PENNY'S POV

"Penny Lou Pingleton, you deliberately disobeyed me! I forbade you from ever seeing that vile black boy ever again and what did you do? You saw him behind my back anyway!" My mother slapped me hard.

"But Mother-" I interjected half-heartedly, knowing that it would do no good.

"And for that, you are to stay here with no meals for a week!" she tied the last knot in the jump rope, securing me to my bed. Again. "You are never going to see that filthy black boy again, do you hear me? You are no daughter of mine!" she laughed in my face while I fought to maintain my composure. "Gallavanting off with colored people, listening to race music, dancing on live television?!...oh, where did I go wrong with you?" She continued to rant, but my thoughts drifted to the boy that I was completely in love with: Seaweed Stubbs, the boy my mother hated. The one she called filthy and vile. His face appeared in my thoughts, smiling warmly at me, and I didn't hear the rest of what my mother said. I only know that by the time she stormed out of my room, she had disowned me. She slammed and locked the door behind her.

As soon as she was out of earshot, fat, hot tears began to slide down my face. It had never been this bad before...

I stayed there, locked up and tied up in my own room, like a prisoner, with no food and no water, for two days.