Free Love Trumps Game by D.Y. Phillips Page B

missed a week of school. Hattie couldn’t see them missing another one. The school they attended was quite a distance away, but if she had to, she’d take them.
    â€œI like school,” Raynita announced, playing with the new doll she picked. “I wanna see my friends.”
    â€œI hate school.” Brandon tossed his toy into the shopping cart. “It takes too long and it’s stupid. Gangstas don’t haft to go to school.”
    â€œBoy, stop talking crazy before I pop you upside the head.”
    â€œNanny, that’s child abuse. I’ll call nine-one-one.”
    â€œBrandon, hush up.”
    Shopping done, Hattie got in line to pay for her items before proceeding to the store’s main exit. “Let’s go home and have some lunch. Y’all hungry?”
    Raynita asked, “Can we stop at McDonald’s? Please, Nanny, please.”
    â€œPlease nothing, and no, we can’t. We have food at the house.” Hattie smiled down at the two, who seemed happy with their selections. Brandon had chosen some kind of plastic gun that worked with rubber darts, after promising that he wouldn’t aim it at his sister’s face. Raynita was still going on about the fancy-dressed Barbie she picked. Look at ’em, Hattie thought with pride swelling. They really are good kids. They just need more love, guidance and attention.
    â€œI have five Barbie dolls now, Nanny.”
    â€œThat’s nice, sweetie,” said Hattie, waiting for the door clerk to check her receipt. This Lakewood location was the only Walmart she knew that checked the receipts of the blacks and Latinos as they exited the building.
    â€œThank you, Nanny.”
    â€œYou welcome, sweetie.” Hattie handed the receipt over and waited for the clerk to mark it with a yellow highlighter. “Have a nice day.” Finally they were on their way home. She couldn’t wait to get out of her hot go-to-church dress and relax. The second she stepped through the door scanner it sounded off. The clerk was right behind her, asking her to please step to the side.
    â€œWhat? What’s wrong?” Hattie asked, perplexed. Instant embarrassment flooded her senses. She shopped at Walmart all the time, but had never been stopped after having her receipt checked.
    â€œIt’s probably nothing, ma’am.” The clerk asked to see herreceipt again, then looked through her bags to re-check her purchases. “Sometimes the cashier forgets to deactivate the anti-theft tag. You don’t mind if I take a look in your purse, do you?”
    â€œWhy would you need to do that?” Hattie asked, making a face. This was the first time that she’d ever experienced something like this. “Sure,” she said, opening her purse up for inspection.
    The fat, brown clerk was still looking for something when a pink-faced man walked up and identified himself as store security, then instructed Hattie to follow him to the back. Feeling like some convicted criminal from America’s Most Wanted, Hattie wanted to hide her face from the shoppers that stopped to watch them. She had never felt so embarrassed in her life. If they didn’t find something to justify being treated this way, she’d get a lawyer and sue. They had a lot of nerve, treating decent church folks this way.
    â€œWhy? What’s going on? I paid for my items.” Regardless, Hattie did what she was told and followed the casually dressed man to a back room where she and the children were asked to remove everything from their pockets and purse. “I don’t understand what all this is about. I hope you don’t treat all your customers like this.” Now that she thought about it, she’d seen that same man several times in the same aisles with them, pretending to be a shopper.
    â€œThere? Satisfied?” All their belongings were laid out on a big wooden table where two store security personnel stood waiting for