“In tonight’s State of the Union address, the President will explain the state of the union, since we’re too stupid to figure it out for ourselves! Full coverage of the white man’s speech at eight, with more white men providing commentary at eleven! All this, plus sports, weather, and a special investigative report on Who-Put-This-Stick-up-My-Butt! Thank you for watching Caucasian News Network!”
That does it. Trip is now on the floor, with actual tears of laughter rolling down his cheeks.
And Jess, for once, is speechless, in every language.
Deej fixes Jess with her chocolate-cream stare. “At my school, we talk like we do because that’s OUR slang. Like you and your friends got YOUR slang, like your Kitten-and-Dawg ‘thang.’ ”
Jess’s cheeks are so red right now I’m afraid she might cry. “You are totally right,” she says. “That was utterly stupid of me, Deej. I apologize.”
“It’s okay, Jessie,” Deej says, her tone softening. “Miss Doris says the same thing as you, about college and all. At Miss Doris’s house we talk whiter than Trip!” Deej kicks Trip under the table, cracking him up all over again.
“I would LOVE to meet Miss Doris sometime,” says Jess, starting to sound like herself again. “May I?”
“Me too,” says Trip, weak from laughter, as he climbs back into his chair. “I bet she’s a cool lady.”
“Then I’m coming, too!” I say. “If we’re invited, of course!”
“Y’all wanna meet my grandma?” asks Deej, looking at us in a you-people-are-crazy kind of way. “Oh, she is gonna love that!” Deej winks at Jess and smiles. “Miss Doris would LOVE to get a look at you, Jessica Kornbluth!”
Miss Doris is not the only person who would enjoy getting a look at Deej’s new friends. That becomes clear the next afternoon, when Deej’s former crew shows up at the Pound.
“Oh man, this is not good,” mutters Deej when we walk out of school and see a small but raucous crowd of girls hanging out on Gramercy Park South.
It’s one of those early April jacket-season days that fashion-conscious New Yorkers live for. Resplendent in our attractively layered outfits, Jess, Randall, Trip, Deej, and I are on our way to meet Matthew and Jacob and even hardworking Kat for a picnic in Madison Square Park. I’m looking forward to it—the chance to lie on the grass and stare at the clouds while dispensing coy, data-gathering tidbits of flirtiness to Randall and Observing his reactions. Not to mention the fun of watching Matthew squirm and suffer around Jess. He hasn’t confessed his loooooove to her yet, despite my nefarious encouragement, but he’s been looking pale and thin lately, with dark circles under his eyes.
“Can’t we just wave and keep walking?” says Jess warily. Of the three black-eyed Kittens, Jess’s eye has taken the longest time to heal.
“Relax,” says Trip, puffing up his chest. “I think I can take a bunch of cute girls.”
“Don’t play around, Trip,” warns Deej. “These girls are no fools and they have mean boyfriends. Let me go see what’s up.”
She walks up to them and puts her hands on her hips. “Yo Shally. Yo D’Neece.”
“Why, Doris Jean! Look at your pretty new school!” the one called Shally teases her. “That is one fine house you got there. They make you clean it?” The half-dozen or so girls behind her bust out laughing at that one.
“Shut up, now,” Deej says, perfectly friendly. “I am so impressed you found your way here. You must’ve got yourself a map or something.”
“Subway runs uptown AND down, or did you forget that already?” D’Neece says. “Now come on, tell us about private school! You meet any rich whiteboys yet?”
Deej is laughing, but she’s nervous, I can tell. “These are my friends,” she says, glancing at us and then back at Shally and D’Neece. “We’re gonna go eat now, y’all coming or not?”
A loud conversation ensues over whether we should eat, what we should eat, where we should eat. Deej manages to introduce all of us by name, and though Jess and Shally pretend they’ve never met before, it’s clear they have. Everybody’s talking at the same time, but at least nobody’s fighting.
Until these two sourpuss grown-up guys come strolling down Gramercy Park South.
“This is Gramercy Park. It’s private. It’s a quiet neighborhood,” one of them barks. “Go fight somewhere else.”
The volume of the group doubles as several girls answer at once.
“If you want privacy then stay home!”
“We’re not fighting, we’re talking!”
“If we were fighting you’d know it!”
Then the other guy says the stupidest, stupidest thing.
“So go talk somewhere else,” he says. “Go back uptown, where you belong.”
