The Long Ride

by Marina Budhos

  “So, guys, I hate to tell you. My parents—” She pauses. “They put a deposit on private school.”

  “What?” Josie looks stunned.

  “Where?”

  “In Manhattan. My dad knew someone who got me in.” She adds, “They say they can’t take a chance. It’s hard enough for me as it is.”

  “It’s not fair!” I say. Tears prick my eyes. “You should be with us.” I can’t imagine junior high without Francesca. We’re like three different pieces that fit together, perfectly. Even when we fight.

  “I know! It’s not even my idea. I want to be with you guys. But my parents didn’t want me to go to—” Her nose wrinkles.

  I bite my lip. And it’s okay for us?

  We cry. We complain about all the things we won’t be able to do together: Meet new kids from a different neighborhood. Chat with cute boys. March together down the halls in magic coolness. Talk back to bossy Lucy Nelson. Whisper about Joey Marshall, who is okay, but he can be so dopey. Carry spiral notebooks and write only in pen. We promise that even though we’re not all in the same place, we’ll always check in with each other and never stop being together.

  The night before our first day, Josie and I decide that we’ll still wear our construction boots. Even though we’re only two.

  We’ll still be the dream.

  First day of seventh grade.

  In our construction boots.

  Taking a bus.

  And for the first time ever, Francesca isn’t with us.

  My stomach’s tap-tapping like a drum. A lot of families are at the bus stop, which is weird. Junior high is when you’re supposed to walk off, no more parents watching you like kindergarten babies. But there are the Siegels, patting Jill on her tiny shoulders. Joey Marshall is marching up with both his parents, a new army satchel slanted across his chest. I just have my dad here, standing thin and tall behind us. Josie’s mom is there too, in one of her housedresses. She’s the only one smiling.

  “It’s late,” Josie says.

  “Not really.” But my stomach’s jumping.

  “How long is the ride?” Mrs. Rowan asks.

  “About forty minutes,” my father offers. “I used to take Jamila there for tennis lessons. Do you know Springfield Gardens?”

  “No.” Mrs. Rowan is curt.

  I stare at the ground. The backs of my ears seem to sweat. I know what she means: We don’t go there, to the black side. My family and Josie’s and Francesca’s have to live with these knife-words said, and not said, all the time.

  My father looks down at his suede shoes. He’s dressed for work: tweed blazer, skinny navy tie. Two mechanical pencils are clipped to his blazer pocket. “The new school is in good shape,” he says.

  “Yeah, but try walking across the street without getting mugged by them!” Mr. Rowan laughs.

  Them.

  Josie and I freeze and move closer together. This is why Josie and Francesca and I can be best friends. We don’t have to explain to each other who we are.

  “Ah, come on. Kids are kids everywhere. Even if they’re green or purple. Pains in the butt.” Mr. Marshall ruffles Joey’s hair. He’s a jolly father, who never gets mad.

  “Hey, kiddo.” I feel a playful swat on my head.

  “Hey!” I turn.

  It’s my brother, Karim, on his way to high school. He’s with Josie’s brother, Manuel, who’s puffed his hair out into an Afro, and two girls, who I’m happy to see are wearing the same style boots as us, only these girls don’t look sweaty.

  Daddy frowns at Karim’s jean jacket and frayed bell-bottoms. “That’s what you’re wearing today?”

  Karim winks at me. “Go for it, kiddo. Make your mark at your new school.”

  I grin. I like and don’t like his nickname for me, which makes me feel like I’m a tagalong. But I do want to be like Karim and his friends. Brave. Fist the air. Shout slogans.

  “Go on,” my father says to Karim.

  “It’s here!” Mrs. Siegel cries.

  A big yellow school bus is turning the corner, grinding toward us, with its bug-eyed headlights. A few kids in the back stare wanly through the windows. My father bends down and whispers, “Make sure you’re in the SP program, yes?”

  “Yes, Daddy.” SP is the special program for the junior high advanced track. Usually you’d know if you made it in by now, but the new school said we’d get our assignments on the first day.

