Messing Back: A Short Story

The bell rang, Arnando had a test to take this morning and wasn't looking forward to it. He was worried that he wouldn’t get a superb grade as he had on past tests. Either way Arnando had to take the test and soon forgot, since he took it on a Friday and was oblivious by the time he was back in school. When Arnando came back to school,he was reminded about the assessment he had taken on Friday, when Mrs. Alexia announced she graded all the tests over the weekend. Arnando began to get a bit edgy and seemed to be worried about the current situation. Soon, Arnando was handed his test back, but the teacher didn’t say “Good job” when she had handed it back to him, like she usually did. When Arnando flipped over his paper, he saw the thing he feared would happen, actually happen. Arnando had received the worst grade he had ever gotten, a

Once Lily accepts what she has done and learns that her mother's death did not make her a bad person, her conflict can finally be resolved. As a result of resolving her conflict, she is able to mature because of the struggle, just like other people are able to grow and evolve from their own mistakes. This is evident when she admits "Before coming here, my whole life had been nothing but a hole where my mother should have been, and this hole had made me different, left me always aching for something, but never once did I think what he'd lost or how it might've changed him" (Kidd 293). Lily finally realizes that her mother's death has not only affected her, but also her father, T. Ray, and the calendar sisters. Through the course of Lily's struggle, Lily learns a lot about life and matures into a wiser

Lily starts off stuck living in an unloving, abusive household and decides to free herself from the negative atmosphere that she had been living in her whole life. Lily is perpetually abused by her father. He forces her to kneel on Martha White's, gets exasperated every time she speaks, and yells at her for no reason. Lily is not the only one noticing the terrible treatment, Rosaleen does too. Once after Lily had to kneel on the Martha White's Rosaleen said to her, “Look at you, child. Look what he’s done to you” (Kidd 25). Noticing the unloving treatment Lily gets, Rosaleen knew that their household was demoralizing place for Lily to be in, which is why she didn’t question when Lily when she later runs away. Lily one day realizes she needs to do something about her horrible life at home. While sitting in her room she hears a voice in her

“At night I would lie in bed and watch the show, how bees squeezed through the cracks of my bedroom wall and flew circles around the room, making that propeller sound” ( Kidd 1). This quote represents the story about a girl named lily and how her life turns around after one day. In this journal I will evaluate why lily decided to leave, question why T-ray is so abusive to Lily and predict where lily where go next.

Lily saw her mother as a bad person for abandoning her. August explains to Lily that her mother made a mistake of leaving her with T.Ray. She also tells Lily that her mother tried to fix it be returning to get her. This conversation is an important factor when Lily learns to forgive her mother and herself.

She did this in a myriad of different ways, such as acting innocent and sweet, or poverty-stricken. However, Lily’s favorite form of manipulation was crying; An example of one such incident was Lily’s ninth birthday party. I had been the only friend that had shown up to her party. When I walked through the door, I was attacked by a rainbow of colorful balloons littered around the mess of a living room.

Lily feels alone in this world. She is ostracized at school, treated with an absence of love and lives day to day knowing that she has committed irreversible acts. When she thinks about her mother all of these complications melt away in the warm allure she feels.

Lily, feeling burdened with the guilt of her mother's death becomes terrified of her father, T. Ray. Lily, feeling burdened with the guilt from the circumstances of her mother’s death when she is told that she killed her mother. T. Ray scares Lily when he says “We turned around and you were standing holding the gun. You picked it up off the floor. Then it just went off.”(Kidd, 19). Lily’s only memory of her mother is this time, when her mother died, when T. Ray confirms Lily’s suspicions, this makes Lily unable to forgive herself. Lily becomes terrified of her father T. Ray when he abuses Lily. T. Ray abuses Lily by making her kneel on grits, “I walked toward them with those feathery steps you expect of a girl in Japan, and lowered myself to the floor determined not to cry, but the sting was already gathering in my eyes.” (24). Lily was so afraid of T. Ray that she refused to

Lily used to kneel on grits, get beaten, and stand there while T. Ray yelled in her face. This was not a healthy lifestyle, and Lily has a bright future ahead of her. T. Ray was holding her back by not letting her read and write, making her work on peach farm, and not giving her any love or knowledge about her mother, which is what she longs for the most. Lily decides that the only way she will find out about her mom, have any type of bright future, and be loved, is if she gets away from the problem. Lily is happy, loved, and destined for a bright future at the Boatwright house, without T. Ray.

