Life in East St. Louis

Every night my mom tells my brothers and sisters and I stories about Princesses and Princes that get to live in big fancy houses and have lots of nice clothes and toys and they even have three meals a day! Can you imagine that? I like to hear these stories but it’s really hard for me to imagine living like that. I live in East St.Louis, one of the poorest cities in America. Every day I wake up and go to school, I don’t think I have ever had breakfast like the princesses in my mom’s stories do, our family doesn’t have enough money.
I walk to school every day with my siblings in my friends. We see cars driving by but I don’t know anyone that actually owns one. I like school, my teacher is really nice. Sometimes though I get really bored in class because there aren’t enough books and we have to take turns looking at them and most of the time they don’t have all the pages. I am also trying to learn the different colors but our teacher says it’s hard to find pages with the colors on them, I guess I’ll learn them someday. I want to learn things at school and read but it seems like there just isn’t a way so I get frustrated. I’ve had lots of different teachers at school they are all very nice but none of them stay very long. I understand why they leave; no one wants to stay in East St. Louis if they have a way out.
After school we all walk home together. My mom is always at home waiting for us, she doesn’t have a job. Mom says if I learn everything I can get a job and leave East St. Louis. My mom didn’t finish school because she had us and that why we still live here. I can’t ever remember her having one. It’s ok though because we live by the train tracks and when the train tips over the chemical companies give us money. I get sick a lot, mom says it’s because there are things that are bad for me in the air and on the ground, even sometimes in our house. When I get sick mom says I have to stay home from school. I don’t like being at home, there isn’t anything to do and it smells, I think it’s because we have to throw all of our garbage in the back yard. My mom usually finds something for us to eat for dinner but I still always feel hungry. After dinner I play with my friends outside, we don’t really have anywhere to play but we still have fun together.
Maybe someday if I try to learn all the things at school I can get a job and move away from here. Hopefully I get to have nice things and live like the princesses my mom tells me about. Until then though I’ll to the room my siblings and I share and go to bed to get ready for school tomorrow.