Chapter 3

After going back to school, I reloaded the 15 dollars into my student meal card. My deskmate, Leroy Harmon, leaned over and glanced at it.

"Are you sure you didn't miss putting another '0' at the end?" he asked in surprise.

I put my card away and shook my head. "No."

"Dude, how are you supposed to survive on 15 dollars a week?"

"I still have food at the dorm," I lied. But actually, I only had half a stale granola bar left inside my shelf.

That night, Daryl treated his classmates to a birthday pizza party with all the sides. He posted all the photos of the massive spread on his social media account, complete with a birthday cake from a famous bakery.

The caption read, "I got super lucky this week! Thank you, lottery gods!"

The post was then filled with birthday wishes and envy from his other friends and classmates. Someone even asked him how he managed to always win so much money in the lottery every time, and Daryl replied, "Maybe it's because I'm kind and generous?"

I stared at it for a long time and finally turned off the phone.

The next day, I bought two waffles from the school cafeteria. I planned to eat one for lunch and the other for dinner.

While walking past Daryl's classroom on the way back to mine, I saw him tossing an almost-full cup of soda into the trash.

"Yuck. That's just too sweet for me."

The classmates around him made fun of him for wasting the soda, but Daryl just waved his hand in the air nonchalantly and said, "It's fine. I'll have more money next week anyway."

I lowered my head and hurried past them. Suddenly, he called out to me.

"Dustin!"

Daryl rushed up to me and stuffed a paper bag into my hands. "I nearly forgot to give this to you."

I opened the paper bag and saw a box of half-eaten cream cakes. The cream had already melted and stuck horribly to the packaging.

"I couldn't finish the cakes, but I thought it was a waste to throw them away. You can have them instead."

Then, he went back to his friends, leaving me rooted to the ground.

I'd only just had some dry cereal with free fountain water all day today, and my stomach was growling loudly in hunger. However, I suddenly lost all my appetite.

In the end, I just left the melted cake on the bench in the school hallways.

I had gym class in the afternoon. While running the second round around the track, I suddenly saw double and heard the gym teacher's whistle as if I were underwater. Everything was woozy.

I tried to stop, but my legs wouldn't listen. Then, I tripped over my feet and fell heavily to the ground.

When I woke up again, I realized that I was lying in the school infirmary. Leroy was sitting next to me with a warm glass of glucose water in his hand.

"The school nurse said that you had low glucose levels and were quite malnourished," he said, holding the straw out for me. "You barely ate anything today too, didn't you?"

I didn't answer him. The school nurse, Mr. Earl Murray, told me to call my parents.

The first thing Dad said when he learned of my situation was, "How much is it to use the school infirmary?"

Mr. Murray was stunned. "We gave him some glucose water after a quick body checkup. It's only 20 dollars after subsidy."

Dad heaved a sigh of relief. "Fine. We'll just deduct it from his allowance next week."

I heard every word he said as I lay in the infirmary bed. Mr. Murray glanced at me and frowned.

"Mr. Gray, you know that your child's growth and development will be severely affected if he keeps going hungry like this, don't you? He's going to be sitting for his exams soon. His nutrition can't be taken lightly."

"Don't listen to him acting all pitiful with you," Dad said with a loud chuckle. "He gets the same allowance as Daryl every week. How could Daryl just be fine? Dustin's just picky and squandering his money elsewhere."

I opened my mouth.

"We don't get the same allowance every week," I said, struggling to sit up. The other end of the phone went silent at once.

"Daryl got 300 dollars this week. I only got 15."

Leroy and Mr. Murray both looked at me at the same time.

Dad's voice turned cold and hard. "Dustin Gray! What's the point of taking your family affairs to school? Mr. Murray, don't listen to his bullshit and just let him rest for a while. There's nothing wrong with letting him go hungry once in a while. He needs to stop acting like a spoiled brat."

Then, Dad hung up.

The infirmary was so silent that I could only hear the fan blades whirring above us.

Leroy was the first to break the silence.

"How dare he say that you were getting the same amount? There's such a huge difference between 300 dollars and 15 dollars!"

In the end, Mr. Murray didn't ask me to pay and even gave me two granola bars. I held the bars shakily in my hand and asked quietly, "How much are the bars, Mr. Murray? I'll pay you back when I have the money."

Mr. Murray sighed.

"It's for you. You don't have to pay me back."

I lowered my head and took another sip of my glucose drink.

It was extremely sweet—so sweet that I felt my nose tingling with tears.