Sun & Shyne 2: School Daze

by Sa'id Salaam

  Black Ink Publications Presents

  Sun & Shyne 2

  SCHOOL DAZE

  A Novel By

  Sa’id Salaam

  Copyright 2016 by Sa’id Salaam, Sun & Shyne 2, School Daze

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except for by a reviewer, who may quote a brief passage in reviews.

  First Edition March 1, 2016

  Printed in the United States of America

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Email: saidmsalaam@gmail.com and/or blackinkpublications1@gmail.com

  Facebook: Free Sa’id Salaam

  Cover design and layout by: Sunny Giovanni

  Edited by: McIntire Edits

  Acknowledgements

  Bismillah Ir Rahman Ir Rahim

  As always, First and Foremost All praise and worship is for Almighty God, alone, with no partners. I bear witness that there is nothing worthy of worship except Him.

  Dedications

  To you, the readers, thank you once again for all your love and support!

  Team Salaam! Next!!!

  Sun & Shyne 2

  SCHOOL DAZE

  A Novel By

  Sa’id Salaam

  Chapter 1

  The summer before high school was a blur of activity. Killa kept his kids busy at the range, swimming pool and at the boxing gym. Although the purpose was training them for the big leagues, and Wyandanch High School was definitely the big leagues, they still managed to have a lot of fun.

  Yolo had left more than enough money for them to attend any of the private schools in the neighboring towns, but she was adamant about wanting them to experience the dangerous environment. It, too, was training to prepare them for whatever they may encounter in life. The school had major drug problems, gang problems and the violence that went along with them. There was also an STD problem to go along with the school’s high rate of teenage pregnancy.

  Christi begged Killa to reconsider but he refused to go against Yolo’s wishes. Besides, he knew that she was right. They’d raised their kids well and now they would have to use what they’d been taught. All that was left now was a trip to Jamaica Ave for school clothes.

  Asad had tagged along, just like he had all summer. As a result, he too could shoot, swim and fight just as well as the twins. Shyne was forced to ride in the middle between the two boys while Christi rode shotgun next to Killa.

  “Ugh!” Christi fussed at the disgusting lyrics coming out of the car’s speakers. The hit song ‘Bitch Suck my Dick’ played at least twice an hour, every hour, to make sure to warp young minds. She couldn’t take another second of it so she turned it off. “I felt like my IQ was dropping with every word!”

  “Who was that?” Killa asked offhandedly. He only asked in hopes of tracking him down to murder him. That would protect not only his teens, but all teens from the foul-mouthed idiot.

  “He calls himself Crack Cocaine,” Shyne replied, making her stink face. She often twisted her pretty face up to show her displeasure with something or someone.

  “I’ll kill that dude!” Sun declared, speaking figuratively.

  “Me too!” Killa said, meaning it literally. He would, too, the first chance he got. He knew his son had meant rapping so he challenged him, “Go on and spit something then.”

  “Un, un,” Sun began as Shyne hit the beatbox. Once they were in sync, he began spitting the new lyrics he wrote over the summer. Asad wasn’t particularly fond of music but was fond of the twins so he smiled and nodded along with their performance.

  Shyne’s lips got tired so she stopped, Sun, however, kept right on rapping. He began to show off, freestyling about everything they drove past. An hour later, he finally wrapped up his rap when his father pulled into a parking garage on Jamaica Ave.

  “Twenty damn dollars a damn hour!” Killa fussed as he took a ticket and entered the garage.

  “Damn shame!” Shyne tossed in. A child should never pass on an opportunity to curse in front of a parent. It’s only right. Her father twisted his lips at her but didn’t open them. As soon as he put the car in park, the girls got ghost.

  “Y’all sure y’all don’t want us to come with you guys?” Killa called after them.

  “We cool!” Shyne replied over shoulder and kept pushing. She loved those dudes but did not shop with them.

  The first stop was a trendy boutique where mannequins were dressed in the latest fashions, displaying plastic breast and legs in the window. Christi looked at Shyne dubiously, knowing she wouldn’t wear any of the stuff inside. Yolo had raised them both and she’d raised them right. They would not be putting themselves on display like the mannequins were.

  “Ooh…this…is…fierce!” Shyne proclaimed as she held a tiny skirt up to her body. She grabbed the matching half shirt and held that up as well.

  “Um…” was all that came to Christi’s mind. She was twenty-four and wouldn’t wear it so she knew that the fourteen-year-old wouldn’t. Shyne was as pretty as her mother, with a trace of her father who was also pretty in his own right. She had begun filling out and rounding off with curves.

  “Too bad Asad would never let me wear it!” she said, sucking her teeth as she put it back on the rack.

  “Mmhmm,” Christi chuckled. She thought it was cute how Shyne blamed stuff on Asad even though it was stuff she wouldn’t do anyway. Asad wouldn’t like seeing her in skimpy clothes but he wasn’t bossy either. Her father was though so she moved on to a rack of clothes with more cloth. “Speaking of Asad, when is the wedding?”

