After a few months of living in our new foster home, people began to show their true colors. Sherita and Marcus were the troublemakers of the household and Sherita was the leader. Sherita and her brother would do bad things then blame them on Raffeal and me, but mostly me. Sherita was a compulsive liar. Everything that came out of her mouth was lie and she actually believed she was telling the truth.
The first of her devious acts happened one day when we were all sitting in the living room. It was Raffeal, Marcus, Pauline, me and, of course, Sherita. Big Momma or any other adults, to my knowledge, were not there. Melanie was left in charge but she was off in her own little world. Sherita and Marcus decided they wanted to play with fire using a lighter they had found around the house. The strange thing was that I do not know whose it could have been because nobody in the house was a smoker.
They first lit paper and then it was whatever they could set on fire. I can remember this day so well because I was standing in the dining room, which was Big Momma’s room too, when they asked Raffeal if they could light the strings hanging from the legs of his cut-off blue jean shorts I don’t think he understood what they were asking him and I couldn’t believe they were serious. Before I knew it, they had set fire to one of those strings and in an instant that one thin string combusted into a big flame. My baby brother was screaming and hopping around trying to put the fire out and they were laughing at him, so I ran over to rescue him.
Luckily, he did not suffer from any burns. From that day on I hated every one of them. Sherita made us vow not to say anything about this day, but she forgot that her four-year-old sister Pauline was present when it happened.
A couple weeks later, Sherita, Pauline and I were sitting in their mother Esther’s room Pauline was chattering like any other four year old and told her mother what happened that day, not knowing she was about to get her siblings into trouble. When Pauline finished telling the story, Esther got angry, looked at Sherita and said, “Y’all did what?” Sherita had the nerve to lie with a straight face and say I was the one who did the terrible thing to my own brother.
Before I could state my case, Esther had slapped the taste out of my mouth. I could only sit there holding my face in disbelief that this girl had just told a boldfaced lie on me and her mother believed her over me.
Another time Sherita was again playing with matches. I guess this crazy child just loved playing with fire. She was burning every dead hair she could find in an ashtray. Now if you have ever burned dead hair, you know it leaves behind a strange smell.
Again, no adult supervision in the house and Sherita was having her way as if she was at Burger King. Right after she went on her burning hair spree, guess who just happened to walk into the house but the adults.
Ethel was the first to come through the door and quickly realized that somebody had burned hair in the house. She asked Sherita and me who was burning hair and again this ugly girl lied and said I did it. My stupid self just stood there like a stick in the mud and didn’t even open my mouth to say anything. Ethel spanked my hand with a hard hairbrush and chastised me about playing with matches while Sherita just stood there smiling because she knew she had just gotten away with murder.
Passed Around By Man But Not Passed Over By God Chontate Brown Copyright ©2013 All rights reserved.
Passed Around By Man But Not Passed Over By God 