  As we start to inch toward the bus, Josie pokes me. “Look, it’s Francesca!”

  We turn as Francesca flies down her stoop and comes running toward us. She’s in a uniform: blue pleated skirt, gray knee socks, white blouse, and a blue cardigan. Her frizzy hair is clipped with a barrette on both sides, making two funny poofs over her ears. Not our Francesca, who loves her embroidered peasant blouses and bell-bottoms. And she’s got an expensive bag—like a leather briefcase with straps.

  “Francesca!” Mr. George, tall and movie-star handsome next to his convertible, is jingling his keys. “Come on, darlin’,” he calls. “We’re late!”

  “Sorry!” Francesca grabs our arms. “Let’s talk after school, okay? Compare notes?”

  “Yeah,” Josie and I mumble.

  Francesca gives our arms another squeeze. “Tell me who’s cute?”

  Then she runs across the street and ducks into the car, nodding to her father, who holds open the door like she’s a model. And that’s when I notice Francesca’s shoes: they’re shiny black with just a hint of a heel. The car slides away, to Manhattan, to a world I can’t see.

  Josie and I are left behind.

  When the bus heaves off, it’s like I’m in a boat that’s jolted from the pier. My father’s face looks so small, his horn-rimmed glasses glinting in the sunlight. His mouth is tight, not really smiling. And then we swerve around the corner and rumble away from the side street into traffic.

  I perch on the edge of the lumpy seat, press my forehead against the window. Josie’s beside me, her two neat braids tucked behind her ears. We leave our part of Queens, which has houses with front lawns or garden apartments around grassy courtyards, then cross the borough to where everything becomes more pressed together: Small houses on tight lots. Apartment buildings. And the faces change, turning darker, more like mine. Sometimes Daddy and I come down here to visit his old friends, or pick up meat patties, which he misses from his home in Barbados.

  Josie points to a big stone building with a sign out front. “That’s our church.”

  Sundays are the only time I see Mrs. Rivera dressed up. She and Josie usually have matching outfits that Mrs. Rivera sews. Josie says, “It’s the loud and singing kind.”

  Now I ask, “Do you like it there?”

  “Some. I like the cookies and punch after and the study group.”

  “Anyone cute?”

  She shrugs. “The boys there are very clean.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “They don’t curse.”

  I always feel as if Josie has another life on the other side of Jamaica Avenue that she disappears into.

  Finally the bus comes to a stop. The first thing I notice when we filter down the steps is a hoe and a tractor sitting in a field at the side of the school, next to a huge mound of dirt. The building is made of beige brick and steel, with checkerboard windows, decals still on the panes. Kids swarm all over, shouting, pouring in the front doors. A few cluster around us, staring, as we try to make our way to the front steps.

  “You from that other school?” someone asks.

  “Yeah,” Joey says.

  “How far away?”

  “Far.”

  “How long the bus take?” A girl plants herself in front of Joey.

  “Long,” he mumbles.

  “How long?”

  He shrugs and then her f
riend asks, “Where you get that bag from? It’s nice.”

  “The Army Navy store.”

  A tall woman with a walkie-talkie shoulders her way in. She’s wearing a crimson dress, and a crown of braids tops her head. Her voice rolls out, rich and commanding. “Now, is that the way to greet our new friends?”

  Some kids look at their feet. “No.”

  “No what?”

  “No, Mrs. Johnson.”

  “That’s more like it.”

  They scatter up the stairs as she turns to us. What a sorry troop we must be, in our wilted new clothes, with our shy eyes. She booms, “Welcome, welcome to JHS 241, boys and girls! Don’t just stand there! Go on, get to the auditorium and join the other seventh graders!”

  We stare at her until Jill offers, “But we don’t know where that is.”

  “So you don’t.” She laughs. “You won’t know where a lot of things are. Just head on in and turn to the right. Follow the signs. You’ll figure it out.”

  Inside, sound bounces off the shiny wall tiles, swelling around me as we join a river of kids surging through the auditorium doors and down the aisles. Me and Josie try to stay close, but we’re shoved from all sides. A boy’s heel stamps my toe. “Hey!” I yell. My construction boot is ruined by a heel-shaped smudge. I want to cry right there.

