Taneesha Never Disparaging

  I watched him bow and strut a cool victory dance. Kids shouted “Whooooop! Whooooop! Ronnie! Ronnnie!” and gave him an endless standing ovation.

  Still sitting, I twisted the end of one my locks.

  “Well, Ronnie!” beamed Mr. Alvarez after the hoots and hollers died down. “I see you really put a lot of effort into your campaign. Nice job.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Alvarez. I take serving my fellow students seriously, you know. A leader got to do that.”

  “Yes. Yes. That’s true. Very true.”

  A smilier-than-ever Mr. Alvarez turned to everyone, and said, “Okay, Room 509, calm down, now. Please take your seats. We’ve seen all the candidates but one.”

  I hoped against hope he wouldn’t say—

  “Taneesha, your speech, please.”

  I sighed, feeling the entire universe on my shoulders. I reached under my desk, and pulled out my rolled up poster.

  Don’t do this, Taneesha. Why don’ t you say you’re sick? Didn’t you see Ronnie’s speech? He had guava-mango juice for goodness sake! AND A SHOW! You’re just going to look dumb!

  I rubbed my sweaty palms on my blue slacks and started rolling the rubber bands off the poster.

  One. By. One.

  “Come on, Taneesha,” said Mr. Alvarez, back to his unsmiley self. “We have other things to do this afternoon than watch you turtle along.”

  Rayshaun snickered.

  Some other kids said, “Ooooooooh.”

  And I felt lower than a turtle’s belly—I could thank Mr. Alvarez for sticking that image to my brain.

  With bent shoulders, I walked the plank from my desk to the front of the room.

  “Who pooted?” someone whispered.

  More snickering.

  At the chalkboard, I faced the class and held the smelly, monster-size poster in front of me. It covered my whole body except for my forehead and below my knees. I couldn’t see anything but the back of that thing. The bottom line of the last fat, red L in COLOSSAL bumped against my nose.

  “Vote for me, please.”

  “Taneesha, speak up. I’m sure no one heard you.”

  I took a deep breath. The poster’s funk almost made me sneeze but I stopped myself.

  “I said, ‘Vote for me, please.’”

  “That’s better. I guess.”

  So.

  I didn’t want to be president anyway.

  I waited. No one said anything. I waited some more. I began to creep back to my seat.

  “Taneesha? Is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh…kay-eee. Class…It seems we should give Taneesha a hand.”

  Soggy claps hit my ears like wet, drippy socks. Or rotten tomatoes.

  I officially wanted to turn invisible forever.

  “Your speech wasn’t so bad,” Carli said later, as we walked up Bernard after school under an overcast sky—the perfect kind for a lousy day.

  “Get real, Carli.”

  You were whooping it up to Ronnie’s rap just like everybody else.

  “I know my speech stank.”

  Everybody knew it stank. I planned to stuff my reeking poster in the garbage as soon as I got home.

  “Well… so…it doesn’t have to.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The election’s not until Thursday. You can bring in something tomorrow. You can make a better speech. I bet Mr. Alvarez will let you try again.”

  Carli had a point. So I really didn’t want to be class president. That didn’t mean I had to run a wimpy race.

  “Will you help me?”

  “Do you have to ask?”

  We giggled.

  “What’s so funny?”

  My heart stopped cold.

  I would have recognized that voice anywhere. A hard poke on my shoulder from behind pushed me forward. I caught my balance to keep from falling and turned around.

  “I said, what’s so funny? What’s the joke?”

  The older girl glared down at me.

  “I… I… I wasn’t laughing.”

  What was my mouth doing?

  Why don’t I just drop dead right here?

  “Yes you was laughing. I heard you. What’s the joke? You better tell me.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  A volcano erupted in my stomach. I knew that nothing I said would be good enough for that girl.

  “You lying!” She pulled her fist back. “Tell me or I’m going to pound your face in.”

  “She’s going to help me with my homework!” I blurted. “I was happy about that. That’s all!”

