Yey!

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Huey gagged as he made his way down the hall way of his home. They had just got back from "crabbing," everyone else seemed to like it… but not him. Rosalina showed them how to bait their string and toss it over the docks. They'd wait and wait until they'd get a bite. She then showed them how to slowly pull it up inch by inch until the crab surfaced from the water and she'd scoop it up with her net. Easy right?

Not so much.

Huey didn't catch a SINGLE crab! He broke about seven fishing lines and then Riley pushed him the gross water. It was even more annoying that everyone else, including Jazmine caught atleast one stupid crab.

Rosalina boasted as they were heading back to the car with their large bucket of crabs, "These are gonna be delicious! They don't get this big down at home,"

"Isn't this illegal?" Huey asked casually, "I mean… shouldn't we have some sort of license?"

"Hah," Rosalina laughed, "I've been crabbing since I was five; aint never needed some crabbing license,"

"That's cos you live in a place where there's a bunch of them. Here these things aren't so-"

"Stop being so pessimistic," She told him quickly, "It's okay. I promise,"

"Yeah, Huey. Stop hatin," Riley snapped.

Once they got home everyone took a bath (not together u freaks) and Rosalina started getting ready to make crab. Jazmine protested and begged that her crab be spared. Rosalina just smiled at her sympathetically.

"Please don't kill her! Please!" Jazmine had cried.

"Oh no worried, shah," Rosalina smiled, taking the tiny crab out of the container and placing it in a sand bucket. She then handed the little crab to Jazmine and smiled, "She's gonna need a name,"

"Thank you, Rosalina!" Jazmine cheered, hugging the teenager's knees and running off, "I'll come up with a great name for her!"

Huey left the kitchen to go read because, honestly, he couldn't take it anymore. He tried to stay obsorbed in the literature infront of his face but found it was getting harder with all the noise in the house. Riley and Caesar were running around and Jazmine was talking to her damn crab.

With all of that behind him, Huey set down his book and headed through the hallway. He didn't get too far before he noticed the guestroom door wide open. He causally peered inside, noticing his babysitter sitting on her window sill, staring out at the open space around her.

"Grandad doesn't like us to leave the windows open,"

She popped her head to look at him, a smile growing on her face, "Sorry. I'll close it soon. It's just… I've never seen a place like this before,"

"Just a bunch of ignorant filled houses," Huey muttered, walking closer to her. Her smile didn't change.

"You're a proud person, aren't you, Huey?" She asked casually, staring at his face softly, "You're quite different than most of the kids I babysit. You're… so angry,"

"You'd be angry to if your people were persecuted,"

She laughed out loud and shook her head, "So racism is your problem?"

"Heck yes!" Huey snapped, "No one seems to notice how we're the only black people here! Everyone's so wrapped up in their own little world that they don't even care that-"

"Have you ever been personally attacked because of your color, Huey?" She asked, her smile gone but the kindness of her voice remained.

"What?" he seemed taken back by her question, "Yeah… I mean, I live in a place

where-"

"Have you ever been personally attack because of your color?" She asked again.

In his silence he started to think. Had he? Had a white person ever said anything truly degrading towards him? Come to think of it… he supposed not. Sure people underestimated him and overlooked him from time to time but no one did it out of hate or prejudice. People were stupid.

He looked at her face. Her smile had come back during his moment of concentration. She could read the lines in his face to see what the answer was. The sadness in her eyes baffled Huey, however.

"You have?" He asked with slight hurt in his eyes. He watched as her smile became relaxed, and almost sad, solemn in expression but at the same time wise.

She never lost his gaze, trying to be as honest with her stare as possible. She was taking awhile to answer, making Huey figure she was trying to collect her words thoughtfully for his childlike ears.

"People," She finally said after a long pause, "Can sometimes be hurtful for no reason, Huey. But you can't let those people define your opinion of the rest of the world,"

"At Louisiana?"

"No. My problems in Louisiana were the same as yours here," She shook her head, "You see, Huey… I used to live in a place called Troy Alabama,"

"Troy?"

"Mmhmm,"

"Never heard of it,"

"That's because it's a tiny, tiny little racist place. There are plenty of blacks and plenty of whites and they don't know how to interact with eachother… But they don't have any visible hatred that is noticeable,"

"So what's the problem?"

"Religion,"

"What?"

"I was seven when we moved there," Her smile was still there even though her voice was faltering, "I've been a good little Catholic girl since birth… so I made the sign of the cross at lunch before saying grace. Some older boy had seen me do it and later that day during recess… He called me 'Dity Catholic Spic' and punched me in the eye,"

Huey blinked, a bit surprised at what he had been hearing.

"I never met him before. I had no idea what had just happened. Luckily for me, the teachers saw and pulled him into detention. Later… when I was walking home he caught up with me and pushed me down hard on the street and kicked me. My brother saw and chased him away but… I never forgot the way he treated me,"

Huey couldn't say anything. He just looked down at his feet and tried to think of something smart. Nothing came except, "But you're always happy,"

"Misery is optional," She told him with her smile, "I guess I realized that… all of those people who say those stupid ignorant things… are the ones at fault. There's nothing wrong with me so why should I be upset that they don't accept me?"

Huey blinked and looked back at her. She smiled at his thinking expression and stood up. She ruffled his hair a bit and gave him a tiny kiss on his forehead, "You're a bright, honest young boy, Huey. Your heart is in the right place… And you're strong. But… you put people on this pedestal that they can't stay on without stumbling,"

Huey watched as she exited the room, leaving him to think intently on her words. He agreed with her in some areas. He wasn't about to start smiling and be some little happy go lucky school boy, oh no. But he had to ask himself… why was he so angry all the time?

Maybe she wasn't so bad.

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Ahhh!! I talk too much!!

And yes, that story with the bully is true. And it sucked. White supremesists hate any minority not just blacks.

NOTE in Alabama everyone is Baptist. We went to the ONLY Catholic church in the area and it was… SOOOooOoooOooooOOOOooO tiny!! There were about 62 families I think 0o