  “After I graduate from college,” Shyne replied quickly. So quickly that Christi almost started to believe that they would one day wed for real.

  ****

  “Damn it, man!” Sun exclaimed at a sexy young thing walking ahead of them. She had big caramel calves connected to thick thighs. The short skirt came just shy of revealing her round caramel ass bouncing around under it. That was the only way that ‘shy’ could be used in the same sentence used to describe the girl.

  “Oh my,” Asad said in embarrassment. The Qur’an teaches Muslim men and women to lower their gaze, so that’s what he did.

  “Oh my, is right!” Killa agreed as he bobbed his head along with the booty.

  “Excuse me while I go bag these groceries,” Sun said and rushed to catch up with her.

  Killa was impressed at how smoothly his son pulled up to and began to chat. However, had it been Shyne talking to a boy, he would have lost his damn mind. Double standard? Sure, but he didn’t invent it. He simple enforced it. Sun and the young lady, who appeared to be in her early twenties, stopped so she could write down her number. Sun’s swag was set to a thousand as he made his way back to his father and Asad.

  “You know what I’m saying?” he laughed as he handed the digits to his dad to show off. Once his hands were free, he popped his collar.

  “Order me a large extra cheese,” Killa said, handing the number back.

  “Huh?” Sun asked and looked at the number. He let out a sad sigh as he noticed the well-known number for a local pizza chain. “Aw, man!”

  Asad covered his mouth, so he wouldn’t laugh out loud at his friend. Sun lagged back in embarrassment, giving Killa a chance to grill the other teen. It was long overdue since he and Shyne still hadn’t let up on them getting married. He had given his consent back then, assuming the kids were only joking, but that
had been years ago and at present, their story still hadn’t changed.

  “So…” Killa began and then paused to get Asad’s full attention. He knew he had it when Asad turned and looked up at him. “What do you plan to be when you grow up?”

  “A man,” Asad replied back instantly.

  Killa frowned, thinking he was being funny. His face quickly softened as he processed the answer. Being born with a penis makes you male not a man. Having that penis and growing older doesn’t make you a man either. There’s a big difference between a grown ass boy and a grown ass man. Many women have children with grown boys and then wonder why they don’t man up. They can’t because they’re not men. Men are the maintainers and protectors of women. If they don’t or won’t, it’s probably because they’re not truly men.

  “Okay, so…” Killa resumed. He was impressed with the answer but wasn’t going to let him know that. “What kind of job are you planning on getting? How will you take care of my daughter?”

  “I’m already developing video games and later on, I’m going to sell the rights to them to major companies, In sha Allah. That means…”

  “God willing. I know, but…what if you don’t make it as a developer?” Killa questioned. “How will you support your family then?”

  “Well, I’ll be a man, so I’ll do something else. Because that’s what men do,” Asad said, getting the father’s blessing once more.

  “That’s all I have,” Killa said. Once again, he was impressed by his children’s only friend.

  By the end of the day, both the trunk and the kids’ laps were loaded with clothes and sneakers. Shyne had picked tasteful clothes to subdue her budding body while Sun had bought the latest fashions of the streets. They were all set for their first day of school.

  Chapter 2

  “A-yo, Dad, can you drop us off at school?” Sun asked, as if he hadn’t already asked several times before. Ask a silly question and you’ll get a silly answer. Ask the same question and you’ll get the same answer.

  “Nope,” Killa replied. Riding the school bus was also a part of the whole experience and he wanted them to experience it. They would soon be fifteen, and sixteen the following year, where brand new cars awaited them but until then, they would be riding the school bus.

  “Come on, Sun,” Shyne said, glaring at her father like she wanted to fight. She didn’t but she did want a ride. Have her tell it, she was too cute for the school bus.

  Shyne was cute for the first day of school just like she planned to be for the last day of school and every day of school in between. Today, she rocked a white pair of pants and shirt with a pair of crispy white sneakers. The pink laces laced in them matched the pink ponytail holders on the ends of her two Pocahontas braids hanging from her head.

  Sun wore a pair of skinny jeans slung low to show off his colorful boxers that were the same color as his loud sneakers. His own long hair was pulled into a wavy ponytail and hung from the back of his head. The pair of size twelve One Ummah sneakers on his feet gave hint that he would one day be as tall as his father.

  “Your balls are going to call the police on you,” Shyne said of her brother’s pants causing, their father to choke on his coffee.

  “Don’t hate,” Sun said, swatting the joke away like a gnat.

  “Oh my! I see that we were worried about the wrong one wearing tight pants,” Christi cracked when she came into the kitchen.

  “Another hater,” Sun said, shaking his head sadly. “Come on.”

  “Bye, Christi. Bye, Daddy,” Shyne relented as she hugged and kissed her father. “I love you more than the whole world!”

  “I love you, too, but I’m still not driving y’all to school,” he replied.

  Shyne sucked her teeth and stormed out. Killa took a few more sips of coffee before he stood to leave. He may not drive them but he would be following, watching.

