What Lane?

by Torrey Maldonado

  Also by Torrey Maldonado

  TIGHT

  SECRET SATURDAYS

  NANCY PAULSEN BOOKS

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York

  Copyright © 2020 by Torrey Maldonado

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Maldonado, Torrey, author.

  Title: What lane? / Torrey Maldonado.

  Description: New York: Nancy Paulsen Books, [2020] | Summary: Biracial sixth-grader Stephen questions the limitations society puts on him after he notices the way strangers treat him when he hangs out with his white friends and learns about the Black Lives Matter movement.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019043556 | ISBN 9780525518433 (hardback) ISBN 9780525518440 (ebook)

  Subjects: CYAC: Racism—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. Black lives matter movement—Fiction. | Racially mixed people—Fiction. African Americans—Fiction. | Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.M2927 Wh 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019043556

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Jacket art © 2020 by JAY BENDT

  Jacket design by SAMIRA IRAVANI

  pid_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0

  For Ava.

  The world is yours.

  CONTENTS

  Also by Torrey Maldonado

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Acknowledgments

  Praise for Torrey Maldonado

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 1

  “THIS MOVIE IS lit.” Dan aims his TV remote to start Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. “Chad hated it. I played it for him here. All he said was ‘Trash. They shoulda kept Spider-Man white.’”

  “What?!” I shake my head. “He’s wack. How you both even cousins?”

  He lowers the remote. “He’s not wack.”

  My parents’ voices in my head say, Blood is thicker than water. Family picks family over friends.

  I ease up and stare at the window.

  Chad is Dan’s cousin, and he just moved to our neighborhood. He’s a sixth grader like us. So far, I’m not feeling him. Anything I say, he contradicts. Anytime I’m around, he puts me down.

  I hate how Dan doesn’t notice and now even defends him.

  Me and Dan live in connecting buildings and we’re over at each other’s so much, we practically live in the same apartment. And we’re both into superheroes, fantasy, sci-fi, and similar stuff. Basically, we’re twins, except we look opposite. He’s white-white. I’m not. People sometimes call me Stephen Curry from basketball because of our names, skin color, and features. We even fade our fros similar.

  “So, Stephen, not only is this new Spider-Man almost our age, it gets better. He’s from Brooklyn too. His full name is Miles Morales, he’s fourteen, and—”

  I’m amped again. “Skip explaining. Show me.”

  “Just so you know, the movie is kinda violent, so don’t get scared.”

  “Dan, you funny. You know all movies are my lane.”

  “Nah! You run if people get hurt or bloody.”

  “Run?! When?”

  He sits next to me and poses like me watching TV. “This wasn’t you? When we saw Stranger Things?” His leg gets jumpy and he changes his voice into mine: “I’ma get ice cream. You want?”

  “What?! I didn’t do that.”

  “Yeah. You. Did.”

  I stare from him to my wrist, at the only bracelet I rock. It’s black with bright white glow-in-the-dark letters that say WHAT LANE?

  Last year, I got it on a school trip to a Barclays Center basketball game. There, this player Marshall Carter, nicknamed MC, was on that next next level. He kept scoring—any way he wanted. Everyone else had a lane. They had sick passes or swished in half-court shots. Marshall was wavy in every lane. He bagged three-pointers, passed like whoa, and did crossovers that made guys fall on their butts. And almost every time he scored, he’d yell, “What lane?!” and WHAT LANE? flashed on the JumboTron. He had no lane.

  That day, I bought MC’s bracelet after the game. I wanted his saying on my arm. What lane?!

  I want to be that: in every lane, have no lane.

  Now I thumb my bracelet. “Dan, this movie is my lane too. Press Play.”

  Dan aims his remote at the screen, and when it starts, we point. “Times Square!”

  Then we shout again: “Empire State Building!”

  New York City spots at night keep flashing. This. Is. So. Tight! I love when my city gets to shine.

  At one point, he elbows me. “How wild is it that Miles can pass for you or your brother, if you had one?”

  “Facts.” Miles Morales could be me. He’s half African American too, and even though his other side is Puerto Rican and mine is white, most people say we Black.

  I can’t believe Chad called this movie trash. Me and Dan are into it–into it.

  Most movies have superheroes who match Dan and Chad: Captain America, Superman, Thor, the Flash, and more.

  It’s wavy that this Spider-Man looks like half of my family.

  We’re all the way into a scene when we hear Dan’s dad shout, “Dan!”

  Dan rolls his eyes. “Try to ignore him. This movie is whoa, right?”

  “Yeah. It stays this good?”

  “Whaaaaat?! It gets way better.”

  “DANIEL!” his dad yells now. “Didn’t you hear me? It’s time for Stephen to go. And time for you to take out the trash. Now.”

