Read Rebels (John Bates) for Free Online

through my mind as I continue to hear the bantering of the State representative, who, might I add, is wearing very costly apparel and was driven to the church in an air-conditioned car. How do I know this? Well, simply by the fact that when he stepped out of his car his windows were still rolled up, which no one would do on such a hot, blistering day even if they did happen to have a car to drive in the first place!
     
    When the propaganda speeches conclude, I get ice cream with the rest of them. I see Stephanie Jenkins standing near the door; she eats her ice cream slowly. I think she is trying to leave with hers in order to take it home for her little brothers and sisters.
     
    I walk casually over to her. “How is it going, Stephanie?” I ask.
     
    “Not good, John, not good at all. The little ones are so hungry, all they do is cry. Mark brought some things home from lunch, but it wasn’t enough. I don’t know how to get them to bed tonight with them being as hungry as they are. They don’t understand. But how can we make them understand, how does someone so young understand hunger?”
     
    I put my arm around her and walk her quietly and quickly to the front door. We are not supposed to leave with our ice cream. What we don’t finish is supposed to stay here, but I know no one will question me. So when no one is looking, I scrape mine out of my dish and into hers and send her through the doorway and on her way home. I put my disposable bowl in the trash and start my own trek home, grateful to be away.
     
    Away from the continuous lies we are bombarded with, I wonder how this great nation had gone backwards and why the people don’t fight back! I feel anger building within my breast, and so I take a few deep breaths to relax myself before the watch, which is always monitoring, responds to my increased heart rate. Though the watch can do a lot of things, it still does not have the capacity to read our minds, though I would not be surprised if the State were working on such a device.
     
    I am most of the way home when Sean, Lane, Frank, and Jackson catch up to me.
     
    “Hey, man, what have you been doing with yourself?” Frank asks me.
     
    “Not much, just staying in shape, doing homework, you know how it is,” I answer.
     
    “Really? Because I heard that you handled three of the toughest cadets in the Young Army single-handedly!”
     
    “Well, we had a new program from the State, and we tried it out today. I guess I was kind of lucky.” I can’t believe it has gotten out so fast, but what do you expect when you are the best in your group and people have a tendency to over exaggerate.
     
    “Oh, man, all work and no play makes you a very dull boy, John,” Sean says. “This weekend, Sandra is having a party at her house you need to come; it’s going to be the best.”
     
    “Okay, sounds like fun,” I say, stopping in front of my house.
     
    “John Hancock Bates, get in here now,” my mother’s voice rings through the night air. “John Hancock Bates, get in this house, your father wants to have a word with you, mister!”
     
    “John Hancock? Ha, ha, put your John Hancock here,” Lane says, pointing to his hand and pretending it is a piece of paper. The others join in on the joke, but they seem unsure as to why it is funny. At first, I think I should put my John Hancock on his face, now he has caused me to be late and in trouble. But I know if I do my parents would be even more upset with me. Either way, his remarks don’t bother me; I am surprised he actually knows the saying. Only older adults know it nowadays, but even they don’t really know how the saying started.
     
    I am named John Hancock after John Hancock, the original signer of the Constitution of the United States of America; he wrote his name on the Constitution with very big letters so “the King of England would not have to put his glasses on to read it.” John put his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor on the line