  “Oh, so you stupid, hunh? You need your little cripple friend’s help. I should have known it was something like that.

  “Next time I ask you a question, you answer me. You better not lie to me again. Got it?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s right.”

  She turned sharp on the thick heels of her black army boots, the way soldiers do, and started down Bernard.

  I gagged up guava-mango juice and gulped it back down.

  “My promise is over, Taneesha!” whispered Carli. “I’m telling my father. You should tell your parents, too!”

  “Carli, don’t!”

  “I have too. That girl can’t just keep bullying you.”

  It seemed every possible, horrible thing was crashing down on me at once. I couldn’t just let Carli take away the only little control I had left. I wanted to decide how, or even if, I’d tell my parents what was happening. Carli had no right to butt her big nose in it—she wasn’t the one getting bullied. I was.

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about it!” I screamed. “That girl’s not doing anything to you, is she? So just stay out of it, Carli Flanagan! That’s what you’re doing anyway! Staying out of it! YOU’RE NOT DOING ANYTHING TO HELP!”

  I didn’t care how hurt Carli looked. I ran off, leaving her behind me. I didn’t look back, even though I knew she could never catch up.

  CHAPTER 14

  THE MEAN LAUGH

  Who made me Carli’s bodyguard anyway?” I huffed and hoofed it up Bernard. “I’m just a kid!” Huff, huff. “Who’s bodyguarding me?” Huff, huff. “Hunh? No-frigging-body!” Huff. “That’s who!” My feet crashed down onto the sidewalk, one after the other, breaking through clumps of snow and ice.

  “Ever since first grade I’ve been Carli Flanagan’s official Shoten Zenjin!” Huff. “Her protector !” Huff. Huff. “Well, I’m sick of it!” Huff. “I QUIT!”

  “LEAVE ME ALONE!” Carli’s first-grade face was invading my memory and I didn’t care who heard me yelling at it. “Go on and look scared!” Huff. Huff. “I don’t want this job anymore!” Huff. “GO A-WAY!” But Carli’s frightened little sixyear-old mug stayed put in my head, right between me and Aristotle Avenue, which was only four blocks away.

  My mind flashed back to when I first met Carli.

  “What’s wrong with her?” said a light-skinned boy with sandy hair: Rayshaun Parker.

  “Look! She white,” said a girl whose name I didn’t know.

  “Why she walking like that?”

  I didn’t see who said that.

  I couldn’t keep up with who was speaking anymore because it seemed like every mouth was running, whispering about the redheaded girl who had just walked into Mrs. Boyd’s first-grade classroom.

  All us kids were sitting at our desks. Our new teacher, Mrs. Boyd, had told us to stay in our seats. She was wearing a sky blue skirt and a buttonedup jacket that matched it. Her straightened hair, which hung past her shoulders, was dark and curly with orange streaks. I thought she was pretty.

  Us kids all had on dress-code blue, black, and white, me included. I had on black pants.

  The girl who stood just inside the doorway wore a dress, a dark blue one, with a light blue shirt under it. And she had on black shiny shoes and white tights. Even on the leg with that metal thing on it.

  It was the first day of school. Everybody was whispering about the girl at the door
. Everybody but me. I watched her, though. I knew the look on her face. She was scared.

  It sounded like somebody had opened a jar of bumblebees in the room.

  “Girls and boys, settle down, please! We have one more student joining us.”

  The bees kept buzzing.

  “In Mrs. Boyd’s room, every child is welcome. If you don’t learn any other rule this year, you will learn that.”

  The lid clamped down on the jar of bees.

  “Thank you. I’m glad you have that much sense.” Mrs. Boyd beamed her eyes at each boy and girl in the room including me and I hadn’t even been buzzing.

  “Girls and boys, this is Carli Flanagan. Everyone please politely say, ‘Good Morning, Carli.’”

  “Good Morning, Carli!”

