Those Who Don't

Those who don't know any better come into our neighborhood scared. They think we're
dangerous.
They think we will attack them with shiny knives. They are stupid people who are lost and got
here by mistake. But we aren't afraid.
We know the guy with the crooked eye is Davey the Baby's brother, and the tall one next to him
in the straw brim, that's Rosa's Eddie V., and the big one that looks like a dumb grown man, he's
Fat Boy, though he's not fat anymore nor a boy.
All brown all around, we are safe. But watch us drive into a neighborhood of another color and
our knees go shakity-shake and our car windows get rolled up tight and our eyes look straight.
Yeah.
That is how it goes and goes.
There Was an Old Woman She Had So Many Children She Didn't
Know What to Do Rosa Vargas' kids are too many and too much. It's not her fault you know,
except she is their mother and only one against so many.
They are bad those Vargases, and how can they help it with only one mother who is tired all the
time from buttoning and bottling and babying, and who cries every day for the man who left
without even leaving a dollar for bologna or a note explaining how come.
The kids bend trees and bounce between cars and dangle upside down from knees and almost
break like fancy museum vases you can't replace. They think it's funny. They are without respect
for all things living, including themselves.
But after a while you get tired of being worried about kids who aren't even yours. One day they
are playing chicken on Mr. Benny's roof.
Mr. Benny says, Hey ain't you kids know better than to be swinging up there? Come down, you
come down right now, and then they just spit.
See. That's what I mean. No wonder everybody gave up. Just stopped looking out when little
Efren chipped his buck tooth on a parking meter and didn't even stop Refugia from getting her
head stuck between two slats in the back gate and nobody looked up not once the day Angel
Vargas learned to fly and dropped from the sky like a sugar donut, just like a falling star, and
exploded down to earth without even an "Oh."
All the other children at my school are stupid. Except I'm not meant to call them stupid, even
though this is what they are. I'm meant to say that they have learning difficulties or that they
have special needs. But this is stupid because everyone has learning difficulties because learning
to speak French or understanding relativity is difficult and also everyone has special needs, like
Father, who has to carry a little packet of artificial sweetening tablets around with him to put in
his coffee to stop him from getting fat, or Mrs. Peters, who wears a beige-colored hearing aid, or
Siobhan, who has glasses so thick that they give you a headache if you borrow them, and none of
these people are Special Needs, even if they have special needs.
But Siobhan said we have to use those words because people used to call children like the
children at school spaz and crip and mong, which were nasty words. But that is stupid too
because sometimes the children from the school down the road see us in the street when we're
getting off the bus and they shout, "Special Needs! Special Needs!" But I don't take any notice
because I don't listen to what other people say and only sticks and stones can break my bones
and I have my Swiss Army knife if they hit me and if I kill them it will be self-defense and I
won't go to prison.
I am going to prove that I'm not stupid. Next month I'm going to take my A level in maths and
I'm going to get an A grade. No one has ever taken an A level at our school before, and the
headmistress, Mrs. Gascoyne, didn't want me to take it at first. She said they didn't have the
facilities to let us sit A levels. But Father had an argument with Mrs. Gascoyne and he got really
cross. Mrs. Gascoyne said they didn't want to treat me differently from everyone else in the
school because then everyone would want to be treated differently and it would set a precedent.
And I could always do my A levels later, at 18.
Life became a race with the fire and the boys scattered through the upper forest. To keep a clean
flag of flame flying on the mountain was the immediate end and no one looked further. Even the
smallest boys, unless fruit claimed them, brought little pieces of wood and threw them in. The air
moved a little faster and became a light wind, so that leeward and windward side were clearly
differentiated. On one side the air was cool, but on the other the fire thrust out a savage arm of
heat that crinkled hair on the instant. Boys who felt the evening wind on their damp faces paused
to enjoy the freshness of it and then found they were exhausted. They flung themselves down in
the shadows that lay among the shattered rocks. The beard of flame diminished quickly; then the
pile fell inwards with a soft, cindery sound, and sent a great tree of sparks upwards that leaned
away and drifted downwind. The boys lay, panting like dogs.
Ralph raised his head off his forearms.
“That was no good.”
Roger spat efficiently into the hot dust.
“What d’you mean?”
“There wasn’t any smoke. Only flame.”
Piggy had settled himself in a space between two rocks, and sat with the conch on his knees.
“We haven’t made a fire,” he said, “what’s any use. We couldn’t
keep a fire like that going, not if we tried.”
“A fat lot you tried,” said Jack contemptuously. “You just sat.”
“We used his specs,” said Simon, smearing a black cheek with his forearm. “He helped that
way.”
“I got the conch,” said Piggy indignantly. “You let me speak!”
“The conch doesn’t count on top of the mountain,” said Jack, “so
you shut up.”
“I got the conch in my hand.”
“Put on green branches,” said Maurice. “That’s the best way to
make smoke.”
“I got the conch—”
Jack turned fiercely.
“You shut up!”
Piggy wilted. Ralph took the conch from him and looked round the circle of boys.