Question

Billy Russet asked me the same question every single day of our sixth grade year. Didn't matter if the weather was cold or hot, if the teacher was in a good mood or mean, or if I was in my prettiest dress or ugliest, most worn-out clothes.

"Say, Donna, what's the worst thing you've ever done?"

I don't know if he was expecting me to try to out-do myself each day, maybe come up with a better "worst thing" as often as possible. Or maybe this was some kind of convoluted flirting. Or better yet, maybe his mind was wired differently than everybody else's brain.

I had heard rumours, from the other kids, about Billy's Dad. And how his Mom wasn't in the picture and he didn't know where she was or when she'd ever be back. Stuff like that has got to hurt. Maybe he wanted to know how bad other people were just to put his own life in perspective.

Funny how I thought about Billy today. Maybe because the headline in the paper talks about some lunatic who got jail time for setting puppies on fire. I mean, who sets puppies on fire? You've got to be some twisted kind of you-know-what to do something like that. It definitely qualifies as a "worst thing."

Or maybe, the guy is Billy.

No, the paper named him Jack.

I think I'll go back to eating my boring breakfast and thinking about people for whom a "worst thing" is running with scissors or borrowing your Dad's car and forgetting to put gas in.

That's a good one for today.