Something Like Hope Read Online Free PDF

a bad case of ADHD.
    “Samantha, put your hand down and turn in. I ain’t answerin’ no more of your dang questions.”
    “But Ms. Choi, I gotta go to the bathroom. Goddamn, you gotta let me go. The ombudsman said.”
    Samantha is hyperactive and special ed, always bouncing off the walls and getting on people’s nerves. She’s harmless, though. One of those kids who talks tough when she’s threatened but never does anything.
    “We just had a bathroom break. How come you got to go whenever there’s schoolwork?”
    “But Ms. Choi, I really gotta go. It’s for real! I ain’t messin’ around, I really gotta pee.”
    “You know, Samantha, maybe if you spent more time studyin’ you wouldn’t act so retarded. Now face forward and do your work. We’ll have another bathroom break in a while.”
    The special ed teacher, Ms. Sheffield, pretends not to hear the retard comment. Ms. Sheffield is even more frightened of Ms. Choi than she is of us kids. Instead of reminding Ms. Choi that Samantha is a bed wetter and sometimes has accidents in the daytime, she shuffles her papers together and leaves.
    Samantha tries to keep her cool. For about eight seconds.
    “Maybe I am retarded, but at least I ain’t no fat bitch!” She mutters it under her breath, but everyone hears. Tyreena, Kiki, and the others all say, “Oooh! No she didn’t!” as though they’re on the set of the Jerry Springer show. It’s all very predictable.
    Ms. Choi has a way of knowing just how to push people’s buttons. With Samantha it’s the retard thing. With another girl it’s calling her baldheaded or the daughter of a whore. (“You know the apple don’t fall far from the tree, especially when Shaquana and her momma be out there sellin’ they asses together.”) Nothing is off limits with Ms. Choi.
    In the end, she beats Samantha’s ass for her comments. The 250-pound woman hooks the girl’s arms behind her back and hip-tosses her on her face. Once Samantha’s down, Ms. Choi levers her skinny arms as high as they’ll go without breaking and continues to torment her.
    “See, girl? That’s what you get for runnin’ your mouth.Always talkin’. You wanna talk now? You still got somethin’ to say?”
    During the takedown part, Samantha crashes to the floor on her face with the big woman on top of her. Her chin cracks hard and blood drips onto the dirty white tiles.
    “I can’t fucking breathe! You’re hurting me! Owww! Shit! Owww!”
    “Oh yeah? If you can’t breathe then how come you’re able to scream so damn loud? If it’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a liar. Liars be runnin’ they mouths all day and they can’t even back it up ’cause it’s all bullcrap.” When Ms. Choi gets fired up, her language gets more street.
    This only brings out more fight in Samantha, which I think is the point. She thrashes and kicks and screams under Ms. Choi’s weight. Her blood smears everywhere as she wails in a god-awful way. A couple of minutes later, four guards respond. One grabs Samantha’s legs so she can’t kick. Another cuffs her hands behind her back; the two other guards stand next to the pileup with their arms crossed, looking tough and official.
    Samantha continues to fight like crazy until the cuffs are on. She almost bucks Ms. Choi off her. She has that wiry strength that only crazy people have. The rest of us are sitting at our desks, trying to stay calm. It’s disturbing when a girl gets taken down like that. It feels wrong to just sit there and do nothing, but if you try and help,
you
get slammed. Then they give you a rule violation for inciting a riot. That adds thirty days to your sentence and means you have to go before the review board, like whenI stole the sandwich and hit Ms. Williams. Go to the review board too many times, and they can send you to adult corrections.
    As Samantha screams, so do I—inside my head. I yell, “Stop it! Stop it!” over and over. I don’t even know if I’m yelling for the guards