September 1, 1994

Today Shirley let me and Philip go outside after lessons and we sit in the grass. Philip say “Let’s play a game” I say “I don’t know any games” He say “I’ll teach you” But I don’t want to so we just sit there and talk.

I say “Where your mama and daddy Philip.”

Philip look like he don’t know what to say but then he say “I don’t know.”

I say “Me either.” I wonder if they take all children to this place who don’t know where their mama and daddies are. But if that true why they take daddy away from me?

“Do they take your daddy too?” I ask Philip.

Philip look at me like he don’t know why I said that. “No” he say “I just don’t know where he is, never have, maybe he died.”

“They take your mama then?”

“No she left me in the house. She come back once in a while but then stopped coming and they came and got me. They tell me I have to stay here. I can’t go to school anymore either.”

“Where school at?”

Philip look at me he look strange. “Didn’t you go to school Mercy” he ask.

I don’t know if I should say yes or no because which is right answer? I remember school a little because mama use to argue with daddy about it but I don’t know if it a place or not. Daddy use to say “she know enough already, she smart enough, girl only need to know how to write and read a little anyway.”

“What is school” I ask Philip.

“It’s like the room where we have lessons at only more kids than just us and different teachers sometimes.”

“Oh” I say. I wonder why daddy argue so much about it with mama if it just something like that. Why he want to keep me in the house all the time.

Philip looking at me like I’m dumb but I show him my diary and say “I’m not dumb, I can write.”

Philip open it look at the pages and laugh. “You spelled my name wrong” he say. “You spelled it like Fill-Up.”

“That not how you spell it?” I say.

“No, it’s like this.” He take my pencil and draw out the letters in neat print under my words. P-H-I-L-I-P.

Now I laugh because that look so funny. “That sound like Pill-Lip” I say.

He laugh too but he say that’s how it spelled.

So now I spell Philip name right but every time it still look strange to me.