This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2021 by Mahogany L. Browne
Cover art copyright © 2021 by Kgabo “Saint Rose” Mametja
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Crown Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Browne, Mahogany L., author.
Title: Chlorine sky / Mahogany L. Browne.
Description: First edition. | New York: Crown Books for Young Readers,
[2021] | Audience: Ages 14+. | Audience: Grades 10–12. | Summary: Picked on at home, criticized for talking trash while beating boys at basketball, and always seen as less than her best friend, a girl struggles to like and accept herself.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020035685 (print) | LCCN 2020035686 (ebook) | ISBN 978-0-593-17639-9 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-0-593-17640-5 (library binding) | ISBN 978-0-593-17641-2 (ebook)
Subjects: CYAC: Novels in verse. | Self-esteem—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Sisters—Fiction. | Basketball—Fiction. | Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. | African Americans—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.5.B774 Chl 2021 (print) | LCC PZ7.5.B774 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23
Ebook ISBN 9780593176412
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Me & Lay LI Ain’t Talking
& This Is Why I Think
& Lay LI Stay Grinning
Lay LI the Sun
Like That Time We Skipped School
Lay LI Smile at Curtis
Okay, So Boom. This Is How Lay LI & I Met.
Two Years Later & Lay LI Bathing Suit
I Put a T-shirt on Top
Basketball Drills #1
After My Drills
I Can’t Imagine
Don’t Nobody Want to Call It
On the Way to My House
Lay LI Laughs
I Move
Snitches
A Week Later
The Next Day at School
Basketball Drills #2
On the Weekend, I Go to the Mall with Essa & Inga
We Pull into the Parking Lot
She Points to the Group
My First Time Out with Clifton
The Rules Are Easy
So, When Clifton Asks to Use the Bathroom
Here I Go
Shawn Wants to Know About Curtis
But Curtis Let It Be Everybody’s Business
I Ain’t Never Been Good at Lying
Anyways, Like I Was Saying
But I Know Bad Game When I Hear It
When Kids Have
After Fourth Grade
My Big Cousin Inga Asks Me
So, When Clifton Says
Past the Bleachers
She Looks Me Hard in My Eyes
Will Never Be the Same
There Is a Rumor Going Around
I Figure It’s the Rumor
When a Rumor Hit the Wind
Have You Ever Started a Rumor?
When I’m on the Basketball Court
It’s Too Hot to Think About Thinking
The Asphalt Is Hot on My Sneakers
Tyrone Mad Cause It’s True
I’m Still Mad
I Don’t Realize I’m on the Porch of Lay Li’s House
I Finally Stand Up
I Just Want to Tell Lay LI
Lay LI Got a Way
Lay LI Says Google Makes
Now, When I Get a Chance to Have My First Kiss
Stories
Stories Like the Boys
Stories Like the Ones We Heard About Angel
Stories About Angel’s Mama
Stories Can Change Who You Are to Yourself
But I Think My Story About My First Kiss
The Thing
In the Closet I Sit & Wait for Adrian
Too
Here Come the Senior Boys
Remember When?
Remember When I Didn’t Have the Answer?
Remember When Lay LI Said
I Remember When It All Changed
Here Come the Valley High Boys
After the Ball Game, I Realize
Basketball Drills #3
Clifton & I Fall Off
At the Purnell Community Center
You Two Are Nothing Alike
Selfies Be Like
Kiyana Calls One of Them Kids
After We Leave
On the Corner
Because I Ain’t Dipped
Lay LI Doesn’t Notice My Shorts
Lay LI Opens Her Mouth & a Story I Ain’t Never Want to Hear
The Thing About the Truth
I Should’ve Known
Her Eyes Then Fixed
Like the Time
Lay Li’s Hands Speak a Language Too
It’s Finally Saturday
I Just Want to Hoop
Ain’t No More Playing Small
Tyrone Sees Me First
Today on the Court
About Friday Night
After a Pickup Game
The Next Morning
All the Things People Say to Me & About Me
Damn!
Inga Says
Sky Says
Acknowledgments
About the Author
to my grandmothers: thank you for teaching me kindness
to my younger self: you deserve, you deserve, you deserve
to my daughter: you are the most beautiful poem i’ve ever written
ME & LAY LI AIN’T TALKING
cause she think she cute
cause she think I ain’t.
Must be pretty boy Curtis
all in her head
all in her mouth
making her forget
her home training.
Making her forget
her daddy got a gun for a li
ving.
& her mama gone.
& THIS IS WHY I THINK
she ain’t got no sense, nohow.
Cause ain’t nobody but fast girls
checking for Curtis.
& he keep her name close
& she don’t come home
the same way no more.
She must think she cute!
Must think I ain’t!
Like she ZendayaSkaiStormMeganNickiBeyoncé or something
Like she long curly hair movie star perfect
Like she perfect pink nail salon pop queen perfect
Like she all new Macy’s rack & Adidas shell toe perfect
Like she glossy magazine cover most beautiful girl perfect
Like she ain’t never had a bad day in the sun perfect
Like she ain’t never had a bad picture kind of perfect
Like she got a life don’t nobody judge cause she’s so perfect
I mean,
look how she keep me waiting like
I’m supposed to wait on Curtis
or something
& I hate his light-skinned self!
