Idea for my book...what do you think?!

Leona is sitting on the porch watching nothing at all really, it’s just a lazy summer day and no one is out and about yet.  Suddenly she reaches up and slaps herself in a misguided effort to swat the mosquito that landed on her cheek.  Laughing out loud in case anyone saw her do that, she makes sure no one sees the pain in her eyes.  Lynne, Leona’s baby sister, comes outside and says let’s play hopscotch, since nobody else is up yet.  Okay, Leona says, you can make the squares while I find my marker.  Lynne draws the numbers in the squares, they wet one side of a rock and then they flip it to see who will go first. Lynne wins the flip and sticks her tongue out to gloat her victory.  “You won the flip” Leona says, not the game.  Just go!  As the game goes on the noise in the neighborhood starts to pick up as the rest of the kids start coming outside.  Gretchen comes down to play and wants to join the game. Instantly Gretchen and Lynne start picking at Leona.  “Look at Leona’s hair; it sure is nappy around the back, looks like rats had been sucking on it.”  Lynne and Gretchen both bend over in laughter. Leona laughs to pretend that it doesn’t bother her, but turns her head so they can’t see her eyes.  Eventually Leona picks up her marker and goes inside to her room that she shares with Lynne and Lynette, Lynne’s twin.  Sitting on the bed, Leona pretends that she is someplace else where she has lots of friends and, instead of them laughing at her, they are all laughing together. 

            “I hate summer” Leona thinks to herself.  In school there are lots of kids to play with.   Some of them make fun of her, but at least she has some friends to play with who don’t. There is one neighbor, Tessa, who doesn’t make fun of Leona, but she is annoying.  Tessa comes outside and runs over to Leona’s house as usual, standing at the screen door peeking in, “Can Leona come out to play!” she yells through the door.  Leona hears her voice and groans to herself, “oh great she is up and over here…again”.  Leona slowly walks through the living room and pokes her finger in the area where Tessa is still peeking through the door.  “What do you want Tessa”, Leona asks.  “Can you come outside and play?  We can go to the playground!”  Leona goes outside and right off the bat Tessa punches Leona in the arm and takes off running!  “I HATE HER” Leona mumbles under her breath; “she always hits me and runs, knowing she can outrun me.”  Tessa was one of the fastest runners Leona knew.  She hardly ever walked anywhere, she probably ran in her sleep for all Leona knew.  Leona walks on to the playground with Tessa ahead of her taunting her saying in an almost lyrical tone, “You can’t catch me! You can’t catch me!”  ‘This is going to be a LONG summer’ Leona thought. At the playground Leona gets into a swing and starts slowly swinging back and forth dragging her feet and looking up at the sky.  “I wonder what it would be like to fly”, she thought. “I bet it would be cool to be so high looking down on everything.  AND birds can fly faster than Tessa can run, so I could swoop down and peck her really hard and fly away!”  After a few hours of swinging, riding the merry-go-round, and climbing up and down the slide, Leona and Tessa head for home, and as usual Tessa punches Leona in the arm and takes off running again. 

            Leona walks into the house and her mom immediately starts yelling, “I have been calling for you to get these clothes hung out on the line before the rain starts for over an hour!”  Leona looks at the pile of clothes sitting in the basket takes a deep breath picks them up and heads to the clothesline.  While Leona is hanging out the clothes, she can’t help but think of her sisters and brothers who are in the house watching television while she works.  They have been home all this time so “why couldn’t one of them hang the clothes on the line”.  But before she could finish the thought, Tessa is back outside taunting her again, “Why do you have to hang out the clothes all the time, can’t anybody else do it or is it YOUR job?”  “Job”, Leona thought…”more like punishment” but Leona couldn’t remember doing anything that required punishment.  When the clothes were all hung up, there were other chores to be done, Saturday was cleaning day at Leona’s house and everyone had something to do.  Leona and Lynne had to clean their room, the living room, and the bathroom.  Joyce’s, Leona’s oldest sister, chore was to clean her room and do the washing.  Darnell and Oscar had to clean their room and take care of the yard, which included mowing the lawn and raking up the cut grass.  Lynette had suffered brain damage when she was eighteen months old and was handicapped, so she did not have to do any of the chores around the house, and actually couldn’t do any even if she wanted to.  A lot of the neighborhood kids made fun of Lynette and pretended they were afraid of her.  This embarrassed Leona at first but more than that it made her sad.  ‘Why do people have to be so mean making fun of someone who can’t help them self, and why are people so stupid to think it’s funny when they do?’

This is just an idea I have been working on for my the book I am writing....what do you think about it, good? Not so good? Indifferent...what????

 See ya when I see ya!

Peace! Mattie