Part 3 (Part 2 of Part 2)

So this section was a lot less....borderline abusive.
My goal is to make this part slightly less ... lengthy ...

Main things that happened in this section:

• For Christmas, Rex gifts all 3 of his kids stars. 
• Rose gives birth to a baby girl.
• Jeanette got into a fight. 
• Some girls convinced Jeanette to follow her and then they beat her. The next day, Jeanette followed them to the alley. When they were about to beat her up again/she was about to beat them up. Brian, her little brother, came out with a stick and started threatening them. 
• "The next day when I got to the alley, the Mexican girls were waiting for me. Before they could attack, Brian jumped out from behind a clump of sagebrush, waving a yucca branch. Brian was shorter than me and just as skinny, with freckles across his nose and sandy red hair that fell into his eyes. He wore my hand­me­down pants, which I had inherited from Lori and then passed on to him, and they were always sliding off his bony behind. "Just back off now, and everyone can walk away with all their limbs still attached," Brian said. It was another one of Dad's lines. The Mexican girls stared at him before bursting into laughter. Then they surrounded him. Brian did fairly well fending them off until the yucca branch broke. Then he disappeared beneath a flurry of swinging fists and kicking feet."
• This is the cutest thing, and it really shows how reliant the siblings are on each other. 
• (not really a main thing that happened) Police tried to pull over Rex, but instead he 'zoomed off'. 
•  a squad car tried to pull us over because the brake lights on the Green Caboose weren't working. Dad took off. He said that if the cops stopped us, they'd find out that we had no registration or insurance and that the license plate had been taken off another car, and they'd arrest us all. 
• This shows how irresponsible these parents are. By running away from the cops, what example is this setting for the kids. It's almost as they are encouraging it. "Hey Kids, when cops chase you ALWAYS outrun them." BUT at the same time, I feel that he is protecting his family, and I find that very paternal of him. While he isn't doing the right thing, once again I am making excuses for characters he is at least doing it for his family, not just for himself. 
• The kids actually enrolled in school. They made friends. They were happy.
• Not that these kids were unhappy before, but now they have other kids to play with. They have a learning environment. I personally was so happy as they got new friends and started school. I think that it is very important for them to do something other than stay with others. Since they are young they need to develop social skills. 
• Jeanette and Brian set their 'lab' on fire.
• "Toxic and hazardous wastes were stored in another corner of the dump, where you could find old batteries, oil drums, paint cans, and bottles with skulls and crossbones. Brian and I decided some of this stuff would make for a neat scientific experiment, so we filled up a couple of boxes with different bottles and jars and took them to an abandoned shed we named our laboratory. At first we mixed things together, hoping they would explode, but nothing happened, so I decided we should conduct an experiment to see if any of the stuff was flammable. The next day after school we came back to the laboratory with a box of Dad's matches. We unscrewed the lids of some of the jars, and I dropped in matches, but still nothing happened. So we mixed up a batch of what Brian called nuclear fuel, pouring different liquids into a can. When I tossed in the match, a cone of flame shot up with a whoosh like a jet afterburner. "
• There is a fine line between dangerous and freedom. Rose and Rex believe that they kids shouldn't have rules (other than no back sassing), but some of the stuff that they do borderlines on really dangerous. These kids were playing with TOXIC wastes. TOXIC!! "No worries let's just let our kids play with toxic wastes and fire...great combination, Don't you think so, Honey?" This does show that these kids are independent and creative. They don't need anything storebought to have fun, which is a great character trait. Then again, I feel that maybe at this point these children would understand the fine line between fun and dangerous. Maybe the parents should enforce safe boundaries. Not really boundaries, just lessons about what is safe.