Especially because he ain’t as funny
as he think.
Especially when he calls me black
& ugly & stupid!
& LAY LI STAY GRINNING
like he the sun
like we ain’t friends
they boyfriends see Lay Li
It’s like they see the best parts of they favorite movie
& they favorite movie got they favorite soundtrack
& they favorite soundtrack make them feel strong
& they swing they arms around & show off to whoever is looking
I mean, sometimes I get caught looking but I ain’t got n o t h i n g to say
Not Lay Li
She act like she never lookin’
She must think she cute
But she ain’t just cute
Lay Li pretty
& they boyfriends at the skate rink
forget they home training around her.
So when Curtis say the things
I’ve already said about myself
& she laugh
I know deep down inside
she ain’t never care about me at all.
LAY LI THE SUN
& she called me best friend
Called me smart
Called me her ace
Called me her right-hand sis
Lay Li called me my name
Ain’t never call me nothing but my name
When everyone else call me nothing
She say best friend—like sis-patna-friend & she laugh bright bright
Because Lay Li the sun
now I know she just said them lies
to keep my shadow
all up & around her sunshine smile
LIKE THAT TIME WE SKIPPED SCHOOL
for the pool party
& all the girls wear bikinis
but I got my one-piece on
with a white T-shirt on top.
& the boys just looking
like they mama ain’t taught them nothing worth knowing.
Lay Li got that good hair
so she don’t care if it’s wet & loose.
But my hair ain’t close to being good
so I keep it in a real real real tight ponytail
until the sun get so hot
I jump in & cool my sadness down.
It’s like I already know.
So I let my shoulders sink low
like my heart be
& I watch Lay Li
how she walks & everybody stops
& I’m trying to learn
how to walk in a room & turn their heads
how to move in a crowd & be the light
how to keep a boy’s interest
but not just any boy
a boy who remembers my name
maybe a cute one with long eyelashes
& gentle hands
the kind of hands that keep to themselves
how to keep my sister, Essa, from talking bad to me
my older sister tell you “don’t mess up my name,”
she go so far to move her mouth & show her perfect white teeth
it’s “EEEEEE-SaaHHHH like mantra, like a prayer”
how to move through the world
standing tall & demanding to be named properly
how to be more than a baller
how to be someone that keep ’em guessing
how to stop stressing because ain’t nobody
got time for the kind of shade I got
but everybody got time for some
s u n
LAY LI SMILE AT CURTIS
& he only a little bit cute
but he ain’t funny or smart
so that’s how I know her grin is a lie.
& I pretend I don’t hear his slur
I pretend I don’t see his hazel eyes
when he say “lose her ugly black ass”
& Lay Li laugh.
Laugh like a knife in the back or laugh hysterical like the girl running from the scary man in a hockey mask or laugh like kids being followed around the mall by security or laugh like I do when my sister, Essa, makes me the butt of the joke. See I laugh & laugh & laugh & laugh &
she say “Shut up, Curtis”
but it sounds like “Come here.”
I dunk my head underwater slow
& wait
just wait
I wait even longer
for her to say a n y t h i n g like:
“don’t talk about my friend, I don’t care how pretty your eyes is!”
But she just say “shut up”
& she l a u g h
the kind of laugh that make me forget
we even friends
the kind of laugh that make me forget
we even
& I think
I could stay here
where it’s all a blurry aqua blue,
I think
I could stay here
where my eyes
don’t hurt as much
& it don’t feel
like I’ve been looking at the sun
all day l o n g.
OKAY, SO BOOM. THIS IS HOW LAY LI & I MET.
At the end of summer, when we ready to head into the first semester of freshman year, I got a problem
with the boys who keep slapping the water. Tyrone & Adam slap the water at me
when I swim by them. Because everybody knows I’m better than them on the basketball court.
Still, I keep calm. I play cool. I see a girl at the edge of the pool. Red swimsuit & long wavy ponytail.
Her right eyebrow lifted skylike: She ready for the joke. But she ain’t laughing.
The boys slap the water. I swim under the current. I head to her side of the pool.
& so do they. They slap the water but her mouth ain’t like mine. It ain’t closed
lock-like & tight, until I’m on the court with a nasty dribble. It ain’t safety pin safe
like my grandmother taught me. Her mouth curse them until their eyes water. Her lips
curl & she cross both her arms “& you betta not do it again!” They laugh
& she don’t. This girl I never seen before got a name: Lay Li.
I wipe my eyes, stinging from the blue water. “Thank you,” I say, pretending it don’t burn.
TWO YEARS LATER & LAY LI BATHING SUIT
Is way better than mine
I hate my royal blue
one-piece
It’s a hand-me-down
It’s ugly
I rather wear my basketball shorts
but they’re the only pair I got
keep dry when I walk home
Everybody who know somebody
will skip class for the pool party
& everybody will have a cute bathing suit on:
Strawberry red
or bright yellow
or periwinkle blue
or one of those two-pieces with candy cane stripes
But not me
I PUT A T-SHIRT ON TOP
& try to hide
this ugly-ass basic blue swimsuit
Mines is long in the crotch
so long the water drains slowly down my leg
after I climb out the deep end.
I put a T-shirt on top
Chlorine Sky Page 1