The Ladle

I am a sixteen year old jock. I play football, soccer, and baseball. I am the quarterback on the football team. People love me. The football team and anybody that knows me and talks to me will never let me live this down. I would rather be playing football right now or videogames. I would rather be anywhere else. Rather be doing anything else but this. Anything but this!

No! I can’t believe I thought that. Everything is different now. I will never think that again. I actually had a fun. I can’t believe that I had fun, but I did.

It was the fall morning November 12. The leaves were changing colors; you could hear the crisp, crunchy leaves when people walk over them. The screaming and the shouting of kids playing football, and any sport you can think of, could be heard down the street. But, of course Matt Jones couldn’t hear any of it. He could barely even hear his mom shouting downstairs. No; he didn’t want to hear his mom shouting downstairs.

“Matt! Get your butt down here. You are going to be late,” shouted my very impatient mother.

“Mom I don’t want to go! I didn’t do anything wrong!” I shouted still laying down in my bed.

“You have to go. It is your punishment. If you wouldn’t have stayed out too late, you might not have to go, but you did, so you have to go.”

She stopped talking. I know what is coming next. She does this to me all the time. In five to ten seconds, she will burst into my room, throw the covers off of me. Then when I go to reach for them again, my lovely mother will rip the covers off of my bed. It is bad that I know what she will do.

Bang. Bang. Bang. She is pounding on the door.

“Matt, get out here right now. We have to leave in 20 minutes. I told Ms. Margaret that we would be there at 10 o’clock,” still my mother shouted.

I hated to think about it. It is the weekend. Getting up before 10 o’clock, really. That is so…

“Matt, I am not kidding. Get up! Now! ”

“Okay, okay. Fine! Stop shouting,” I mumbled.

“I wouldn’t have to shout if you just got up and did what you’re supposed to do,” said my mom calmly.

I hate getting up on Saturdays. It is so stupid. Weekends are supposed to be days of sleeping in until one o’clock or even later. After that a person, including myself, watches TV and plays football. That is a normal Saturday, not getting up before ten to go help hobos at a soup kitchen.

At least breakfast was already made. The smell of cinnamon rolls and pancakes filled the kitchen. I didn’t have time to even enjoy it. I shoved two cinnamon rolls and one pancake in my mouth; I didn’t have time to eat it. As soon as I finished shoving food into my mouth, I had to throw on clothes and brush my teeth. I shouldn’t have even taken the time to get dressed. I should have gone to see hobos in my pajamas, but fine, I got dressed and got in the car.

I am a sixteen year old jock. I play football, soccer, and baseball. I am the quarterback on the football team. People love me. The football team and anybody that knows me and talks to me will never let me live this down. I would rather be playing football right now or videogames. I would rather be anywhere else, rather be doing anything else. Anything but this!

I can’t believe I that I have to do this. The car ride was so short. I wish it would have taken forever to get there. Great, we are here! Yeah!! I am so excited. Lets just get this over with.

We get to the building. The shabby looking building. It is a big brown sided building. Some of the siding was coming off. You could see the gray paint underneath the coming off siding

As we are walking to the steps, the door is opened by who I guess is Ms. Margaret Williams. She had the door open before my mom and I got to the first step. That’s … creepy. Lets just go with creepy.

“Well hello there. Good morning. I am Ms. Margaret William. I am in charge of this soup kitchen. Oh please come in, come in. I don’t want you two to freeze out there,” said Ms. Margaret.

It was cold, but it wasn’t that cold. I have played through every weather condition there is. I played through snow, rain, sunshine, you name it. I can handle a little bit of cold.

“Okay. Okay. Your name is,” pointing to my mom, “Mrs. Lisa Jones. I know you. You come down here to help out. This must be your lovely son,” she said while pointing to me now.

Anybody who knows me well enough knows I am not lovely. Well, I can be if I have to be like when I have to suck up to my teachers when I forget my homework.

“Lovely? He is far from lovely. Anyway, yes. This is my son, Matt,” pointing to me.

Why is everybody pointing to me? What am I a trial?

“Hi. Nice to meet you,” was the nicest thing I could say and that was even hard.

“Okay lets get started. To get started lets take a tour,” Ms. Margaret said happily.

Yeah! A tour how fun. Lets go on this lovely tour. This was a short tour considering it only consisted of hobos eating soup, a kitchen and a bathroom. This is sick and disgusting.

“Okay, son I will be back to pick you up at one o’clock. Have fun,” said my mom happily.

Yes. I will have tons of fun.

“Okay. Okay, follow me. Lets go to the kitchen. You can dish out this chicken, carrot, broccoli and noodle soup. It is everybody’s favorite. You will dish out a ladle of soup when the people come to the window here. Be friendly and talk to them. I will be back in a half hour to see how you are doing.” said Ms. Margaret.

