“Hey, hey, hey, man.” Bryson put his hands up. “If you did, you did. It’s all good. I mean, you might wanna ask permission next time instead of just sneaking it. That’s a little weird, but… relax.” The other guys at the table didn’t know if they should laugh or ooh, or nod, or what. They couldn’t tell if Bryson was being serious or if he was joking around.
“You talking like you like boys, too,” Trey Larson, a fake tough guy who everyone knew got chumped by the smallest kid in the school, said to Bryson. Bryson started laughing.
“Am I? I think Slim is. Matter of fact, I think all y’all are.” Bryson pointed at all the jokesters. “Like my father always says, ‘Those that scar you are you.’ ” He checked their faces, and it wasn’t hard to tell that they had no idea what that meant. He looked at Ty, and Ty’s face looked no different. A gem dropped in the mud. “The point is, I don’t like boys. Not like that. But I like Ty.” He patted Ty on the back. “Matter of fact, I like him more than I like y’all, and for real for real, I don’t see what the big deal is. A kiss on the cheek? That’s what all y’all roasting him for? A kiss on the cheek? Really?” Bryson looked at Slim, held his eyes there for a while before looking at the other guys. “That’s it?”
And then.
Bryson leaned over and pecked Ty on the cheek. Mwah’d and all. Then put his eyes right back on Slim.
“Look at that. I’m still… alive.” He made his voice sound ghostly, shrugged, then ate a mozzarella stick. The table fell silent. Well, at least to Bryson and Ty. They wouldn’t have known if the other boys actually stopped talking and joking because they were no longer paying attention.
But attention would be paid. And it would be paid to Bryson. Because for the remainder of the afternoon, the rumor had become different. It had transformed. Switched from Ty kissing Slim, to Bryson kissing Ty, the mighty snake of gossip going from a harmless garter to a venomous python. Bryson did his best to ignore it all. To think about it as a stage in a game, a board beaten only by making it to the end of the day bell. But as soon as that bell rang and Bryson left school, he noticed that Slim and some of the other boys were following him down Portal Avenue. Bryson knew they were trailing him because he’d never seen them walk this way before and was pretty sure they didn’t live on his side of the neighborhood. He could hear them laughing. Hear them yelling things, and even though he couldn’t make out what they were yelling, he could still feel the sounds of their voices pricking him like staples in the back.
As soon as he turned down Burman Street, Bryson could hear their feet quicken, hear the footfalls on the pavement speed up like rain going from drizzle to downpour. And instead of running, Bryson just turned around, put his hands up, and did his best.
That was yesterday, and today, at school, Ty heard the whispers. The python had become a boa, strangling him. Wrapped all around his body, squeezing him, squeezing. Crushing his lungs and heart. The whispers did nothing but confirm what he’d already known. What he’d already seen online the night before. The rumors that Slim and Andrew and whoever else they were with had jumped Bryson. That Bryson had held his own as best he could, but there were four of them. That they were calling him everything but his name. So in Mr. Davanzo’s last class of the day, when the bell rang, Ty ran.
He ran out of class. He ran down the corridor. He ran through the double doors. He ran past Ms. Post. He ran down Portal Avenue as fast as he could for as long as he could until he was out of breath.
Then he walked. Fast. And stopped only when he got to a house a few blocks before Burman Street. A big beige-colored house with a big window. Beautiful green grass and shrubs that outlined the yard, accented by two large rosebushes. He looked around. To the left and right. Behind him. In front of him. Then he jammed his hand into the bush and snatched a fistful of roses, the thorns needling into his fingers and palm.
Hurt.
But he ran. He ran and ran, on and on. Left on Burman. Down Burman, left at Bryson’s, which looked nothing like the houses on Portal Avenue. No big window. No shrubs or hedges. No driveway. A metal chain-linked fence that opened onto a walkway that led to the front door.
* * *
If Bryson hadn’t paused the game to make himself a boloney sandwich, he wouldn’t have heard the doorbell. He’d been playing Call of Duty all day, fighting against computerized versions of Nazis and doing everything he could, mission after mission, to not get himself killed along the way. His headset had been on since just after the morning oatmeal, his world of school rumors replaced by bombs in his ear. His hands were sore from yesterday, but that didn’t stop him from thumbing the controller all day, even though his mother had warned him, told him it might be better if he’d read a book instead.
