tenth graders part 1

BASED on a true story=a blend of fact with fiction while names were changed to protect the guilty and myself from guilty liars who would deny the some of the crimes i describe but I could not video-record.
chapter 1 a new life
JOSHUA sat on the jet-plane flying westward. he was now leaving his old life behind. beside him sat his dad howard, who had reformed from being a child-beater. dad was bringing his fifteen year old son to a judge hearing for custody in the course of a divorce.
joshua had dark brown hair and plastic glasses with thick lenses. the color of the skin on his face was the pinkish white of the majority of  citizens of the US. despite being fifteen he had no mustache yet.
his white shirt, was the fancy one with buttons in a long neat column essentially like row down his puffed stomach. the stain from the food which had dropped on this white shirt, had not been successfully removed and joshua thought how much he hated white shirts.
joshua munched on the peanut snack, the one in the tiny packet provided by airlines as a courtesy snack.  a small gift at no extra charge.
joshua considered the miniature packet and it reminded him of the first time his parents had pointed out an israeli product in the food shop. -not only jews are stingy- thought joshua, critical of all stingy regardless of nationality race religion.. he recalled his surprise during a past fateful moment, when picking up the bag of imported snack and feeling the surprisingly light package- significantly lighter than the force he had instinctively and automatically used to lift the snack bag- thoughtlessly and based on instinct. young four year old joshua had blurted out "this is a dirty trick!" but nobody would believe him that the bag was lighter than- what he had intuitively lifted. but joshua refused to submit, and when joshua had stubbornly insisted on comparing the weight and price to other snacks, his parents had freaked out and dragged him away from the evidence demonstrating they had something to hide.
joshua glanced at his dad and remembered that dad was physically violent hitting for several minutes of continuous hitting, each instance of physical pain, while saying the "well known" phrase that abusive parents say: "this hurts me more than it hurts you". admittedly his parents had stopped hitting him but the feeling of betrayal still lingered. -"not to mention"- joshua thought while
curling his lips inward, -that they had changed my body in circumcision. I do not even know what they took away, and stole from me- thought the tenth grader.
joshua was now leaving his old life behind. he glanced again at his overweight father. dads white button shirt also stretched over a swollen belly. -is it his fault I am fat?- wondered joshua. he could not comprehend why his own body would store so much fat. could it be genetics? or perhaps he was trained in the habit of storing food becuse of skipped meals when he was too young to remember.
MOTHERS who diet and limit their food during the weeks of pregnancy truly train the baby to store all the nutrients and calories when they come. weeks of training and the body acquires the habit of storing fat. and he would never know if he was treated like a normal child or his parents skipped meals at an age when he was too young to remember.
josh inhaled a deep breath and muddled in the miserable memories of the past few days...
his feet and socks had been wet, very cold and wet, almost the whole day, from the snow that had dropped into his shoes, for each day these the last few days. soon he had begun coughing and felt very weak. same as in ninth grade when i had a bacterial infection. it was the second winter in a row that josh had gotten sick. was it because i did not wear a coat? the doctor had asked.
stupid question i was freezing and wore the coat even indoors. the problem was: the coat had no hood to protect the head and neck from the cold and snow of an american winter.
so now josh was sick yet again same as last winter. he remembered asking for boots but was denied  in ninth grade, because all the teens were treated equal with no boots in the snow. it could not be parental negligence if ninety parents decided teens should not wear boots in the snow. nor hoods on their heads in the snowy winter. it is not negligence because he had a coat and thankfully it was rarely windy.the doctor had prescribed a medicine which came with a big warning paper. josh had read that the drug was for urinary tract infection apparently he was supposed to believe it was the same drug used for strep? well he did not.
josh had phoned home, just last night at around 9 pm, to report he had fever, had the wrong drug and that every day he felt hungry almost all day, from morning class until dinner served relatively late at 7 pm. he felt hungry all day due to lack of decent lunches. mom had agreed he needed a second opinion for the drug and put dad on the phone to convince josh not to surrender. dad had argued that all the kids were treated equal and lunch was served daily so stop complaining.
josh had been frustrated and stumbled to his room to rest. he slept through the night and was awakened by the music played on the dorm loudspeakers. Josh had decided to stay in the dormitory that day to rest. despite coughing, his tenth grade teacher had said "you are coughing your lungs out"he managed to fall asleep again until suddenly dad had appeared at the door fo the dorm room. dad looked disheveled with his coat only partially buttoned at the top but in his hand he held two large bags. in one was a pair of snow boots and in the other a coat with a hood. "we leave now for california. no time to pack" josh had slipped on the boots and wore the coat over his pajamas and followed his dad out of the door to the waiting taxi. they drove to the airport and had bordered a plan to warm and sunny california...
TO BE CONTINUED.