All nine sets of eyes. Hell, I was even lookin’ at her because I wondered if she had a trick up her sleeve or something. The whole time this stare-down popped off, the lunchroom got quiet as fuck. I’m an observant person. I can see shit before it happens in any given situation. The shit felt like we were in slow motion. You got the beastly-looking bitches to your right, Lunch Lady behind the counter, still with pride in her eyes. She just knew her babies were about to make her proud. Then you got white girl and me to your left. My back faced Lunch Lady, and White Girl was facing team Beastly. I wasn’t worried about her old ass.
White Girl was head-on with them bitches like she was about to have a showdown with all them broads at the same time, and as she sized them up, she made noises with her mouth. The rest of the people in the cafeteria moved farther away from what looked like War World III about to take place. The whole time, White Girl had a conniving grin on her face and acted like she had everything under control. Next thing I knew, White Girl shouted the most stupid shit that I had ever heard someone throw the first punch over.
I don’t even think Alice heard what she said. “You fat Reece’s pieces covered in baby oil, you slip ’n’ slide on garbage bags in the back—” Before White Girl could get the word yard out, Alice lunged at her with all her strength. White Girl moved out of the way at the last minute and tripped Alice. She fell to the ground embarrassed.
“Don’t get up, that’s yo only warning,” White Girl taunted. Alice wasn’t pissed; she was furious. Soon as Alice got on her knees, White Girl took it to her face, straight little fist of fury to both eyes. Alice, not knowing what hit her, swung profusely but really wasn’t landing her punches. Alice did the worst thing you could do in any type of fight: she put her head down. White Girl really got her then. She got real creative with it. She started doing tae bo kicks to Alice’s side and smacking her in sequence while singing to herself, “I’m too legit, too legit to quit.” I don’t think she knew I could hear her, but I did.
I was shocked. I think everybody was. I stood there with my mouth wide open in disbelief while this five-foot-one, 145-pound white chick whooped the shit out of this five-foot-seven, 170-pound black chick. I snapped out of it when White Girl got serious and slammed Alice to the ground by her hair. I looked at the remaining six girls who stared in awe as their sister and cousin got her ass whooped. I guess Lunch Lady snapped out of it shortly after I did, because loudly behind me, she yelled to the other girls, “What the fuck y’all just watching for? Help Treasure.”
All at once they bum-rushed the site where the massacre took place. Before Thing 1 and Thing 2 could reach White Girl, I tripped Thing 1 and gave Thing 2 what Jay would call a knuckle sandwich straight to the left eye socket. Them broads looked like two anorexic niggas with two-day quick weave and fuzzy cheap ass kinky twist. Thing 1 went down easy; Thing 2 was out for the count. As I quickly turned to stomp on Thing 1’s back, White Girl was finally approached by Goony Goo Goo and Biggie Falls. Biggie Falls was a freshman, five foot six, 200 pounds, and was clumsy as hell. She was nice when she wanted to be but fell so much that she rarely found reasons to be nice. She had short hair, and it was not by choice. She had caramel complexion with dark-brown eyes, and she talked really fast.
“White Girl, watch out! Biggie Falls behind you!” I yelled, trying to warn my newly bought friend. At the time I didn’t even know that Biggie was clumsy. She turned around and kicked Biggie in the stomach and Goony Goo Goo in the crotch. Goony fell to the ground. White Girl then grasped Goony’s right cheek with her freshly manicured nails and proceeded to punch the taste out of her mouth with her right fist. I was amazed. Then Biggie Falls bum-rushed White Girl off of Goony and literally sat her fat ass on top of White Girl and started to punch her in the face—left, right, left, right, the whole time with her fat ass rocking. Overly kicking Thing 1, I lost track of thought, and that was when I tried to run to White Girl’s side when the fuckin’ little rascals came out of the blue and hit me with a nice blow to my right cheek and a jab to my ribs. It knocked the wind out of me.
“Look at this li’l bitch,” Buckwheat said. “Think she can hang with the big dogs, huh.” Buckwheat had dreads that touched her shoulders. I guess she was trying to be different because she had some dreads that were neon green, pink, yellow, and orange, like she was artistic or something. Out of all the beastlys, Buckwheat was the only one who looked decent, or shall I say presentable. It was something about her that made me not want to fight her. Last time I got this feeling was when I was about to fight Jay. Instead of fighting her, I felt like I should befriend her and protect her because she was important.
“I don’t want to fight you,” I said as calmly as I could.
“Fuck that!” Big Foot yelled and ran up and sneaked a punch to my left eye. I was pissed. Biggie was still on White Girl, not really hitting her, just fucking with her. Then this big foot bitch, a freshman who wore a size 12 in women’s, just really put me on edge. Big Foot was short and skinny with humongous feet. She had very pretty black hair and chocolate skin complexion. Then Buckwheat said something I bet to this day she wished she never said: “Who taught you how to fight, yo pussy-ass mama!” I could’ve given her the benefit of the doubt. She didn’t know my mama died givin’ birth to me. I blacked out.
I came to handcuffed to a metal railing next to the principal’s office, White Girl next to me. “Damn, mama, you a beast,” she said as she reached for my hand.
I accepted. “Yeah, you not so bad yourself,” I replied. “What happened?” I asked, confused of how it all ended.
“Well, all I can say is we won! I’m Denise, but you can call me KitKat.”
“I’m Lyric, but you can call me Lyric,” I implied, trying to be funny. Not knowing the extent of the damage we did, I sat back and basked in my glory. Eleven-year-old freshman whooped the asses of four big beastly-looking bitches. I was happy, especially since I just spent a buck and made a friend. A loyal one at that. All the joy and happiness went away when I saw Lunch Lady walk out of the principal’s office crying like somebody just died.
Come to find out when I blacked out, I grabbed a metal pole that was used to keep the metal doors closed on the lunch line and I beat Big Foot until she was unconscious. I didn’t know what I had done. She was rushed to the hospital. Thing 1 had two broken ribs, three missing teeth, and bruising on her back. Thing 2 had a dislocated jaw. Biggie had bite wounds all over her legs and arms. Goony had a broken jaw and fractured eye socket, and Buckwheat, well, she came out without a scratch. Alice had a broken rib and jaw. The lunch lady was fired because of her behavior and actions toward students. Her tribe called Quest was suspended ten days each. As for Denise and me, we both got ROY (rest of the year) due to the damage we caused to other students even though we were just defending ourselves. They did not invite us back the following year. We both did freshman year through homeschooling together, and we’ve been each other’s right hand ever since.
When I had found out that all the shit she had said about the lunch lady was true, I asked her how she knew. She said, “My dad is a cop, and my stepmom is a beautician. Last year I went to take yo daughter to workday with my dad ’cuz my mom was sick, and let me tell you, dicks talk just as much as pussies do. The precinct is just like the beauty shop, except the shit you hear there is actually true, not just a bunch of he-say, she-say shit. They got the evidence.” She was Nancy Drewing it at a young age.
“Yo, Lyric,” Denise said as she tried to get my attention. “Where the hell do you go when you zone out like that?”
“What’s up?” I replied, ignoring her question.
“You know, yo bitch gone be twenty-eight this year, so I’m trying to do something out my comfort zone,” she said as she taunted an older customer by licking her fingers and rubbing them down the top part of her unbuttoned blouse.
“Stop it, Kit,
