Girl Running Under a Sprinkler

by Anita Page

It was so hot in the apartment I couldn't breathe, like someone put a blanket over my head. I was begging my mother to take us to the park, but she was scrubbing the toilet. That's what she likes to do, clean and yell at us.

I told her the guy on TV said it was ninety degrees, and she goes, “I said after lunch. What does it look like I'm doing, playing games?”

My little brother was on the floor watching TV. My big brother was on the couch. I jumped on him, tickling him and giving him little kisses on his face. I'm like, “Please come with us, please, please.” He doesn't go nowhere with us anymore. He just goes with his friends.

He laughed and shoved me away, yelling, “Ma, make her get off me.”

When he was almost out the door, my mother said, “I want you home by five o'clock. No bullshit excuses, you got that?”

He said something fresh, but she didn't hear him.

After lunch my mother was on the phone, complaining to my grandmother how my brother makes her crazy, always running with his friends. I'm like, “Ma, let's go, I'm sweating to death.”

A million kids were in the park. The sprinkler was on and everyone was running through the water, screaming and laughing. Me and my little brother took off our shoes and started running through the water with the other kids. I felt so happy with that water cooling me down. I was shaking my head, making the water fly off my hair. Then this lady took my picture. She showed it to me on her camera, me laughing and the water flying off my hair like diamonds, like I was a movie star. You could see in the picture how happy I was.

I looked for my mother so the lady could show her the picture. I saw her by the bench, talking to a cop, the nice one with the moustache, not the mean, skinny one. A lot of people were standing around. When I got close, I saw my mother crying.

I ran over to her, yelling, “Mami, Mami.”

“Go take care of your little brother,” she said to me, still crying. “He's the only one you got left.”

Then a kid, Junior's cousin from the third floor, told me a guy shot my brother, the old man from the grocery store by the school.

I started crying, but I went to get my little brother. He was still under the sprinkler and he wouldn't go with me. When I picked him up, he was cold and slippery from the water. He was screaming and kicking and pulling my hair, but I held onto him and wouldn't let go.

I couldn't stop crying. All the kids were looking at me, but I didn't care. I didn't understand how one minute you could be so happy, then the next minute like you never been happy at all.