  We hurry into the first seats we can find. Joey and the rest scoot in too. The seats are so smooth, we nearly slip off. The boys slide low down until their knees bang the backs of the seats in front of them. Shouts swirl around us. “Hey, girl.” “Hey! How you been?” “Good. Your summer?” “My momma took us down to my grandmother’s. You? You see Gerald? You see his sister?” “Yeah.” The kids from our neighborhood make up about four rows, and everyone else is from around here, all in skin tones like mine and Josie’s.

  Then it hits me: I can finally blend, but I don’t know anyone from here. These kids have known each other their whole lives.

  A hush falls on the group in front of us as a tall girl saunters down the aisle. Tight-cropped hair. Gold hoop earrings bounce at her neck. She can’t be in seventh grade. She slides into her seat, places her bag on her lap. It isn’t a satchel, but a pocketbook. Johanna, Johanna, the girls sing out. She serves them a frosty smile.

  One boy tilts forward across the aisle. “When you coming my way?”

  “Never.”

  She swivels her head, showing her cool eyes. The boy stares at his hands.

  Lucy Nelson leans in and says to the whole row, “My mom says this place isn’t going to last. That by Christmas we’ll be back at the school we’re supposed to go to.”

  “Some parents aren’t going to send their kids at all,” someone else says.

  “Well, that’s stupid,” I say.

  Lucy peers at me. I scrunch down in my seat. Sometimes I have a big mouth, but other times I just want to hide. I can’t tell which part of me is ready to come out.

  I feel like my old life is sliding away. Cedar Gardens, the playground where my palms sting from punchball, or the little slant of shade where me and Francesca and Josie used to gather to watch the boys play basketball. What’s ahead: turning thirteen, fourteen, girls with curves who carry pocketbooks. I put my hand right next to Josie’s, set it on the armrest, to steady myself.

  That’s all that matters: Josie.

  * * *

  * * *

  A bald man strides onto the stage and starts tapping a microphone. Then comes Mrs. Johnson, who warns, “Boys and girls, we can do this the easy way or…the hard way.” The word—hard—is low and throbbing mad. Boys stop kicking. Girls settle into quiet.

  “Thank you,” she says dryly.

  The bald man is our principal: Mr. Stotter. He has pink, shiny cheeks and is shorter than Mrs. Johnson. Sweat patches show through his suit jacket.

  He smiles. “Thank you, Mrs. Johnson. Today is not just the beginning of junior high. It’s the beginning of a great dream that you all get to be a part of.”

  Everyone looks at each other, twists in their seats. It’s embarrassing when adults talk like this.

  “Now let’s all give a warm welcome to our new friends, who have come all the way from north Queens!” He gestures to our rows.

  Noise spurts up: clapping and screaming, whistling, banging the new seats. But no one is really welcoming us. I don’t blame them.

  More speeches roll out. The head of phys ed says they are doing an experiment and the girls get to do “modern dance,” in addition to gym, while the boys get an extra period of basketball. And there will be real elections for school officers. Josie nudges me. “Maybe you should do that,” she whispers.

  Mr. Stotter introduces a Miss Griffith from the guidance department. At first I think she’s a student. She’s got a teased-out Afro, a shirred blouse tucked into low-hipped pants, and cork-bottom sandals. She gives a wave, bracelets tinkling on her wrists. “Hey, guys.”

  Seats bang, hands wave, and chatter bubbles up again.

  “Hey!” a boy calls out from the back. “When we get out of here?”

  “When do we get lunch?” another kid yells.

  Mrs. Johnson glares. “Your name, young man?”

  “Darren. Darren Paul.”

  “Okay, Darren Paul. I don’t know you. But I do hope I’ll be getting to know your good side in the next three years. Understand?”

  He nods. “Yes.”

  “Yes what?” She taps her name tag.

