rolling your eyes and, to be fair, I'd be doing that too if you had told me what I just told you. But this was no ordinary suit, I can assure you. It was a suit that belonged to someone that everyone had long forgotten. A person who people assumed had vanished mysteriously or just disappeared right off the face of the earth.
It belonged to a hero long forgotten.
But I'm getting too far ahead of myself so let's start at the beginning. At the Bumblyburg Juvenile Center.
Weird place for a beginning, I know, but hear me out.
I am not someone who's willing to stand by and watch while something bad happens. Not unless it's entertaining. Most of the time I'll just keep to myself, sometimes giving a "knock it off" along with the others. But whenever someone goes too far, say for example (and this is completely hypothetical), a teenager picking up a little child and stuffing him in the trash and then laughing as the kid struggles to get out, that's something that I'd consider to be too far. So when this hypothetical situation happens (or happened if you want to get technical about it) how would you handle the situation?
Would you do the following:
A.) Say "Knock it off." and call it a day
B.) Go get a teacher
or C.) Help the kid out of the trash and kick the butts of the said bullies who may or may not have bruises and bandaids on them from said 'butt-kicking.'
If A or B was your answer, you're wrong.
It was C.
And I know this because surprise, surprise, the hypothetical situation wasn't hypothetical! Shocking, I know.
It was real. It happened. and it's the reason why I'm back here again.
That's right. This isn't the first time I've been sent by the teachers to Juvie. Actually, I lied. It's actually not juvie. In reality, it's a "correctional facility" that's supposed to, and I quote, "help encourage the troubled individual to better communicate their anger through positive reinforcement" (Again, I'm only twelve and I may have gotten the actual definition wrong but it's not like I cared enough about this place to check to see if my definition was accurate.)
Basically, it's a prison but with more rainbows. I'm not joking. There are so many rainbow and field murals with bright smiling animals covering the walls that you'd mistake it for a daycare center. And with how the people in charge treat the "troubled individuals" here, then yeah, it might as well be a daycare.
So there I was, sitting on one of the bright neon-colored chairs in a circle with my fellow "troubled individuals". We weren't a large group; it was just 12 of us. But for the most part, we were pretty chill with each other. These kids though were quite larger than me. I was arguably the smallest and youngest kid there with the others being 14, 15 years old. A lot of these kids were rough-looking with their torn up jackets and shirts like they had gotten into a fight with a cheese grader, their dark makeup that made them look like tired raccoons, and their wild dyed hairdos that looked like someone had dumped a bucket of paint on their heads. Aside from one or two kids, I was kind of the only normal-looking kid there. What with my dark Blue hoodie and Chestnut brown short hair which curled a little at the ends. My bangs were swept to the left side which made it a little easier for me to not make eye contact.
As part of the daily routine, it was my turn to state why I was there, how I could have handled the situation I had gotten myself into differently, and how I can re-direct my anger in a positive manner, blah, blah, blah... my eyes casually drifted around the room. I stared at the brightly colored animals that stared back at me. There were eyes painted so large that it was a bit unnerving. Creepy. Like they were from a horror movie. I wondered if the people who painted them had that in mind.
"...Jade?"
Hearing my name caused me to look around. "Yes? What?"
"I asked you if you'd like to share with everyone why you're here, Jade." The teacher for my group is Ms. Kathy. A strawberry who was smaller than most everyone in the class. But don't her size fool you. Though she was small I've seen her talk to the toughest of kids here and not even bat an eye whenever they lashed out at her. She was a tough cookie. I liked her for that but not for much else.
Ms. Kathy asked me again, "Jade would you like to share with everyone why you're here or should I?" Her tone said that my story was going to be told either way, whether I wanted to share it or not.
Might as well get this over with. "Fine," I sighed, "I'm here because I might have accidentally hurt some kids who were being jerks to a little kid. That's it."
Ms. Kathy raised an eyebrow. "Is that all?"
"Yes, what else is new?"
Ms. Kathy kept her eyebrow raised. "So you call thrashing two boys who were twice as large as you until they got bruises, one of them had a bloody nose mind you, then tossed them both into a trash bin and then rolling said bin out of the cafeteria doors and onto the playground where it crashed into the jungle gym just an 'accident'" Some of the other kids in the group looked at me with a mixture of confusion and shock. A few of the bigger kids looked at me with slight admiration.
"It wasn't my fault that they were being jerks!" I protested. "They were picking on Rudy carrot. They took his lunch and were playing hot potato with it. He's just a five-year-old and the tiniest kid in school! He needs to eat! And no one was doing anything!"
Ms. Kathy breathed in slowly. She did that whenever she was trying to keep her voice from rising, especially towards me. "Jade," She started softly, "I know that you have some anger management problems but it's no excuse to do what you did. Do you know how seriously injured those two could have been? They might have ended up in the hospital!"
"But they didn't!" I countered.