These lessons are about the dangers and foolishness of racism, the passion of reading and telling stories, and female power. The story is set in 1964 in South Carolina, which is where racism was present. Throughout the story, Lily learn about how some African Americans were treated at the time and how racist the white people were being. Lessons about reading and telling stories were also in the book.Lily loves books and reading, and she wants to become a writer. Lily really starts writing when Zach gives her a notebook to record her thoughts. The last lesson is about feminism and the mothers. Lily has always wanted her mother back, and all she has to remember her by, is some of her possessions. In the end of the book, Lily learns that she has several 'mothers' , like Rosaleen, the Boatwrights, and the Daughters of Mary.

Samantha Williams, an ninth grade student at Carterville High School is having a hard time understanding math. Samantha has talked to her mom multiple times about finding a tutor until one day the band geek named James Connor agreed to help her. Samantha never really associated with James, but after a few weeks they became close friends. It is now October 31, 2012, Halloween night. While all of her friends are out partying and having fun she really needs help studying for her upcoming math test. James was going trick-or-treating with a couple of friends, but after hours of Samantha's begging he agreed to help her. James arrived at Samantha's house at 5:15p.m. They started working as soon as James showed up. When James asks Samantha for her

She is entrapped with the ideas floating in her mind as one can see here. “That night I lay in bed… for the first ten thousand years”. She also has an abusive dad who is taking all of his anger out on his daughter which consisted of beating and kicking her as punishment. She is so fed up with this action, She decides to do something about it. This leads to the second force or burden that she deals with, Lily leaving her abusive dad at such a young age. She constantly mentions that she wants to leave but her dad is resilient to her not leaving.“Heavens to betsy, what's all this talk about you leaving? Nobody wants you to leave, Lily, till your good and ready”. Once she is fed up, Lily runs away with her nanny Rosaleen behind her dad's back. The Boatrights were bee farmers who were very comforting and nice when taking them in. While she is running away from her dad, the real reason she is leaving is to find answers about what happened that night with her mother. Her father eventually finds where she is and tracks her down and beats her. While she is receiving a beating her father tells her that she was the one that killed her mother, but the shooting was on accident. Her father at that time realizes that he was taking his anger out on her for no reason and that she is still her daughter and didn’t deserve it. One big thing holding her back it the racism that she encounters

Lily looked like Deborah when she was younger and right away I had knew why she had came. She had came because she wanted to know about her mother, and I knew that I had to tell her at some point about what happened. So I just let her stay. She needed to know the truth, and that is what I was going to tell her, but I didn’t want to talk about her mother too soon. That would get a better risk of her running away like what she did with T. Ray.

Lily has always been beaten down and abused by her father, but witnessing Rosaleen's courage gives Lily courage, too. Her father physically beats her and punishes her atrociously, and Lily has no choice but to take it. But after she witnesses Rosaleen's nerve in the face of beating and imprisonment, Lily finds her spark of independence and ingeniousness. She learns to lie convincingly and plans their escape to Tilburon. Defying her father and leaving home is something she'd never considered.

Lily was led to August, May, and June who make Virgin Mary Honey in Tiburon, South Carolina. Lily became attached to the three sister and began to have a mother-daughter like relationship with August. Lily soon opened up to August about what had happened to her mother and found out that August had known her mother and known about her. Lily knew what her mother was like and her questions were finally answered. Lily finally had become whole. The love she lacked with her father now she had with someone who was not even related to her or even of the same race. Lily has fallen in love with Zach and realized it when she said, “I was crying, I realized, for Zach" (Kidd,128). Lily had changed because of the love that now filled her and her atmosphere. Lily become religious staying with the sisters. Lily and the sisters attended church in their barn every Sunday, but they worshiped the Virgin Mary. This helped Lily grow throughout the story by giving her a belief system. Not only did Agust give her a religious outlet, but she gave her a hobby as well. August showed Lily how to be a beekeeper and what being one entailed. This gave Lily a reason to want to wake up in the morning. Lily had realized she was loved and knew it when she thought about, "No one had ever asked me this before. What did I love?” (Kidd, 128). Between the love and the faith that grew inside Lily, she no longer seeked every answer