“Might be easier to hold a story than to hold a controller, son,” she’d said, knowing Bryson wouldn’t listen. “At least feed yourself,” she’d added, giving up before closing his bedroom door and leaving for work.
And Bryson was doing just that, feeding himself—for the second time—when the doorbell rang.
Bryson shuffled his way over to the door, his body still feeling like garbled pixels. He looked through the peephole like his father taught him. Unlocked the dead bolt, turned the knob, pulled the door open.
“Ty?”
Ty stood there breathing heavy, holding three or four roses. It was hard to tell exactly how many because they were mangled. The human video game seemed to glitch in red streaks. The same red as the petals of the flowers was dripping from his shaking palm.
“You… okay, man?”
“Yeah,” Ty wheezed, his back aching as if a school bus had fallen from the sky and landed right on him. “Yeah… I’m… okay. You okay?”
“Yeah, man. I’m fine. I’ll… be fine.”
Ty nodded. “Playing the game?” he asked, trying to figure out how to make it less awkward.
“Been fighting the war all day, bro.” Bryson smirked, wiggling his thumbs. His eyes skipped from Ty’s face to his shredded hand.
Ty nodded again. “Well… um… I brought these for you.” He held the roses out.
“You ain’t have to do that,” Bryson said.
Ty nodded a third time. His eyes started to puff up and slick over. The rock in his throat began to roll. There were things they needed to talk about. Things they didn’t need to talk about. There was a lot to say but nothing that needed to be said. Bryson carefully took the flowers. Smelled them like he’d seen his mother do. They made his nose itch.
“Hey, man, we’d better wash that blood off your hand,” Bryson said, opening the door wide.
And Ty nodded once more.
FIVE THINGS EASIER TO DO THAN SIMEON’S AND KENZI’S SECRET HANDSHAKE
1. Getting through the crowded hallway after the bell rings.
Simeon Cross was big for his age. Big, like two kids tall and two kids wide. A walking anvil with a happy gappy smile that lit every doorway he darkened. Impossible to miss when he was around and impossible not to miss when he was absent. So, when the bell rang, Simeon got up from his desk in Mr. Davanzo’s class, grabbed his backpack off the floor, and waited by the door while all his classmates filed out, jumping up to give him high fives. Everybody but Ty Carson, who bolted out of class, probably because Mr. Davanzo couldn’t stand people asking to go to the bathroom. “There’s no time for breaks when it comes to understanding the world around you,” he’d say.
After everyone else had gone, Simeon walked over to Mr. Davanzo, and they slapped the backs of their hands together, knuckles knocking like tiny pool balls. Their secret handshake. Which was nothing—elementary—compared to the complex system he and Kenzi had.
Kenzi Thompson was small for his age. Tied for the smallest kid in his class with another boy everybody called Bit. Kenzi didn’t have a nickname like that, and if anyone ever tried to give him one, he would… do nothing. Well, that’s not true. He would do something, but that something would be telling Simeon. And then Simeon would… do nothing. Because when you�
��re Simeon’s size, a look is more than enough.
Kenzi’s name, though only five letters, was longer than he was. But other than his smallness—and the fact that he carried a blue bouncy ball everywhere he went—there was really nothing else about him that stood out. He wasn’t particularly tough or loud or funny or sad or weird or even smelly. Just Kenzi. Maybe he’d speak in class. Maybe he wouldn’t. Got good grades when he studied, bad grades when he didn’t. Wasn’t dripping in name brands, but always clean. And was friends with everyone. But really friends with no one but Simeon and Simeon was friends with everyone, because being his enemy just wasn’t smart. Kenzi walked the middle of every line. Until the bell rang. And then… something else.