"That's not the point!" Ms. Kathy took another deep breath. She did that a lot when talking to me. She looked at the clock on the wall. "That will be all for today. Everyone may leave but Jade, can you please stay behind for a few minutes? Class dismissed."
Everyone got up from their seats and shuffled out of the room. One of the larger kids, a tomato, walked over to me and said, "Not bad kid."
I didn't know how to respond to that so I just said, "Thanks."
Once the kids left, Ms. Kathy came over to me, pulled a seat over in front of me, and sat down. Her forehead creased and her expression was a mix of angry and concern. Or maybe it was frustration. It could have been a combination of all three. I've never been one to care about Ms. Kathy that much. To me, she was just another person telling me what a screw-up I was. But there was something about her concerning look that made me squirm in my seat a little. I was hoping that she'll just give me the same spiel about me "needing to take responsibility for my actions" and "learning to communicate my problems verbally instead of through punches."
"Jade," She said slowly and seriously, "I'm going to have to put you in a Juvenile Detention Center."
Well, that wasn't what I was expecting at all.
I sputtered, "What the heck!? Juvie? Like, real juvie!? Like where they have brick walls with electric fences, prison cells with no bathrooms, and guards on you twenty-four-seven?!"
Ms. Kathy shook her head. "No, you're thinking of prison. Juvie is a housing facility where older children like you who don't seem to want to course-correct themselves into being better people go to ensure public safety. They keep you in a house with other kids just like you. Kids who are violent and don't want to change that and they end up seriously hurting others to the point where people are scared of them and don't want them around. And that's just the watered-down version of it."
Her words hit me like a slap to the face. I was stunned. For a moment, I didn't know what to say. I was silent for a while. "Y-you think I'm a danger to people?"
The expression on Ms. Kathy's face softened when she heard the tone of my voice. I'm not the kind of person to let things scare me. I'm naturally tough. But in that one moment, I might have been somewhat scared of the idea of going to a strange house with kids who were worse than me and staying there for who knows how long.
Ms. Kathy was silent for a bit. "I really don't know." she finally said softly. "Jade, you are a bright young girl but you tend to get yourself into so much trouble. Why do you do it? What's really going on inside that bright mind of yours?"
I shrugged, slumping down into my chair and trying to avoid her gaze.
"Jade," Ms. Kathy said, in a soft but firm tone, "Officer Scooter has told me that he has caught you multiple times picking fights in at Bumblyburg park. He's told me about the number of bruises that these older kids, three times your age and size, mind you, come home to. He's even seen you fighting kids in the alleys. What is a twelve-year-old girl even doing in the alleys in the first place? Why are you there instead of at home, where you belong? You should be trying to make friends, not sending them to the hospital." Ms. Kathy took in a small breath. "Can you at least tell me why you did it?"
I still remained slumped in my chair. I knew why I did it. I just didn't know how to tell her. I wanted to tell her I had perfectly good reasons for doing what I did but it was hard. How do you tell a correctional facility worker that the reason you were in the park in the first place is that the older teenagers were picking on the little kids in the park and pushing them off of the swings so hard that they got scratches and the little kids wanted you to stop them? Or what about the elderly ladies feeding the birds and the teens were scaring the birds and stealing the elderly's purses? Or what about the bandits who were trying to break into the shops and vandalize them but nobody was doing anything!
"I'm sorry," I mumbled softly. That's all I was really able to say.
Ms. Kathy didn't say anything. Her expression said it all. It said I don't really know what else to do if you don't talk to me.
I just remained slumped in my seat, hoping that she would just tell me to go home. But what she did next, I was not expecting.
"Your uncle and I have been talking and we both don't want you to go to Juvie. We've decided that the best course of action to prevent that is to put you into a special program. I've enlisted you into the Big Brother, Little Sister program."
My mouth fell open. I bolted upright in my seat. "Have you lost your mind!?"
"Jade," Ms. Kathy said quite sternly, "Calm down."
"Calm down?!" My mind was trying to wrap itself around the "logic" of the situation. "How is putting me in a Big Brother program going to 'help' me?"
"I know it's a bit unorthodox-"
"What are you talking about? This is crazy! What were you guys even thinking!?"
"Jade-"
"How is this going to 'help' me, you literally just said I was a danger to society!"
"I didn't phrase it that way and believe it or not, Jade, this is the only way-"
"Was it!?"
"Yes! Please let me finish a sentence before interrupting me!" Ms. Kathy said loudly. She quickly cleared her throat and lowered her voice to her normal tone. "Jade, please listen to me. Yes, this idea may seem 'crazy' and I know that I just discussed with you how you tend to get into trouble with older kids and I understand that putting you into a program such as Big Brother, Little Sister may be the last place we want you. Your uncle expressed the same concerns. But Jade, we really don't have much of another choice."
