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In the book Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes, many different characters have their own stories, like how the character Tyrone Bittings goes from thinking almost everyone in school is exactly like they look, to figuring out that almost everyone has their own story and their exterior doesn’t represent them at all. Standing out among all of these, is the character Porscha Johnson. Porscha is viewed a bully by most people. For example, in Leslie’s first chapter, she says “Porscha Johnson has the reputation for being a little touched in the head. In freshmen year, she’d beaten the snot out of a girl who’d pushed her too far.” “Everybody had pretty much steered clear of her since then”(pg. 52). Leslie knew who Porscha was based solely on reputation. Later on the same chapter, we find out that both Leslie and Porscha have deceased mothers, and Leslie starts to think she and Porscha aren’t that different after all. Later in the book, we find out the whole story on why Porscha “beat the snot” out of a girl. “It’s amazing how easy it is to get a bad reputation. My whole life, I ran around letting people pick on me, laughing it off when they teased me, fast-talking my way out of fights. They’d call me Four eyes, or stuck-up, or Miss Bug-eyed Bookworm, and I’d pretend their words were water and let them roll off my back. Now I’m nobody’s duck, and their words sting a whole lot more than water. But I held my temper. It took a bully nine straight months of riding me to cause my thermometer to boil, and once I lost it, did anybody blame it on the bully? No. They start calling me crazy.” (pg. 158). Porscha started out presenting herself as a punching bag that would keep on taking punches, everything from being called names to having family die, but the first time she takes action she’s the one getting called the crazy one. Even after her encounter with Leslie, where they connected, the general population of the school still doesn’t get her. Connecting this to one of my personal experiences, when I was in Elementary School, at recess I would always get picked on by the bully. One time I lashed out and threw a jump rope at him, and instead of him getting in trouble after ADMITTING that he had been calling me names this whole time, I got in trouble for striking back. Just like Porscha said, It’s amazing how easy it is to get a bad reputation.

INTO JAPANESE

本日記・ グリムスでブロンクスの仮面舞踏会で多くの異なる文字があるタイロン Bittings 行く学校のほぼ全員を考えてから文字はまったく同じように外観は、ほぼ誰もが自分の物語を把握する方法のような独自のストーリーとその外観はそれらを全然表さない。これらのすべての中でも際立って私

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Tyrone Bittings this diary, grims Bronx masquerade by many different characters in the school's nearly everyone from characters are exactly the same appearance unique stories such as how almost anyone to figure out their stories and their appearance they at all do not represent.