Kenzi never rushed out of Mr. Fantana’s class like the rest of the students. Not because he had some kind of special love for life science—I mean, it was okay—but because he knew he’d never make it to his locker with the hundreds of other kids traffic-jamming and bumper-car’ing around, not paying attention to the fact that their elbows were right by his face. He’d been hit before. Several times. Had his eyes swollen accidentally by girls who swung their arms around to make sure their friends understood the importance of whatever they were saying. Had his lip busted because some boy was pretending it was five seconds left in the fourth quarter—Curry with the ball, he shoots, he scores!—and… he punches a kid in the face while hitting his crossover. That kid… Kenzi. For him, the hallway was a minefield, and there were hundreds of active mines dressed in T-shirts and jeans.
So he waited while Mr. Fantana gathered his lesson plans, put the tops back on his dry erase markers. Waited and waited. For…
“Yoooooooooooooooo!” Simeon came bursting into Mr. Fantana’s room. “Fantana Banana, what’s good? What’s hood? What’s new? What’s true?” Simeon gave Mr. Fantana an awkward handshake that looked like Mr. Fantana was trying to figure out how hands work.
“Took you forever, bro,” Kenzi said, getting up from his desk.
“My bad, man,” Simeon said, reaching out for Kenzi’s hand.
“Don’t!” Mr. Fantana sparked up. “Don’t… don’t do that handshake in here. Not because I think anything is wrong with it. It’s just… I really want to get going, guys, and that handshake y’all do takes way too long. I know you probably won’t believe this, but teachers have lives too.” Mr. Fantana smirked, then went on shoving papers into his leather bag.
“Wow… Mr. Fantana I thought you were all about life science. What we were getting ready to show you was life science in full effect,” Simeon explained.
“I am. And I love y’all, but… not today.” Then he pointed at the door. “Please.”
Simeon didn’t argue. He just turned back to Kenzi.
“Come on, Kenzi. I don’t wanna be nowhere we ain’t welcomed.”
“Simeon, cut it—” Mr. Fantana started, but Simeon shut him down.
“Nope. Nope. You said what you said, and the damage is done.” Simeon bent his knees, squatting just enough for Kenzi to get a running start… to jump onto his back.
And off they went, out into the busy hallway of stumbling awkward bodies pin-balling around, bouncing into one another and off lockers. Simeon, bigger than the rest, was unbouncable. He couldn’t be knocked down or pushed out of the way.
“Ready?” Simeon asked Kenzi over his shoulder. Kenzi had his arms wrapped around Simeon’s neck, tight enough to hold on, but not tight enough to choke him.
“Let’s do it!” Kenzi called back. And off they went.
2. Getting out of trouble with Ms. Wockley for pretending to be in a horse race.
“But, Ms. Wockley, we’re not pretending to be in a horse race,” Simeon pleaded. Ms. Wockley stood at the door to the school, her face a pink raisin, made raisinier whenever she was in discipline mode, which was all the time. It was pretty much her job to tell everyone what not to do.
Stop making fart noises.
Stop dancing.
Stop dancing… like that.
Stop rapping.
Stop singing.
Stop laughing.
Stop acting like children, children.
“Mr. Cross, Mr. Thompson was just on your back yelling yee-haw while circling his arm in the air as if winding an imaginary lasso.” Ms. Wockley demonstrated, and it took everything in both boys to not crack up.
“That’s just how he talks!” Simeon said.
“I’m going to say this to you for the thousandth time,” Ms. Wockley steamed. “All feet should be—and stay firmly—on the ground.”
“But what about Pia Foster? Her feet be on a skateboard.” This, from Kenzi. It wasn’t snitching because everybody knew Pia skated through school. The one time anyone had ever seen Simeon hurt was when Pia skated over his foot.
“And I’ve told her not to do that, but we’re not talking about Ms. Foster, are we? No. We’re talking about you two.” Ms. Wockley folded her arms. “I’ve given you so many warnings, and you don’t seem to take me seriously, so—”
“Wait, wait, wait. Before you write us up, I think it’s important that we at least let you know why we do it.”
Ms. Wockley sighed. She’d heard their excuse—different versions of it—time and time again, but they were always so entertaining that she was game to hear it once more.
“See, here’s the thing, Wockley Broccoli. Can I call you that?” Simeon asked.
“No.”
“Got it. Here’s the thing. Kenzi here got a big heart. But that big heart happens to be in a small body. Now, I don’t know about you, but I would hate for that heart to be broken because that body was knocked around. That would be a tragesty.”
