For Joseph Flood, life is tough. Tough because of Mama's addiction to drugs and alcohol. Tough because Daddy is away with the army fighting in Iraq. Tough because it looks like there's no way out once you're living in a homeless shelter in a North Carolina ghetto neighborhood. And tough because Joseph is enrolled in yet another new school where he doesn't know anyone and has to keep what's going on in his life a secret.
Joseph struggles to keep Mama clean and to hold their broken family together while trying to make new friends and join the school tennis team. Can a boy who's only fifteen years old win his daily battle to survive?
Josephis a powerful and moving story from the author of National Book Award finalistThe Legend of Buddy Bushthat looks at what it really takes for a boy to begin to become a man.
CHAPTER ONEI did not want my new homeroom teacher, Ms. Adams, to shake Momma's hand.
The last time I changed schools, my teacher Mr. Colgate tried to shake my momma Betty's hand, but he noticed the burns on the tips of her fingers. Burns from smoking cigarettes down to the filter. Burns from smoking marijuana every night before she goes to bed. I know Mr. Colgate saw her burns, because he looked at her and frowned. People are always frowning at Momma, and that makes me sad. Sad that she cannot see herself. Sad that she finds fault in everyone's life except her own.
I wonder how long it will take the people at this school to realize that Momma is a crackhead. I wonder how long it will take them to realize that I feel more like her father than she acts like my momma. When will they realize that we are homeless?
Two days after Mr. Colgate saw Momma's burns, a social worker was standing at the door of our run-down townhouse. The house that stopped being home when Momma ran Daddy away. The social worker said that she had received a call from someone saying that I was living alone and in need of help. That was a lie. They were coming to investigate Momma. Again!
The social worker was coming to see if it was true that I could not let Momma stay alone too long because she cannot take care of herself. Social Services wanted to see if we had food in the house.
I was really sad that they were treating us like two-year-olds. It did not bother Momma at all that the social worker had stopped by again. She yelled at her and said the same old thing when she left: "What they stopping by here for? I got it going on."
I just looked at her and went to bed. I was ashamed to go to school the next day.
I liked going to Lincoln High School, the school I attended last year for two semesters. But I had to transfer, just like I had to transfer from all the other schools. We never stay in one place too long, not since Daddy left and Granddaddy died.
My new school, Dulles High, is bigger than Lincoln. The counselor says that there are only twenty students in each class and they have a zero tolerance policy here. At Lincoln we had at least thirty-five kids in all of my classes and the students pretty much ran the school. So I know I will like it here. It looks like the teachers are in charge for a change.
The main reason I like it here is no one knows me and they don't know Momma. They do not know that we are living in a homeless shelter. We have been living at the shelter for almost two weeks now.
The people here at Dulles High do not know that Daddy moved to Raleigh before he was deployed to Iraq so that he could get away from Momma. He moved because he could not take it anymore. He could not take the verbal and physical abuse. And he was afraid he would go to jail after Momma was stopped for speeding and the cops found drugs in the car. Of course the car was registered in Daddy's name. I was home watching football with Daddy that Sunday when Five-O knocked on the door. Officer Poole has known Daddy for years, so he had put Momma in the police car and driven her home. He told Daddy that he
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