Of Beetles and Angels Read Online Free PDF Page A

IN S UDAN, YOU HAD TO FIGHT OR THEY WOULD KEEP BEATING YOU DAY AFTER DAY. W E ARE NOT IN S UDAN ANYMORE.
    H ERE IN A MERICA, THEY TAKE A SIMPLE THING LIKE A BRUISE AND KICK YOU OUT OF SCHOOL AND EVEN THROW YOU INTO THE HOUSE OF IMPRISONMENT. S O FROM NOW ON, LET THEM HIT YOU. C OME HOME BEATEN AND BRUISED. D O NOT EVER FIGHT BACK.
    My brother and I were dumbfounded. At best, we had expected screaming; at worst, the leather belt. But we had never imagined a betrayal of this magnitude. Our father, our model of toughness, should have known the importance of standing up for yourself.
    We begged. We pleaded. We reasoned. What if they knock our teeth out? What if they make us bleed? What if they break our bones? If we let one kid beat us up, they’ll all beat us up.
    D O YOU THINK THAT I WISH HARM ON MY CHILDREN? W E HAVE NO CHOICE. W E ARE POOR.
    I F YOU GET EXPELLED, WHO WILL DRIVE YOU TO YOUR NEW SCHOOL? I F YOU GET EXPELLED, WHO WILL GIVE YOU A SCHOLARSHIP? D O YOU THINK THAT THEY GIVE SCHOLARSHIPS TO STUDENTS WHO GET EXPELLED FROM SCHOOL?
    R EMEMBER THAT THIS COUNTRY RUNS ON COMPUTERS. O NCE YOU COMMIT THE SMALLEST CRIME, YOUR NAME WILL BE STAINED FOREVER.
    S O I’M TELLING YOU: I F YOUR CLASSMATES COME AFTER YOU, RUN. I F I EVER HEAR THAT YOU HAVE BEEN IN A FIGHT, FEAR FOR YOUR BEINGS. I WILL MAKE YOU LOST.
    We feared my father more than anything in the world, so as difficult as it was to stop fighting, we stopped fighting.
    We learned to take taunting and small beatings. There were a few isolated incidents, though, where we had no choice but to defend ourselves.
    There was the time that I was in fourth grade and my brother had graduated to middle school. Our neighbors, the Panther family, gave my sister Mehret rides home because they had one extra seat in their station wagon. That left me to make the one-mile walk from school by myself.
    One day, two of my classmates, a light-skinned black kid named Dennis and a skinny white kid named Marc, jumped me on the way home. They would have given me a black eye and maybe more, worse than anything that awaited me at home. So I tightened my face into an angry scowl.
    Feigning toward Dennis, I kicked Marc, hard as I could, XJ-900 right in his groin. Marc hunched over and whimpered as he fell to the ground. Dennis tried to run, but I caught him. I made sure that there would be no next time.
    Dennis and Marc were easy pickings, but a year later, my brother met a more serious challenge: Jake Evans. Tough, mean, and unstable, Jake was the deadliest kid at Franklin Middle School.
    He was the school’s head burnout, one of those heavy-metal white kids who did drugs and didn’t care about anything. He struck fear in the hearts of the entire student body. And he hated my brother.
    Jake started telling everyone in the school that my brother’s days were numbered. I rarely saw my brother tremble, but he trembled when he heard Jake’s threat. He was right to tremble. Jake had about eighty pounds and a foot on him.
    But what terrified us wasn’t Jake’s size. It was his illegal-length switchblade. We knew Jake had it because we had seen him practice with it, setting up targets in the grass near Triangle Park, hitting dead center almost every time.
    Even if my brother could have taken Jake, Jake had seven or eight burnout lackeys who followed him around. My bro couldn’t possibly survive all of them and their knives.
    Eventually the day came, as in one of those movies where everyone knows that a student is going to get whipped after school.
    My brother fidgeted all day long, trying to figure out an escape route. But there was none. Too many people were watching him, talking about the fight. At the end of the day, everyone followed him home, including Jake.
    Jake and his friends surrounded Tewolde about a block away from the school. My brother had a few friends around, but not nearly enough to save him. So he made a desperate prayer:
Dear God, please save me. Dear God, please save me. Dear