Homeroom just ended. Me and Veronica were talking about prom stuff. She wanted to wear that red dress, even though it was cheap and store-bought. I guess it complimented her hair, which was also cheap and store-bought. Ever the diplomat, I tried to persuade her to stick to solid black. It’s slimming, especially in the hip area. But I couldn’t exactly make any hip area comments to her face. I mean, could you imagine? I would totally sound catty.

Someone let it slip to me about two weeks ago now. And it’s damn near driven me insane. They let it slip so casually too, like they’d said nothing interesting.

“The elderly love feeding the ducks.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

I stood on my weather beaten front porch and waved to my sister as she pulled onto the road. Her daughter wrinkled her nose at me through the rearview mirror but I ignored it. Daniel tried so hard to be a good single mother to Grace, but she went overboard frequently. My niece was only six years old, but had the personality of a princess with a wand up her butt.

It was last Wednesday that Phillip Fish was medically declared the worst boy in the world. He had been sentenced to an hour in the school therapist’s office for crying in class and telling his teacher, Ms. Zebrowski, “I am the saddest boy that has ever lived. I hate everything. Even birthdays.”

I don’t enjoy my limps through the park as much as I used to because teenagers keep knocking me out. Soon as I hobble past the fountain, some hulking thirteen-year-old will break away from his pack and deal me a solid to the jaw. Then it’s lights out as I hit the ground like a chopped tree. I suppose I do, only I don’t see it. This happens a lot. It makes a body wary. Once I reported it to the police, and they asked if I knew who it was, or could I describe them. But it’s never the same kid twice, and how do I describe a fist? It’s got five fingers, officer, that’s all I know. Five fingers, you know, curled up together. It’s a fist.