  ****

  “Damn, what you got to argue about this early?” Shyne asked as they approached the school bus.

  A dingy girl name Ella was all in the face of some cute girl. They traded insults back and forth while Ella’s friends surrounded her. These girls were more ratchet than the one found in a tool box and didn’t play fair. As soon as they had her surrounded, they pounced.

  The pretty girl fought bravely but there were just too many of them. Rather than risk serious injury, she covered her face and balled up into a fetal position to deflect the blows. The brunt of the beating landed on her arms and back, saving her face from being viciously scratched and battered.

  “That’s fucked up,” Sun growled. He was torn between the lessons he’d learned from his parents to mind your own business and to defend oppressed people. One day he would reconcile the two but today, he watched the beating.

  Luckily, the long yellow school bus rounded the corner and broke it up. The pretty girl stood and dusted herself off while Ella and her crew high fived.

  Sun saw how pretty the pretty girl was but couldn’t help but to notice how fine Ella was as well. The skin tight jeans did more than cultivate a yeast infection. They also showed off her perfectly round ass. Her bowed legs looked like they could wrap perfectly around a back. Her short hair was gelled down to her head above a face that resembled a monkey.

  “I swear, if those girls ever touch me…” Shyne snarled, stopping before finishing her violent statement. She was just like her mother and would have tracked them all down and murdered them one by one.

  The twins mounted the bus and took the first open seats. The victim took a seat across from them and right behind the driver. Shyne admired her tasteful clothes and shoes, unaware that they were why she’d gotten jumped. The welfare clique always found a reason to fight the cute girls. They were all fucking privately but publicly, the pretty girls got all the attention.

  A few stops later, a pretty brown skinned girl boarded the bus. She took one look at the rowdy kids in the back and sat next to the victim. Both Sun and Shyne gave her a once over. They checked out her new, clean, tasteful clothes along with her natural hair that she had pulled into an afro with a band secured around it. The girl was cute but too plain for Sun. However, Shyne saw a possible comrade in her.

  The kids behind them turned the back of the bus into a party bus complete with beer, weed, music, and dancing. They laughed, joked and smoked all the way to the school. Shyne stared straight ahead but Sun couldn’t help but to keep turning back to see the happenings. Those were the cool kids and he wanted to be one.

  ****

  The kids of Wyandanch Township had been going to the same school for decades. Most of the kids were second and third generation students. Some had actually been conceived in the school while others would conceive in the school. Heads and cherries had been busted on a regular basis in its halls, stairways and bathrooms.

  The school was as bad as any inner city school in any inner city. Although one could actually get a quality education there, most were more concerned with dressing fly and getting high instead. As a result, more would drop out, go to jail, give birth, or die than graduate.

  All freshman shared the same homeroom so Sun and Shyne started their day together, but they wouldn’t share another class until fifth period English. They would be on their own for the first time in their young lives. The dumb kids flocked to the back of the class just like they had on the bus.

  “Hey now,” Sun exclaimed as the pretty teacher came in and put her bag down. She didn’t look much older than some of the kids who actually attended the school. As a matter of fact, a few of them were older than the recent college grad.

  Miss Waters had attended this same school so she understood the challenges she faced. She’d made it out and could have gone anywhere but instead of going, so she decided to come back to help other kids make it out as well.

  “Let’s see here…” Miss Waters said, picking up the attendance sheet for roll call. She took a deep breath and began. “Alize Afriqa Monae Adams?”

  “Here!” she called from the back
of the classroom while getting felt up.

  “Shyne Forrest, oh, and Sun Forrest. Sun and Shyne! That’s cute. Are you guys twins?” the teacher asked excitedly.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, we are,” Sun said in a deep voice that cracked his sister up.

  “Born, God, Supr—I’m not calling you all of this!” Miss Waters fussed. “In here, you are Mr. Williams.”

  “You can just call me God, Ma. Feel me?” the teen slurred so it would sound cool. Ironically, he had just smoked a blunt to get high when the real God is The Most High.

  “I most certainly will NOT,” the teacher laughed and resumed her roll call.

  “God still ain’t found a comb,” Shyne snickered to her brother.

  “Or lotion, or socks, or…” Sun added and cracked up.

  After a few minutes, homeroom was over and it was time to go to class. They both checked their phones, said goodbye and departed.

  Chapter 3

  Shyne let out a frustrated sigh as she reached first period science class. It was by far her favorite subject because of all the flammable substances. The group of goons and goonettes whooping and hollering in the back of the class threatened to ruin the experience. The thought of setting them on fire spread a smile on her face as she took the first seat. A five percenter named Dwight, but who called himself Bar-kim, thought it was for him.

  “Yo, god, who that?” he asked his fellow god, which is yet another contradiction since The Real God knows everything.

  “That’s Shyne. I went to elementary and middle school with her,” Born Supreme blah, blah, blah, blah replied.

  “She fuckin’?” Bar-kim wanted to know. If so, he would move on her. If not, he would move on.