“Travesty,” Kenzi corrected him.
“Travesty,” Simeon repeated. “And so because I love Kenzi, I protect him. I make sure he can maneuver down these busy hallways without worrying about anything. I’m basically his bodyguard.”
“Tell me something, Mr. Cross. How exactly does Mr. Thompson get from class to class during the day when he’s not with you?” Simeon knew this was a setup.
“I know where you going with this, and I don’t know because I’m not with him, Ms. Wockley. But I can only imagine how scary it must be.” Simeon put his arm around Kenzi. Kenzi turned his face into a puppy’s.
“Is that true, Mr. Thompson, that the hallways are scary for you?”
“Oh, Ms. Wockley, you got no idea. Just the other day Joey Santiago didn’t see me standing behind him and just backed me into my locker.”
“Like… backed him all the way into it. As in his whole body was in—”
“I understand what he’s saying, Mr. Cross. He has a mouth.”
“Exactly, he does have a mouth.” Simeon was right there with her. “He also has arms and legs. Feet and hands. And in the same way you don’t want him silenced, you also don’t want him invisible, do you?”
“Yeah, you don’t want me to be invisible, do you, Ms. Wockley?”
Ms. Wockley’s tight face was still tight, but a little less tight than it was when Kenzi and Simeon had gotten caught—pulled over—by her.
“If I could just make one more point, Ms. Wockley—”
She cut Simeon off. “You can’t. Please just go home and come back tomorrow ready to follow the rules.” Ms. Wockley marched off, the sound of her chunky heels clacking loudly. She turned and added, “When you two grow up, I really hope you become more than horse and jockey, because people lose a lot of money betting on horse races.”
“Not if they bet on us,” Simeon zapped right back at her.
“Plus, I want to be a lawyer,” Kenzi said, trying to control the sting in his throat. “Because they’re smart and they know stuff like… jockeys don’t say yee-haw. Cowboys do.”
3. Getting to the neighborhood.
Outside was what outside always was—a spill-out of inside. It was like the main hallway was the river that led into the ocean of backpacks, ball caps, and braids. Energy and engines roaring the roar of school is finally over.<
br />
“Yo, you got old Wocka Wocka outta here with that cowboy line. Plus, I ain’t no horse. I’m a friend. Your brother,” Simeon said to Kenzi as they walked up to the corner. Ms. Post, the crossing guard, was standing there with her arms out.
“Hey, boys,” she said. Kenzi leaned in for a hug.
“Hey, Ms. Post.” That hug happened every day between Kenzi and the crossing guard. A walking ritual.
“Staying out of trouble?” she asked.
“Of course,” Simeon said. “Matter of fact, I’m going home to do my homework. Because we have homework. Not sure Canton here told you this or not, but there’s homework.”
Canton was Ms. Post’s son. He was sitting leaning against the stop sign on the corner waiting for her, like he did every day. Canton just shook his head, paying the big guy no mind because everyone was used to him being silly.
“And what about you, little man?” Ms. Post addressed Kenzi. “Staying out the street?”
“Trying,” Kenzi followed, holding the blue ball up, as if she could look into it and see the day’s behavior.
“What about you?” Simeon now asked Ms. Post, who had put a hand up to signal for other walkers to hold tight on the corner and wait for her whistle.
“Best I can,” she replied, popping the silver tweeter in her mouth and stepping back off the curb.
“Catch you tomorrow, Ms. Post,” Kenzi said, waving as he and Simeon turned right. Most walkers walked to the left down Portal Avenue toward some of the other neighborhoods, but to the right—up Portal Ave.—is where Chestnut Homes were. Where Simeon and Kenzi lived. It took no time, because there were very few of their classmates going that way. And the ones who actually lived there didn’t walk there. So the path was clear, laid out for Simeon the Grand and Kenzi the Great, like a runway to their kingdom. A kingdom where carrying a person on your back was allowed. Encouraged, even. A kingdom where kings are throned and dethroned daily. Where the crown jewels get dropped down sewers and flushed down toilets. A kingdom full of princes, like Kenzi and Simeon, princes no one ever bet on anyway.
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