  “Ugh!” Dan shuts off the TV and we bounce.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE TRASH DUMPSTER is in front of an alley in between me and Dan’s buildings. Sometimes, shady guys who don’t live here dip in and out
of the alley. The only time me and Dan ever went past the dumpster was when our old super, who took care of our buildings, let us check out the Halloween decorations he kept in the basement. He was cool. This new super? Nah. He’s not. He eyes me funny.

  Dan spots something. “You see the top of the ramp?”

  I check the ramp attached to his building. “The mask?”

  “Yeah. Scary eyes, right?”

  I kinda wish I wasn’t seeing this scary werewolf mask. Its lips growl back real angry, showing long bloody fangs, and its cheek is torn open, half-eaten. But it’s more than that—it’s how the mask sits on top of a mop that leans against the wall that makes it scarier. It reminds me of a vampire movie trailer that showed these human heads stuck on poles like trophies.

  Sometimes horror trailers pop up on the screen with no warning and I see things I wish I could forget. Then I end up with nightmares.

  Dan says, “I wonder if the new super is getting out Halloween decorations for our lobbies.”

  That makes sense. It’s almost Halloween.

  Dan squints. “Hold up.”

  “What?”

  “Look down the ramp.”

  The metal door at the bottom is propped open with a brick. Usually it’s locked.

  Dan’s curious. “You think he’s down there?”

  I shrug.

  “C’mon,” he says. “Let’s check. Maybe he’ll let us mess with Halloween stuff like the last super.”

  “Nah, this super’s not that way,” I say. “And what if we run into a shady head who . . . ?”

  Dan ignores me, flops his trash into the dumpster, and turns and tiptoes into the alley.

  I watch him. I can’t let him go solo—he’s my boy. I follow.

  Dan nods at me. “You ready, Miles?”

  Him calling me Spider-Man amps me up. Miles’d go down this alley, easy. Yeah, I got this.

  From the top of the ramp, the door is an open mouth—grinning us in, or waiting to swallow us.

  “What you think?” he asks. “Anyone down there?”

  I grab his forearm. “Hold up.”

  In this sci-fi show I saw, a girl did something smart. She stood at a doorway and threw something into a room to see if the monster hiding would jump out.

  I grab a baseball-size rock off the floor and pitch it.

  CLANG! My rock clanks off the metal door.

  Dan’s confused. “Why you throw that fo—?”

  “If someone’s in there, we’ll know. They’ll come out.”

  He watches the door. “Oh. Smart.”

  No one comes out.

  I smile. “We good.”

  We slowly creep down the ramp and don’t even get halfway when a guy pedaling fast-fast on a mountain bike flies past us.

  Top speed, me and Dan sprint up the ramp and back outside, where Junior, our new super, shouts from where he’s fixing a window up on the fire escape. He’s mad, waving his fist at the biker. “Come back here! Thief!”

  Then he yells at us. No. At me. “That boy your friend?”

  Dan is SOS—Stuck On Stupid. So am I.

  Huh? Junior’s asking if he’s my friend?

  Dan yells up at the fire escape, “No! We don’t know him. What happened?”

  “Ay! That’s my bike! I keep it down there. He took it!” Junior waves Dan off and points at me. “YOU! You know that boy!”

  He’s not asking. He’s saying.

  “Wha—?!” I’m shocked. “No! Why would I know h—?”

  Junior interrupts me. “You told your friend to take it?”

  Just then, three things hit me. First, Junior is for real and swears I know that bike thief. Second, he automatically feels Dan is innocent. Then, as I realize the third thing, it comes out my mouth. “Because we’re Black.”

  Dan hears me. “What?”

  “Dude. Junior thinks me and that bike thief are tight since we both Black.”

  “Nah. I don’t think so.”

  Junior’s eyes now laser in on me and he starts cursing in Spanish.

  Dan yells up at Junior, “Don’t be mad at us. Be mad at you! This is your fault! If you locked up your bike, you’d have one!”

  “C’mon.” I tap Dan. “Forget him.”

  As we pass the trash dumpster, he fist-bumps me so we can split into our separate buildings.

  But before he leaves, Dan says, “Stephen. Junior was foul. Like we did something bad.”

  In my head, I think, No, not we. He was foul like I did something bad.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE NEXT DAY after school, me and Dan meet outside our buildings and head to the park a few blocks from us. Our friends usually chill on the picnic tables between the track and handball courts.

  Normally, we go straight there, but Dan stops me as we pass the little stone shack in the park with the Parks Department leaf logo on it.

  “Stephen.” He points at the open door, then at the Parks Department workers near their truck on the other side of the park. “This has to be empty. The workers are way over there.”

