I am an average high school student. Unlike most of my friends, I currently don’t have a job and I don’t drive. It’s not that I don’t want to make some of my own money or drive myself around. It’s just that I think it’s more important to focus on my school work and studies. I strive to make good grades in school and it’s sometimes hard, but I manage. I’d like to get a great job someday, so I also try my hardest not to get into trouble at school.

I’m not the type of student who would threaten people or get into physical fights. I don’t believe in hitting or punching people. It just doesn’t seem right. People who really truly know me know that I will never get sent to the principal’s office for something that’s against school policy. I’ve never had my cell phone out in class to text people. It’s kind of hard to do that when I don’t own a cell phone. Besides, that would be rude to the teacher who is trying to teach the class.

I have never back-talked to a teacher or used profanity toward them. I feel like I have a better vocabulary than those who use those particular words.

I did have my exceptions for getting into trouble in the past. I distinctly remember two times, in my entire educational life, of getting myself into trouble. The first time was for listening to another girl, who happened to be wrong, so I guess technically she got me into trouble that time. The second time was the time I did something horrible to somebody else.

I have an older brother who I love very much, as with all of my siblings. My brother, we’ll call him Jake, has autism. My “trouble making” career started and ended when I was in the first grade. We lived in this small neighborhood, and we lived close enough to the school that I could walk to school. I only had to walk past a few houses and then cross the street where it lead to a fence. On the other side of the fence was the playground to the school I was attending.

Every day, my brother would wait for me by that fence to walk the short walk home with me. He always said that he wanted to get home quickly before playtime was over.

I know that the problems my brother faced were difficult for him to deal with, even if he didn’t even ever realize that he had any problems to deal with. I had my own problems to deal with as a result of the autism my brother had.

At my brother’s school and at my school, kids would make fun of him. They would continuously call him “Retard” or come up to me and ask me why I had a retarded brother. I have even had people come up to me and ask me if being a retard ran in the family, as if being related to him was just a big fat joke.

It happened on a Tuesday at school. Some kid, in my class, came to me and started asking me questions about my brother.

“Why does your brother bang his head around like that? He is so stupid for doing that.”

“Don’t you wish that you weren’t his sister? I’m glad he’s not my brother.”

I was so mad. I had had enough of people making fun of my brother because of his condition. I raised my fist and hit that kid as hard as I could in the nose.

In response, the boy grabbed his nose with his hand and blood started to roll out of his nose. He shouted to me,

“I’m telling the teacher on you!”

I didn’t care. He told the teacher and the teacher wrote my name up on the board. I missed recess and had to have a talk with my teacher. I told her that he was calling my brother stupid and that I was trying to stick up for my brother. I explained to her that my brother was not stupid. I told her that he had autism.

It made me sick that even the kids at my school made fun of my brother. My brother never did anything to them. He didn’t even attend the same school that I did. I got made fun of for being his little sister. I am proud to have him as a brother. I don’t get to see him much anymore. Still, to this day, it irritates me whenever I hear people use the word “retard” or “retarded,” especially when referring to a human being that is a part of this world too. I’d do anything to protect my siblings. Because of our living condition, I was, after all, their “Mama Bear.” It just comes to show how much I care for my family.