Before I Turned Twelve

(Jem in 1st POV - Ending of Ch 11, Part One of TKAM)

Atticus told me, Jeremy Atticus Finch, the very last bit of news I'd ever hear about crazy old Mrs. Dubose. He was saying that she took these drugs, no surprise of her hostility towards me and Scout. He was saying that no matter what happened, I would've sacrificed my afternoons reading to her anyways. He also said Mrs. Dubose died free, in light of his actions before giving me a box fixed by her Negro girl for me.

Especially for me.

I spared a moment to examine the candy box, thinking hysterically it might've had an apology note for my time wasted inside of it. Maybe it had candy instead, as a reward for all the breaths of life I've wasted to read to her (after all, wasn't I given a candy box?). Or nothing, because this was the same old woman who had ruined by ending months of age eleven by spiting me and my family.

As soon as I opened the mysterious box, my senses have been set ablaze with fury. It contained the familiar flower, the taunting perfection to the camellia bushes I had ruined literally a life ago. My irrational actions have been reminded even after Mrs. Dubose's death as the scene of me ruining her front yard played over and over again.

Did she really hate or have become fond of me after all we've been through? Either way, I didn't care if my babysister was all ears as I started screeching to Heaven's opposite. "Old hell-devil! Old hell-devil!" Unconsciously, I had the box and snow white flower kiss the floor without passion. The insults, my pent-up anger and actions from before that lead me to now have bombed with the rest of my words, my tone of guilt and denial. "Why can't she leave me alone?"

I sobbed myself into my father's shirt, letting him soothe my weak emotions away like everything would be okay until he mentioned the crazy bat being a great lady. "A lady?" With blood tinted cheeks, I looked up at Atticus in puzzlement. Although she were female, she didn't act a fraction of a lady at all. I questioned, "After all those things she said about you, a lady?" Atticus wasn't making sense, he was praising the woman who spat on his means.

Through Atticus I learned Mrs. Dubose had her unique point of view, that I still would've read for her. That real courage was more than a man wielding a gun and how she was the woman was the bravest person he's known for seeing through her illness. I was too tired to bark back at him for these important things in life I was blind to. Finally I knew, after the woman's own death.

This still wasn't one of those 'you don't know what you have until you lose it' lesson, so I released my grip from Atticus' shirt to let the box burn in the fireplace's flames. It could rot in its own hell, like the morphine that probably spoke instead of Mrs. Dubose herself. The 'great lady' could be remembered forever though as I gently picked up the camellia.

Without bidding a proper good night to Atticus or Scout, I walked to my room to lament for the rest of the night. My fingers traced the soft and snowy colored petals during my thoughts about Mrs. Dubose, my past mistakes and other related things. My mind and body were becoming unfamiliar as the days passed. I wanted to adjust, so I needed to change.

This is what I decided before I turned twelve.

disclaimer: plot & char derived from To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Would've gotten full points for this Reflective Self-Creative Assignment back in September/October 2009, if I included a justification. ):