The Trickster

Jase, my Man!

How's it going? Congrats on the roundball team's first win of the season! After the way you creamed those guys, I'll bet the Parks & Rec defectors are ready to come back. Don't blame coach for not letting them. Dad always said, "You can't play both sides of the street." Maybe he meant stuff like that, too.

Have I told you about Mr. Watson? Who knew an assistant principal could be such a trickster!

Mr. Watson was cool with me taking his pic w/my new phone, but the dudes, yeah, not so much.

When Mom took me to enroll, Mr. Watson introduced himself (along with my homeroom teacher, Mr. Collins). He knew I was new, and said he was, too. (Don't worry, I'm not going poet on you. Oops, sorry, did it again!) Anyway, I guess Mom had that little pucker between her eyes like she does when she's worried. Maybe Mr. Watson's mom does it too, so he tells Mom he'll keep an eye on me.

In case you haven't guessed, I don't exactly look like a lot of the kids at my school. That kinda scared me at first, but now I know we're all the same on the inside.

Anyway, every week or so, Mr. Watson picks me up from a different class so we can hang out, really just hang out. No lecture, no grade check, just hanging out. Sometimes we'll talk sports, or Avengers, but if there's nothing to talk about, we'll just play cards. One week I told him about my tomatoes, or the great science experiment, as Ted calls it.

The week after the musical, Mr. Watson calls my class and asked for me to come down. I should have known something was up. When I get there, the "hardest" girl at school is sitting in Mr. Watson's office. I thought he must be playing a trick on me, or her. Lily white new kid and the hard girl. LOL...NOT!

Long story short, CeeCee (that's her name) doesn't have a dad either (I don't know how Mr. Watson found about Dad), except hers just walked out, he didn't die. But her brother did. Not only that, he was murdered a couple of years ago while they were swinging at a neighborhood playground. Omgosh! What was I supposed to say about that?

CeeCee is in 7th grade so we don't have any classes together. But when I see her around, she'll smile at me like we have a secret. It's like talking about the hard, awful stuff has rubbed off some of her hard edges.

Jason, some days I feel like I'm living on another planet, like I'm some kind of alien. And then I get to do cool stuff I've never done before like build sets for the musical and hang out with a (ass't) principal. I don't know if Sarah (who says to tell you hi) feels the same way at her school or not. It's not bad, but definitely different.

Thanks for writing, Jason. I'm super glad we're still friends. If I don't write before, have a terrific Thanksgiving!

Your friend,
​Jubilee

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