The New World: The Awakening. Leahann Cavanaugh

while I looked around to make sure no one saw her.

      “It’s a surprise,” she replied, still slow grinding the ring case.

      I was born October 20, 1995, and Denise was born October 19, 1992. Ever since we met freshman year, we have been inseparable. It was the first day of the second quarter and I had just moved from Atlanta with my adoptive parent. I was going through this “I don’t give a fuck” stage, and for the most part, you could read it on my face. Out of a crowd of girls and varsity jocks came the smallest yet loudest voice I had ever heard. This five-foot-one white girl came up behind me from the crowd. I just knew that voice didn’t come from that chick, I thought to myself.

      “Four dollars eighty cents,” the lunch lady said, pissed she had to fill in for someone else on her day off. I paid it with a crispy twenty-dollar bill and stepped to the side.

      “Five dollars eighty-five,” the lunch lady said to the white girl.

      “Damn, I’m a dollar short.” She reached into all her pockets and even took off her right Jordan to look for her money in her shoe.

      “Put something back then,” the lunch lady said to her.

      “Come on, Kris, let me slide. You know I’m good for it. I’ll bring the dollar tomorrow,” the white girl said as if it was a usual thing for her to be short and chickee poo to let her slide and pay her later. The lunch lady looked at me then looked at white girl and, with the most devilish look, yelled, “I said put something back!”

      I believe if I wasn’t standing there and the new kid, and the rest of the cafeteria had not heard what the lunch lady said to white girl, things would’ve happened differently. White girl looked around and saw all the faces staring back at her, expecting the unexpected. She looked at me and then back at the lunch lady. Something changed about the little, loud, outspoken white girl. For a minute I could have sworn she was black. She leaned in closer to the lunch lady and said, “Who the fuck do you think you raisin’ yo voice to? Bitch, I hop my little ass over this counter and make a real fuckin’ woman out of you.” White girl screamed as she slowly scrunched up her jeans near her thighs, preparing to leap. Damn, I thought.

      “You little midget bitch, I have my daughters come down here and fuck you up for disrespecting me,” the lunch lady threatened, still trying to demand respect.

      “Whoa! Look, here is the dollar that she owe. All this ain’t necessary.” I intervened, trying to defuse the situation.

      White girl instantly blurted out, “Good lookin’, but this broke down seven kids having by six different baby daddies, food stamp sellin’ to support yo weed habit, keep jumper cables and an extra battery for yo hoopty havin’ president of Summers Eve Fan Club smelling like spoiled crab cakes ass. Hoe wanna talk about respect. Bitch, first lesson of my life was, in order to get respect, you got to give it, and I wish you would call a couple of yo raggedy beastly-looking ass kids to come see me.”

      Damn, I thought I thought.

      “You ain’t got shit to’ do with this!” the lunch lady snapped at me as if I just spilled her beans. Before I could even respond, white girl jumped to my defense like I knew her for years.

      “Broke hoe, don’t come at her like that.” Then she started to laugh and said, “I bet yo name dimples on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, huh. Yo ‘other boss’ wanted to make sure yo name was appropriate for the cellulite that takes up 80 percent of yo body.”

      The whole cafeteria laughed.

      “This bitch so desperate she accept Chuck E. Cheese tokens for BJs so her youngin can experience the good life.” The crowd laughed even louder as tears began to roll down the lunch lady’s face while she texted rapidly on her phone.

      “This bitch so loose her last two be outside pointing at guys talkin’ ’bout bing o key lock no cross count dat’s my daddy.” At the moment I was weak, and from how she came at me, I didn’t give a fuck about her feelings. I gave dap to the little white girl that was four inches shorter than I was.

      I had long jet-black hair that was pulled into a ponytail. I wore a black baggy shirt and some baggy jeans. I always wore baggy clothes because at eleven, I had hips, tits, and ass that fit the description of a grown-ass woman, so I always kept my shit under wraps. White Girl had on a white shirt and some jeans as well.

      Just as we got the full enjoyment of our laughter, ridiculously large, beastly-looking females appeared out of nowhere and looked at the lunch lady, who all of a sudden stopped crying.

      Now in a situation like this you would think that one would realize the danger and stop laughing. Not White Girl and Lyric. I thought about what White Girl said about her kids in the beginning, and it made me laugh even harder.

      “Aww, well, well, well, if it isn’t fat Alice and her garbage pals.” White Girl ranted as if she was begging for an ass whooping. White Girl new the lunch lady was a stripper and had a pimp before. She also knew she worked three nights out of the week at her other job. White Girl also knew that she had seven kids and the youngest two had no dads. How she knew all of this, hell, I didn’t know at the time. White Girl even knew that one of her daughters went to the school because she was in the same math class as her.

      But what she didn’t know was that Lunch Lady started having kids early. By the time Lunch Lady was thirty-six, she had two seniors, a junior, a sophomore, and a freshman in high school, a second grader, and a kid in preschool. All her high school students went to that high school along with two of her nieces. White Girl also didn’t know that Lunch Lady would have graduated from UT that past summer with honors in criminal justice but had to withdraw because she ran out of financial aid.

      “Oh, you think this shit funny?” Alice said with tears in her eyes as she slowly took steps toward White Girl and me. Before I could even respond, the lunch lady yelled out, “Don’t even worry about the black girl. Get that white bitch and show her what it feels like to really get her ass whooped.” All the attention was off of me and on white girl. All nine sets of eyes. Hell, I was even lookin’ at her because I wondered if she had a trick up her sleeve or something. The whole time this stare-down popped off, the lunchroom got quiet as fuck. I’m an observant person. I can see shit before it happens in any given situation. The shit felt like we were in slow motion. You got the beastly-looking bitches to your right, Lunch Lady behind the counter, still with pride in her eyes. She just knew her babies were about to make her proud. Then you got white girl and me to your left. My back faced Lunch Lady, and White Girl was facing team Beastly. I wasn’t worried about her old ass.

      White Girl was head-on with them bitches like she was about to have a showdown with all them broads at the same time, and as she sized them up, she made noises with her mouth. The rest of the people in the cafeteria moved farther away from what looked like War World III about to take place. The whole time, White Girl had a conniving grin on her face and acted like she had everything under control. Next thing I knew, White Girl shouted the most stupid shit that I had ever heard someone throw the first punch over.

      I don’t even think Alice heard what she said. “You fat Reece’s pieces covered in baby oil, you slip ’n’ slide on garbage bags in the back—” Before White Girl could get the word yard out, Alice lunged at her with all her strength. White Girl moved out of the way at the last minute and tripped Alice. She fell to the ground embarrassed.

      “Don’t get up, that’s yo only warning,” White Girl taunted. Alice wasn’t pissed; she was furious. Soon as Alice got on her knees, White Girl took it to her face, straight little fist of fury to both eyes. Alice, not knowing what hit her, swung profusely but really wasn’t landing her punches. Alice did the worst thing you could do in any type of fight: she put her head down. White Girl really got her then. She got real creative with it. She started doing tae bo kicks to Alice’s side and smacking her in sequence while singing to herself, “I’m too legit, too legit to quit.” I don’t think she knew I could hear her, but I did.

      I was shocked. I think everybody was. I stood there with my mouth wide open in disbelief while this five-foot-one, 145-pound white chick whooped the shit