  “Yes, Mrs. Johnson.” Miss Griffith steps forward. “That’s okay. No need for punishment.” She comes to the edge of the stage and leans over, smiling. “You guys are really lucky. You’re part of something brand-new. A completely different kind of school, where children from all walks of life are brought together. So we’re going to play a game. Teachers are going to come to the end of your row and direct some of you to move to another place. That way you’ll sit with unfamiliar students. And you’re going to introduce yourselves.”

  Groans erupt as half the auditorium stands and shuffles into new seats. It’s like watching a quilt being threaded a different way. Luckily, me and Josie manage to stay together.

  “Now, everyone. Introduce yourself to the person next to you and say one thing about yourself.”

  When Josie starts chatting away to a pretty girl on her left, I turn to a boy on my right. “I’m Jamila.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Darren.” It’s that boy who spoke up.

  I ask, “What’s one thing you can tell me about yourself?”

  He lifts his face. He’s narrow-boned, with bright, mischievous eyes and a pointy chin. “I like your friend.”

  I blink. Josie? Francesca’s the one the boys notice, especially this summer in her cutoffs.

  “Now you’re supposed to ask about me,” I say.

  He grins. “You’re feisty.”

  “Good word,” I say with a smile.

  “Thanks, Teach.”

  Miss Griffith calls, “Now everyone shake your neighbor’s hand!”

  Darren shakes mine once, then pushes his hand under his armpit.

  “There.” Miss Griffith laughs. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  Darren and I are sort of laughing ourselves. Maybe I can make new friends here. Someone on the other side of him is jiggling back and forth on his seat. Josie whispers, “I think he wants to meet you too.”

  “Who?”

  “That other boy.”

  He’s craning his neck to get around Darren and now I can see him better. He’s got melting brown eyes and the sweetest, longest smile. Heat brushes my insides. He’s still smiling when he turns away.

  The bell lets out a long bleat. “Wait, wait, boys and girls!” Mr. Stotter shouts into the microphone. “We are going to call your row and you will walk—I said wa
lk—to the very back, where there are five tables. One of those tables has the first letter of your last name and your homeroom teacher’s name. First two rows, go!”

  It’s bedlam. Me and Josie are mashed up against a moving wall of arms and legs. I’m “C” for Clarke and she’s “R” for Rivera so we can’t stay together. Finally I’m at a table and the lady hands me a slip of paper.

  Jamila Clarke

  Miss Fine. SP Homeroom: 219,

  Science Lab.

  Clutching my slip, I try to find Josie. The speakers blare: “You have two minutes to get to your homeroom! Two minutes!”

  I search the bobbing heads for her braids. “Josie?” I call. There’s a swirl of strange kids, and Josie is gone.

  “I can show you where to go.”

  I look up as someone in the stairwell shoves past me. It’s him. The boy with melting eyes.

  “I’m John.” He looks shyly at his feet.

  “I’m Jamila.”

  “You want me to show you your homeroom?”

  “How do you know where to go?” I ask.

  “They gave us a tour last week.” He adds, “I live near here.”

  I follow him up the stairs and down a hall. John is wearing a checked shirt that’s pressed at the sleeves, tucked into his trousers. A lot of girls call out to him as he weaves his way. “Hey, John!” But they say it Jo-ohn, their voices curling and stretching. Like they know something about him, some kind of deep secret.

  When we get to Room 219, he looks very pleased.

  “Thanks,” I say. Then I blush. “Are you in the same class?”

  He tips his head. “Just across.”

  Behind him, Darren is sauntering down the hall. “Hey, John, man, what you doing there? That’s not your room!”

  “See you,” John says quietly. But he doesn’t move.

  I want to stay too, but Miss Fine, my homeroom teacher, is waving to me. “Bye,” I whisper, and duck into my room.

  Homeroom is just like Daddy said the school would be: so new, I can smell fresh paint. We’re in a lab, so we sit on stools, and the tops of our tables are thick black slabs. I look around and see the kids I’ve always gone to school with. Only a few new faces—including that tall girl Johanna and José, who wears a grown-up tan blazer and a bow tie. Josie’s not here. She’s in a different SP homeroom.