It’s about a week later. You are serving dinner and you
overhear some children teasing Rinaldo. “Hey, man, which end is up?” laughs one.
“I guess if you pet teacher, you get to be teacher’s pet,” says another.
“How come Tom gets all the goodies.” he goes on, “ain’t you gonna save
one little mouthful for me?” The other foster parent, your mate, doesn’t hear
the conversation, or ignores what is going on.
In the middle of it, Rinaldo gets up, sees you, blushes, and says
he has to go to the bathroom. You accompany him and wait outside. Inside you
can hear
Rinaldo saying, “Screw them! I know what I got to do to survive!”