Hopscotch Day!
Today, because your father is addicted to drugs, you're going to play a round of hopscotch and you're going to throw it, you understand? In the third. You're gonna tumble and you're gonna skin your knee and you're gonna run away crying like a sissy. The kids will all laugh, thinking you went home to your Mama. They won't know your mother's in the mental hospital. And they sure won't know your father is addicted to drugs and that he's waiting for you to bring home some money. They won't know anything about you, except that you skinned your knee and took off running.
You got to make these kids believe you ain't shit. So when you drop ten, they'll meet it. And when you grab the ten and drop twenty, they'll remember the skinned knee and they'll think it's a fluke and they'll meet it. And when you grab their twenty and you throw down fifty bucks, they ain't gonna be shit unless they meet it. And that's when you dance through those squares like every tap of your sneaker on the concrete would bring your Mama a little closer to coming home. That's when you show the whole playground what grace is all about. Then you dance on home to give your father money to buy drugs.
Note: Since your father is addicted to drugs, he won't like the waiting part of this plan. You have to explain to him that this is the only way it's to be done. You have to tell him he can choose to get high once this afternoon and never again, or he can get ten times as high for ten times as long if he just waits a little bit. He'll choose once this afternoon, but tell him no and run before he takes a swing.
Happy Hopscotch Day!