  “Dude.” I roll my eyes up at the sky. “Remember yesterday? Junior?”

  “Stephen, c’mon. It won’t be yesterday. No Juniors are here to yell at us.”

  I cut on him. “What’s up with you and doors? You Alice in Wonderland or something? Can’t we just go from A to B?”

  “B for Boring? Let’s do this.”

  I want to say no, but sometimes I’m like my dad. He says yes to people a lot just to make them happy or shut them up.

  Dan inches toward the shack and pokes his head in. “They listen to rap.”

  I peek in. The workers’ radio plays on a shelf next to some cleaning supplies. Mops and brooms stand nearby that. Workers’ uniforms are on hangers.

  “Remember you said B is for Boring?” I ask. “This is that. Let’s dip.”

  “No,” Dan says. “The fun is going in. C’mon. Or you’re scared?”

  I thumb my bracelet’s letters: WHAT LANE? I stare at the Parks Department workers, so far-off I can pinch them between my fingers. I scan everyone else chilling outside. No one pays us mind. “A’ight, whatevs.”

  Me and Dan step into the middle of the room. I’m nervous but good. He turns up the radio’s volume and gets me all jumpy.

  “For real?” My eyes pop. “You want people hearing this and coming in?”

  Dan pulls a uniform shirt off a hanger. “Wanna try this on?”

  “Nah, bruh. You. Bump that. Hang it up. You just acting dumb now.”

  Dan hangs it back up, and I lower the radio and peek outside. “The workers are still far. Let’s bounce.”

  Dan follows me out. I feel a few things. My heart knocks hard and fast in my chest, but I also feel good for shutting him down. Since I was little, it’s been hard to speak up. In classes, lots of kids spoke up like no biggie, but it was hard for me.

  I was that way all the way up to age nine on New Year’s, when I first learned what a New Year’s resolution is. Something you plan to do. Right there, I told myself, From now on, I’ll say what’s on my mind.

  I didn’t always keep that promise, but I got better. Like just now. I kept that New Year’s resolution: I spoke my mind.

  * * *

  We get to the picnic benches, and our friends Christopher, Jen, and Jeremiah are there with a bunch of other kids.

  Dan gets braggy as we get close. “Guess what we did. Snuck in that shack.”

  Everyone looks like, Nuh-uh. Then they’re all questions.

  Jen: “What’s in there?”

  Christopher: “For how long?”

  Jeremiah: “Swear?”

  Then Dan’s cousin Chad skateboards here from nowhere. His clothes are ripped as usual. He has a rep for climbing and trespassing into places.

  He
obviously heard what me and Dan just did in that Parks Department shack, because he smirks at me. “What’s up, Stranger Things?” He points at my Twilight Zone T-shirt. “Did you enter another dimension? See ‘spirits’?”

  Ugh. Here he goes again, calling me names and leaning on “spirits” like a dis.

  I eye Dan to see if he gets it about Chad, but Dan seems clueless.

  “Hey.” Chad points at an abandoned factory rising high in the distance like the Tower of Terror at Disney. “The construction company is blowing up that old building. I heard back in the day, some workers died in a fire there. You guys want to see real spirits? Go in there with me. Bet spirits—ghosts, whatever you call them—are in there.”

  I think about what it must be like in there. Maybe like Ghost Hunters? Do I even want to see that stuff in real life? I get a Nah feeling, but everyone else starts fist-bumping Chad.

  Jen says, “That’s kinda next-level! I’ve never snuck into an abandoned building before.” She’s cool, a tough girl who does parkour and our school’s martial arts program. I’ve held boards she’s punched in half.

  Her twin brother, Jeremiah, flicks back his long rock-star-looking hair that matches Jen’s. “I bet inside’ll feel haunted. Real Halloweeny.”

  “Yeah.” Chad turns to me. “A kind of haunted house. You down?”

  Dang. Why’s he putting it on me?

  As everyone eyes me, all I can think to say is “Yeah, I’m down.”

  I think of my dad, agreeing with people to make them happy, or to shut them up. It works for my dad and it works right now.

  I wish I wasn’t that little me who struggles to speak up again.

  CHAPTER 4

  OUTSIDE THIS SCARY factory’s fence, I check for people and see only an old man pushing a shopping cart. Behind him is a cemetery.

  This is kray. Sneaking in a haunted-looking factory. Next to a cemetery.

  Everyone eyes for a way through the fence.

  Jeremiah nods at the fence’s top. “Barbed wire. I’m not going over that.”

  Everyone’s looking everywhere but down—which is where I see a way we might get in. And beyond that, I stare through the fence at the broke-down-looking door on the factory, where a locked chain sags. I bet we can squeeze through that door. I shake off the thought, because then what? We’re in a scary scene from Ghost Hunters?