Hunger - Richards diary

Today something terrible happened... Mother sent me out to get the groceris. It felt very good, I felt important! Mother gave me the task to buy food for our family, I felt like I was the most important person in the city. The task was in my eyes something adults did, not boys with money in their hand. Needless to say... Joy covered my sences. But when I walked with a smile on the street, I saw a gang of boys. They gave me a look before they attacked me! They stole my money and ran off, leaving me on the street beaten up. Tears filled my eyes as I ran home. My mother did something I would not have expected, I though she would have taken me inside and gotten the food herself after have given those other boys a lesson. Never had I been more wrong, she just gave me a new note with the list of groceris and more money. I sobbed and cried, but she did nothing. Mother just sent me out again, and once more the boys attacked me. I again ran home crying, begging my mother to help me out. But my mother again turned me down and gave me a note and money again, but this time a stick and a strickt glare. She told me to fight back. Never had my loving moteher said that. I tried to sneak passt her, but insead got slapped by her. Mother told me that if I on’t get the food I’m not allowed to come back home. Which left me with two options... one; Get the food and fight back. Second; forced to live on the street. Mom wanted me to stand up for myself, if I come home again crying, the thing I’d bring would be a bag of shame...

With fear crossing my mind, I forced myself! To be a man and get the food! But I felt like a mouse among cats once I met the boygang again. When one of them called’ There he is!’, I highened the hand I held the stick in and striked by slamming the stick against their skulls. I kept telling to fight, when they refused, I just attacked them. This was scary... but at the same time I felt this thrill of joy. I stood up for myself, this I had never done. My hand felt a perfect fit around the beatstick that made the gang run away home to their parents. Not long after my victory fight, their parents came and yelled at me like baring dogs. But I told them they would get the same treatment if they didn’t leave me alone. Now I felt like a proud eagle, elgance and strickt, feared but at the same time edmired. When they left me alone and returned from the shadows they came from. I went and searched for the money and note I had dropped. I found them and went to buy food.

Now... I had won the streets, I owned them, no one would cross me now. I was above all, no one could beat me down. It started bad, but it ended out to be more rewwarding then I thought. No longer do I fear the streets, the street fears me...

Richard.