Now everybody starts yelling, but Deej’s voice soars over the din.
“Excuse me, mister,” says Deej. Shally and D’Neece are flanking her like Charlie’s Angels. “There is NO need for that kind of talk.”
“It makes you sound like a racist bigot, for one thing,” says Trip, stepping right next to Deej. “That kinda thinking is just unhip, dude.”
Everybody gets quiet. I see Shally mouthing the words “rich whiteboy” to D’Neece, who looks impressed.
“Unhip?” snorts the guy, turning his full attention to Trip. “And what are you, a fag?”
“What if I was?” says Trip, locking eyes with him.
“You kids don’t belong here. I’m calling the cops,” says the first guy, taking out his phone.
“Call anyone you want. Just don’t be rude to my friends,” Trip says, as cool as I’ve ever seen anyone be.
All at once, like a flock of pigeons taking off in answer to some mysterious, prearranged signal, the crowd forms a circle around Trip and the Unhip Dude.
“Randall!” I say, in an urgent whisper. “Do something!”
Randall is standing in the relaxed, alert posture I recognize from the dojo, but he doesn’t move. “Trip’s got street smarts,” he answers, watching. He takes a slow, deep breath. “Let him deal with these jerks.”
But I’d seen enough cheesy cop shows on television to get myself all worked up. “He’s on parole, remember?” I blurt. “If the police come, he could be in trouble or something!”
Without looking away from Trip, Randall shakes off the geeky oversized wristwatch he always wears and hands it to me. He pushes up his sleeves. “Don’t tell my sensei,” he murmurs, so only I can hear. “But I kind of always wanted to get into a fight.”
Before I can say bonne chance, Randall is in the middle of the circle where Trip is facing off with the Unhip Dude. “What are you, the baby brother?” the guy says to Randall, starting to act all pumped. “The boyfriend?”
“Just a concerned, law-abiding citizen,” says Randall, stepping in front of Trip. “But there’s no law against idiots, unfortunately.”
At the word “idiots,” the guy reaches back and throws his first punch. Hard.
Exactly forty-five seconds after that punch is thrown, Randall and I are standing together on Gramercy Park South, doing something in front of everyone that I never, ever dreamed I’d be doing at all.
But wait! I am getting ahead of myself here! What happens is this:
No matter how the guy tried to hit him, Randall side-stepped it. The punch would come, and all of a sudden Randall was just, elsewhere, like he was zapped by Captain Kirk’s transporter beam and rematerialized a few feet away. The guy was wearing himself out swinging. Randall looked almost bored. The crowd was going wild and rapidly growing, as students from the Pound crossed the street to check out the fight. And Deej was hanging on to Trip for dear life, trying to keep him out of it.
But when the other guy, the one who had called the cops, started to sneak up on Randall from behind, and no one seemed to notice but me, that’s when this Kitten started to see red.
This Kitten experienced, for the first time in her life, what is meant by the term “ferocious clarity.”
I mean, come on! Two again
st one? That is just not fair.
“Keeeee—YAH!” I scream, totally unthinking, running and leaping onto the second guy’s back. I lock my arms around his neck and kick furiously. This succeeds in knocking him off balance, if nothing else. He falls to the side, on top of me. My head whacks the pavement. I’m seeing stars, and not the Hollywood kind, as sheer momentum rolls us over each other, till I end up on top. “Don’t move,” I holler in the guy’s face. And I pray he doesn’t, since I have no idea what to do next.
But he’s not moving. He’s not even looking at me. He’s too busy watching his friend get an ass-whupping from the Randinator.
It seems the distraction of my rabid Kittenattack breaks Randall’s focus for a half-second, giving his opponent an opening to land a punch. Which is unfortunate, since it leaves Randall no choice but to make physical contact. He swats the guy’s oncoming fist away like a fly, grabs his arm, and flips him neatly over his shoulder. The Unhip Dude lands on his back with a thud. At which point Randall gently places one foot on the guy’s throat.
“Sorry ’bout that,” he says to the panting, bewildered Dude on the ground. “I think you two should leave now.”
I’m vaguely aware of many Free Children gathered around, all whooping and cheering. But that’s floating somewhere distant, far, far away from my pounding head, as I wobble to my feet. Someone is helping me up but I don’t notice who it is until he speaks.
“That was incredibly brave,” says Randall as he pushes my tangled hair out of my face. “Are you okay?”
And, okay. I freely admit what happens next.