Okay. Fine. I will take a lovely Saturday afternoon to give soup that doesn’t even sound and look good to hobos. Somebody is coming up to the window. Lets get ready to serve some soup.

“Hi sir, how are you?” I said.

“Just give me some soup! That is all I care about. Don’t talk to me. Just give me some soup,” said an angry, dirty looking man.

“Okay. Here is some soup. Chicken, carrot, broccoli, and noodle,” I said back angrily as I dished out the soup and the man walked away.

Tons of more people came and they all looked the same. Dirty. They were even dirtier than me when I get back from a rainy football practice. There was one man that caught my eye though. I know him. I know I know him. When he came to the soup window he was polite, nice and not mean. It looked like he tried to get as clean as he could. I saw him somewhere before, but where. When Ms. Margaret came back, I asked her about him.

“Ms. Margaret who is that man over there?” I said pointing to the man who I have been trying to figure out who he is.

“Kevin Smith. He is a regular here. He is nineteen. That is all I really know about him. Go over and talk to him. I can cover for you here while you go and talk to him.”

“I can’t. I don’t know him.” I said.

“Okay then, I will introduce you to him.”

“No. It is not necessary,” I said as we were walking over to the man.

“Kevin, this is Matt Jones. He thinks he knows you from somewhere. Matt is from Franklin Area High School. He plays football, baseball and other sports. Talk to him. Get to know him, Kevin. You might like talking to him.” said Ms. Margaret walking away.

“Franklin Area High School huh?” said Kevin.

“Yeah have you heard of it?” I said.

“Heard of it? I went there.” said Kevin matter of factly.

“Wait. You went there?”

“Yes I did. I went there in ninth, tenth, eleven and twelfth until the accident.” said Kevin.

“Until the accident, what happened?” I said worriedly, actually caring about what Kevin said.

“My parents and sister died in a car crash the middle of my senior year. I didn’t have other family in the area. Well, I had an aunt in Colorado, but I did not want to move out there, so here I am. I dropped out of school and started living on the streets, but an organization contacted me through this soup kitchen and they are trying to get me a job and a place to live. I am still getting over what happened.” said Kevin kind of dazed. I can’t blame him for being dazed. I don’t what would happen if my parents and sister died too. This guy is not much different than me. I thought they would be dirty, mean, stupid bums, but this guy is not that bad. “Wait, I know how you know me.” Said Kevin jumping when he talked.

“How do I know you?” I said intrigued.

“I was the quarterback of the football team. I led the Franklin Trojans to the championships. We won the game. I threw the winning pass the last minute of the game. I was awarded player of the year. There were two trophies. I have one and the other one is in the display case in the office.

“That’s right. I saw the trophy in the case the one day I got sent to the principal’s office.”

“Why did, that is not important and none of my business. Just don’t do whatever you did again. You seem like a nice kid. You didn’t want to come today didn’t you?” He said accusingly.

“No,” I said quietly.

“You didn’t want to come down here and serve people that weren’t has good off as you were.” Kevin said still accusingly.

“No, I didn’t. All of my friends couldn’t believe that I was coming down here. They thought it would be stupid, but they were wrong and that is what I am going to tell them. I thought that everybody down here would be grumpy old jerks who only wanted soup, but I didn’t realize that people could be…”

“You don’t have to finish, I know what you mean. I think your mom is here.” said Kevin looking at the door.

“Well, I guess I should go. Hey, why don’t you come over for dinner tomorrow? I know my mom will be okay with it. She is in to the whole helping people thing.”

“If it is okay, sure where do you live?”

After I told him where I lived and what time, I said, “Maybe we can even play some football out in the back yard and you could show me your trophy and tell me about your winning game.”

“Sure. Thanks. You know, when I dropped out of school I didn’t know what the real world would be like, my parents gave me everything and when they were gone…it was hard. I didn’t know who I would meet. So, what I am getting at is appreciate what you have done and thanks again. You are the only person that has been nice to me, besides the organization trying to find me a job, since I went out on the streets. I owe you one.”

“Thanks. You can let me beat you at a game of football. You lost your skills anyway.” I said in a sarcastic kind of way.

“You really think you can beat me. I haven’t lost any of my skills. What I went through made me stronger and a better player. I know that for sure.”

“Please. See you tomorrow at five.” I said.

“Okay. Thanks.” He said.

When I got in the car, my mom of course asked what happened. After I told her what happened and about inviting Kevin to dinner, we had to go to Giant Eagle to get food. She gets excited over the littlest things.

I am a sixteen year old jock. I play football, soccer, and baseball. I am the quarterback on the football team. People love me. The football team and anybody that knows me and talks to me will never let me live this down. I would rather be playing football right now or videogames. I would rather be anywhere else. Rather be doing anything else but this. Anything but this!

No! I can’t believe I thought that. Everything is different now. I will never think that again. I actually had a fun. I can’t believe that I had fun, but I did.



By: Danielle Tabin