  I watched the new girl’s face. It turned so red it looked like she was painted. The red in her face almost matched the red of the wavy hair that fell down her back. The red in her face almost made it so you couldn’t see all the little brown dots on her cheeks. But you could still see them, though.

  I thought I knew why that girl looked so red. I bet it wasn’t just from being late to school either. Like me, I bet she’d heard the mean laugh inside some kids’ words. They had said “good morning.” But not everybody said it politely like Mrs. Boyd had told them to.

  At lunchtime, kids talked loud in the crowded lunchroom. I put my green plastic tray on a long, light brown table and sat next to Carli Flanagan. That was easy since the other kids at the table didn’t sit in any of the seats around that girl.

  I could see those kids looking at her, though. A few seats away from her and across the table. They put their hands over each other’s ears and whispered. They pointed their fingers.

  “Hi, Carli,” I said. “I’m Taneesha.”

  My tray had a tossed salad, two slices of cheese pizza, and an apple juice box on it.

  “Hi, Taneesha.”

  I saw the same stuff on Carli Flanagan’s tray as mine.

  “Look! She sitting next to her!” said Rayshaun from across the table.

  The other kids at the table started buzzing just the way they had in our classroom that morning. I pretended not to hear them. I couldn’t tell if Carli heard all that buzzing or not. If she did, she didn’t act like it.

  “Did you go to Hunter for kindergarten?” I asked. I didn’t remember ever seeing her at school before.

  I tore the clear plastic wrapper off my salad.

  “No. I went to Highbridge Montessori School.” She opened her juice box.

  “Where’s that at?”

  “On the west side. In Eriewood.”

  “So how come you didn’t go there for first grade?”

  “Because of my papa’s new job. He’s a pharmacist.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He makes medicine for sick people. Papa said it didn’t make sense to drive all the way across town every day. He said he could just find us an apartment in North Cleveland. Then he could get to his job easier.”

  “Oh.”

  “Papa says he doesn’t care what people say about North Cleveland.”

  Carli took a great big bite of pizza.

  I sipped some juice. Then I opened my little packet of Italian dressing and I poured dressing over my salad.

  “He says Jane Hunter is a good school because it gets good scores,” Carli said.

  With her mouth full of pizza.

  I wanted to tell her not to do that. Not to talk with her mouth full because she could choke. That’s what Mama had always told me about talking with my mouth full. But I wasn’t sure about saying anything to Carli because I thought maybe she wouldn’t like me if I told her she could choke.

  “I had kindergarten here,” I said.

  “Did you like it?”

  Carli took another big bite of pizza. Even though she still had lots in her mouth from her last big bite. I got worried she might choke right there in the lunchroom.

  “It was okay,” I said, with Rayshaun Parker popping up in my brain. That boy had kind of ruined kindergarten for me. But I didn’t tell Carli that.

  “I hope I like it.”

  Carli’s cheeks looked like she had two whole plums in there. I wished she ate smaller bites of food and chewed and swallowed them good like Mama had always told me to do.

  I didn’t feel right. I couldn’t just watch that girl maybe choke herself even if she wouldn’t like me for saying something.

  “Carli?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does your mother ever tell you you could choke if you eat like that?”

  “No.” Carli’s cheeks still looked real fat. “My mother’s dead.”

  I wasn’t sure at all what to say about that information. I’d never met a girl with a dead mother before.

  “Oh.”

  It was all I could think of.

  I didn’t know when they had stopped, but none of the kids at our table was buzzing anymore.

  “I don’t remember her,” Carli said after a while.

  “Hunh?”

  “My mother. I don’t remember what she looked like or anything. I mean, we have a picture of her on the wall at home. But I don’t remember her inside my brain.”

  I got sad about what Carli was saying. I thought of my mama. I was glad I could remember her.

  “How come you don’t remember your mother?”

  “I was too little when she died. I was a baby.”

  “Oh.”

