She didn't cry when she thought she would. Instead she bit down on her lower lip until it hurt. It wasn't her fault, but she knew they'd blame it on her. They always did. She felt the sudden urge to run, to hide, to find a space small enough to hold her tight and close, like the arms of a giant.
But she didn't run. She didn't hide. She would stand up for herself. Stand up for her brother. Stand up for them when no one else would. Her parents were out. Again. The neighbors would scoff at that. Dirty Danny would mime holding a bottle to his lips and tip his head back like he was drinking when they asked her where her parents were. They always did.
She looked down again at JJ, laying in the grass and wailing. She tuned out his wailing for a few seconds, thinking of the trouble she and Bobby were in right now. JJ would run and tell on them. He'd blame her, say she pushed him. He lips were fat and dripping blood. His wails were, unrealistically, getting louder. She noticed that he had a huge scrap on his left cheek. She used the end of her pink dress to wipe his blood. She'd put it in the wash before Mom saw anyway. Not like Mom did much laundry these days.
Bobby looked down at JJ with barely concealed disgust in his eyes. For a seven year old he was proud of being tough. Crying after a spill like JJ just took would be shameful. Most of that attitude came from Dad, but some from Mom too. Neither suffered a crybaby. "Shhh ..." she murmured to the crying boy, patting his brown hair back from his forehead in awkward conciliatory gestures.
JJ stopped crying and shot her a look full of venom. "Stop touching me, trash!" He yelled at her. He wiped the blood dripping down his chin with his forearm, sneering at her through his broken lips. "I'm telling my dad you pushed me. Again." He got up and grabbed his soccer ball where it had lain abandoned in the grass. "My dad said your dad was and alky. He says he's goin' call services on you and get you and Bob taken away so you won't plague up our neighborhood anymore." JJ looked very satisfied with himself when he said it, smiling a little.
White hot rage ran through her at his smug little smile. Some of her mom's driving words came to mind to say to him, but she bit her lip again, this time so hard that she was scared for a minute that she almost bit it hard enough to draw blood. "You better not, JJ!" She yelled at him. "Or I'll push you for real and give you more than a fat lip!"
Bobby chimed in with an unnecessary but heartfelt, "Yeah!"
JJ looked uncertain for a second. He was her age, nine, but smaller than her. Weirdly, nine year old girls tended to be just as big and sometimes bigger than boys the same age. She had a good four inches on him.
***to be continued***
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