"Consider this a sort of... community service." She said. "If you can complete a month of the program without getting into a fight, argument, or squabble or anything that has to do with physical violence, then your record can be wiped clean."
"Wiped clean? Like, I don't have to ever come back here ever again, wiped clean?"
"That's putting it simply but for the most part, yes. If this program is successful, then you won't have to ever come back here."
It felt too good to be true. I'd never had to come back to these horribly childish painted walls and sit inside of this classroom. I'd never had to hear another one of Ms. Kathy's rants about problem-solving and vocalizing my problems. I could scrub this place out of my mind and never have to think about this place ever again! It was like a beautiful dream come true! I thought about it for a while. All I'd have to do is this one thing and then I'm out of here. I wouldn't even have to do much, just not get into any fights for a month and I'd get my one-way ticket out of here. Simple.
Ok, maybe not that simple but what other choice did I have except for real Juvie? This may be my one and only chance to get out of here and I wasn't about to pass up. I had to do it, even if it was the most boring or stupid thing I'd ever do. A month wasn't even that long anyhow. Besides, it would be worth it to finally ditch this place. With newfound determination, I was ready to begin.
I only had one question, though.
"Uh... so what exactly is a Big Brother, Little Sister program?"
It was a little after six by the time I was done talking to Ms. Kathy. My uncle, Marcus, was out in the parking lot waiting for me in his "lemon car." He got it from a used car lot. It was the exact color of a lemon; bright neon yellow and it even had a lemonade bumper sticker. It would have been funny if he was a lemon. But he wasn't. He was a green pepper. His familiar disappointed face greeted me as I got into the car.
My uncle wasn't technically my uncle. He was a close family friend who felt like an uncle. He's been a part of my life for as long as I could remember. My parents know him better than I do.
As we rode in silence I could feel his disappointed glances. This was all familiar to me because this wasn't the first time he's had to pick me up from that place.
"So..." I started, thinking of something to break the silence. But stopped because I couldn't think of anything.
After a half-hour, we finally arrived home. We lived in the more "poor" side of Bumblyburg. Rows of the same picketed fences with peeled-off paint greeted us as we pulled into the driveway. The grass was mowed but had a couple of brown patches. A few of my toys were sprinkled on the lawn, mostly my purple bouncy ball and my jump rope. Uncle Marcus parked the car and got out, motioning for me to do the same. We walked to the front door, went inside, and Marcus flipped on the light switch. I took about three steps to the upstairs that led to my room, hoping that Uncle Marcus would be too tired to lecture me.
"Jade, sit down."
Rats. So close. Slowly, I walked over to the kitchen table and sat down in my chair. The chair wobbled underneath. One of the legs was a little shorter than the other but I didn't mind. It made eating more fun.
Uncle Marcus took a seat on the opposite side of the table. Nothing but the single light overhead illuminated the area. I felt like I was in an interrogation room, with Uncle Marcus ready to angrily bombard me with questions.
"I made dinner for you. It's in the fridge but I wanted to talk to you before you eat."
"Talk about what?" I asked, slowly.
"You know what. About you being in trouble all the time."
"Is that why you agreed to do this Brother Sister thing? How's that even going to work?"
"Jade, we've had this discussion before..." Marcus started.
"Ha!" I laughed. "This is the first time I've heard about this program thing."
"Not that." He said sternly. "The 'being in trouble all the time' speech that I keep giving you that you never seem to listen to." He was starting to raise his voice a little.
"So you think that pairing me with some random guy is going to fix me?!" I was starting to raise my voice a little, too.
Uncle Marcus sighed frustratingly. "I don't know what else to do. This is the fifth fight you've gotten yourself into this month, your teachers are threatening to kick you out of school, and I can't afford to bail you out if you land yourself in jail! Jail, Jade! Jail! Don't you care about what will happen to you if you keep this up!?"
"Of course I do!" I argued back. "It's not my fault that nobody wants to help these kids. I'm all they got!"
"No, you aren't! You need to stop playing the hero and go to an adult! You know this!"
"Of course I know but the adults don't do anything!"
Marcus was getting really frustrated. "They would if you'd just explain to them-"
I rolled my eyes. "I do explain to them! They just don't care and they tell me that they will 'handle it."
"Then there you go!" Marcus stated, raising his voice more. I'm pretty sure the neighbors could hear us at that point. "That's all you need to do, is just to tell an adult and then walk away! It's that simple! Why can't you understand that!? What would your parents say about this!?"
All of the anger I was holding in earlier came boiling out. " They'd say that if there was no one that will stand up for the little guy, then I have to!" I shouted, seeing red. "Mom and dad would have done the exact same thing I did and you know it!"
"Jade." He said looking up at me."Please calm down."
It was just then I realized that I was looking down at him, even though from a moment ago we were at eye level. I could feel the familiar warmth and glow as my powers surged.
Oh, yeah. I have superpowers.
I guess I should have mentioned that at the beginning, huh?