  I stopped talking for a long time. I just ate my other slice of pizza and felt sad. But then I got another question for Carli:

  “How come your mother is dead?”

  “Papa said a man hit her car. He had drunk a lot of alcohol. So he crashed into my mother’s car because of that. She died and my leg got busted up a lot. That’s why I wear this.”

  Carli pointed to the thing on her leg. Parts of it were shiny, the same silvery color as forks and spoons. It had black parts on it, too. That thing was all over her whole leg. Up to under her dress. It looked Bionic, like the arm of the woman I’d seen on cable TV at my grandparents. But I’d seen Carli walk. That thing didn’t make her leg move better than everybody else’s like the Bionic Woman’s arm did. It made her slower.

  “What is that anyway?” I’d been wanting to ask that for a long time but I hadn’t wanted to make her feel bad.

  “A brace.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “It helps me walk.”

  “You can’t walk without it?”

  “I can a little. But I don’t stand too straight. I fall.”

  “Oh.”

  After that, Carli and I just ate. We didn’t talk. But my mind was skipping all over. I thought about kindergarten. Of how scared I felt after Rayshaun said I was going to hell. I thought of the scared look on Carli’s face when she was in front of the classroom door that morning. I thought of the mean laugh I heard in some kids’ voices when Carli showed up.

  And I realized something: I was afraid of hearing that same laugh about me.

  If Carli was ever going to drop me like Rayshaun did or do that laugh at me, I wanted to know right then.

  “Carli?”

  “Hm?”

  “Are you Christian?”

  “What?”

  “Are you Christian?”

  “I guess so. I mean, I don’t know.”

  I waited. I waited to see if anything about Carli’s answer sounded scary—like it might turn into a mean laugh or into saying I was going to hell.

  She started talking again.

  “My grandpa and grandma are Christian. They’re my papa’s parents. I know more Christian people besides them, too. I mostly see them at Christmas and Easter when Papa and I go to church with Grandpa and Grandma. Some of them are my cousins and aunts and uncles. Their church is so pretty. It has these real tall glass windows with lots of colors. They look like pictures made out of light.”

  I didn’t say anything, in case she wasn’t done.

  Car
li sipped her juice then sat it back down.

  “Oh!” she said, like she had just remembered something. “And the Christian people? They make real good desserts. They even make their own candy. Daddy bought me some. It’s good. How come you want to know?”

  I wasn’t all the way sure about Carli Flanagan, but I thought I should take a chance.

  “Carli, I’m going to tell you something right now. So that you’ll know. So that if you think it’s funny or something, you and me don’t have to be friends or anything.”

  “What?”

  “I’m Buddhist.”

  “What’s that?”

  “My religion. I’m not Christian. I chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. My parents do, too.”

  Carli shrugged her shoulders.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  CHAPTER 15

  DRESSED LIKE A CANDIDATE

  Forty minutes after I’d run off and left Carli on Bernard Avenue, I sat at the altar, alone at home, chanting like crazy. I hoped Carli wouldn’t be so mad at me that she didn’t come over. Mr. Flanagan wouldn’t be home. She was supposed to stay at my house until he picked her up after work.

  I chanted, but I could hardly think straight:

  If it weren’t for Carli, I wouldn’t be in half the trouble I’m in now. That big old girl wouldn’t be picking on me and I wouldn’t have to look stupid trying to run for president. It’s all Carli’s fault!

  … I hope she’s okay.

  Taneesha, if anything happens to Carli, it’s your fault. You’re supposed to walk home together. You left her!

  That’s over! In the past! What matters now is that she’s safe. Carli, come over here, NOW! Even if you’re mad at me! NAM MYOHO RENGE KYO!

  The back door buzzed. I jumped up and ran into the kitchen. It was Carli! Her face was as red as hot salsa and if her eyes could talk, she could have been suspended for saying that at school.

  But I didn’t care. I was so happy to see her, I felt like doing Ronnie Lawson’s twirling backdance—only I didn’t because she looked too dangerous.