Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry: Conflicts

Cassie and her brothers have to overcome many obstacles. Since they were growing up during a time where people were prejudice, they had more things to worry about. They had to do things differently than how other people did them. Even the simplest of things were complicated for them.

The Logan kids had to walk to and from school every single day because the county didn’t provide a school bus. That took two hours out of their day so they had to wake up earlier than others just to be there on time. Jefferson Davis Elementary (the school that only white kids got to learn at) had a school bus. The kids would get picked up from home and the bus would pass kids that walked the same way that they were going. They would usually harass walkers. The walkers, like Cassie and her brothers knew that it wasn’t fair for them to have a bus when they didn’t. On rainy days, they would have to walk with animals skins over their heads to keep them dry. Since the Jefferson Davis School bus passed them on the route, the bus driver would purposely drive through puddles to get them wet and muddy. The bus driver would do this whenever it rained, which angered Cassie and her brothers. The kids on the bus would just look out their windows and laugh at the kids that were walking. Finally, they had enough. Stacey, Cassie’s older brother had an idea. He told both of his brothers and sister to skip lunch for a day to go through the route and and set their trap. At first, the little brothers disagreed because they didn’t want to miss lunch, but if it meant saving themselves from getting soaked with water and caked with mud, they agreed without saying a word. They took shovels and buckets out of the school shed and brought them down to the big puddles. They were getting down and dirty. They started digging until a puddle was as big as a pond.They dug the hole deep and wide. It was filled with water. At the end of the day, when they were on their way home, they heard the roar of the school bus heading their way. When it got close, they quickly jumped into the bank to save themselves from getting soaked. They got wet, but not as wet as they would be if they didn’t get out of the way. The bus drove fast towards the hole, but then slowed down before it got to it. Then it suddenly stopped. The bus had one wheel up in the air and the other deep in the muddy hole. The bus was stuck! Everyone in the bus got out to see what happened. The Logan kids flattened themselves in the bank. They were laughing silently with delight. They had finally gotten their revenge. They wouldn’t have to worry about the bus anymore. They found out that it would take about two weeks to fix it so, the kids of Great Faith had to walk to school.

If I were Cassie, I think I would have done the same thing. It’s not fair that Jefferson Davis Elementary has a school bus because the school of board directed both of the schools. I definitely would do something if the bus driver especially, embarassed me on purpose more than once. Jefferson Davis has bigger and better things than Great Faith, but they did not have to be mean about it. To me, that is just unacceptable behavior and I would have written a strongly worded letter in complaint.