I can offer no logical explanation, but I kiss him.
I kiss Randall, in front of everyone.
As I do, something electrical-feeling zaps through me, from the top of my messed-up hair all the way down to the tips of my chunky-heeled boots.
There is a fresh round of whooping and hollering from somewhere close by.
“Mutual Rescue!” I mumble to Randall, amazed. “I think I broke your watch.”
“We better get you some ice,” says Randall, who understands that I’m talking gibberish because I may have a concussion. He must have been surprised by the kiss. He didn’t seem to mind it, though.
Just to make sure, I kiss him again. This time he’s not surprised, and he definitely doesn’t mind.
“I’m fine,” I say.
I’m X-cellent, in fact!
14
A Clue from Mr. Frasconi, a Letter from Dmitri, and a Serious Talk with Randall
PARTY ON THE BOAT! PARTY ON THE BOAT!
Trip says we’re having a party. What are we celebrating? Randall’s vanquishing of the Unhip Dude, Deej’s new friends (that’s us!) making peace with her old friends, the arrival of spring, the phases of the moon, whatevah! But his dad’s boat is docked downtown with a full crew and available for sunset circumnavigations round this island we call home, so Trip says it’s time for a party on the boat. Formal, no less!
PARTY ON THE BOAT!
But before the cruisewear shopping commences, here’s the rest of what happened on the day of the Great Vanquishing, as it shall be passed down in legend and song: hail, hail, O Randall the Brave, with an assist from Ferocious Felicia!
By the time the cops arrive, the two Unhip Dudes are long gone (if Randall’s ass-whupping wasn’t sufficient motivation, the verbal encouragement offered by Shally and D’Neece, pissed-off and scary-faced as two teenage Terminatrixes, would make any sane man flee in terror). However, there is still a crowd of whooping and hollering kids outside Gramercy Park.
The patrol car arrives with lights flashing. A cop struts out, hand hovering rather near his billy club.
“Somebody in a fight?” he yells. “Who was in a fight?”
Laughter, pointing; the crowd parts like the Red Sea. Not Moses, but Randall steps forward.
My Randall! Who’s fourteen but passes for twelve, who looks like he’d have to take steroids to win a chess tournament.
The look on the cop’s face changes from stern to concerned when he sees the Baby-Faced Randinator.
“You okay, son?” he asks.
“Fine,” says Randall mildly. “Nothing happened, really. Just some mean guys trying to scare us.”
The cop surveys this happy group of teens celebrating a home-team victory on the south side of Gram. “Who are you kids?” he asks, suspicious.
“We’re all friends, that’s who,” laughs Deej, twining one arm around Jess’s neck and the other around Shally’s.
“Right,” says the cop. “And where do you and your friends go to school?”
Deej looks back and forth between her two pals. In her Princess White Bread newscaster voice, she replies, “East Harlem Academy, and I’m also a visiting student at the Manhattan Free Children’s School, Officer, which is right across the street. They’re both highly educational institutions! These are some of my classmates.”
And Trip, who could easily be forgiven for wanting to fade into the crowd at such a moment, walks right up to the officer and sticks out his hand. “Harold Johnston Mathis the Third, sir! How do you do?”
“I’m fine, Harold, just fine,” says the officer, his adrenaline level sinking back to normal. “Ten syllables or less, tell me what happened so I can get back to work.”
“We were accosted by two small-minded gentlemen, who’ve moved on of their own accord,” answers Trip. He’s quite a few syllables over but the cop doesn’t seem to care. “It’s a shame people can’t always get along in a great city like this. We’re just heading out for some refreshments now. Care to join us?”
This is the place where you could insert some generic cops-eating-donuts joke.
Or this is the place where you could Observe that Matthew and Jacob and Kat got tired of waiting at Madison Park and came back looking for us, arriving just in time to see me in X-powered lip-lock with Randall, and half the Pound cheering us on.
Consequently, you could Describe the various looks on their faces, the O-shaped mouths, the cartoonish expressions of surprise. You could also mention the strange lump of satisfaction that formed in my chest when, still breathless from the kiss, I turned my face away from Randall’s and made brief, accidental eye contact with Matthew.
But there is a far more urgent question burning in my Kittenbrain, and that question is this:
Am I hooked up with Randall? Or not?
The Mutual Rescue worked better than anyone could have expected, and I extend all due props to Miss Dervish Greenstream for the tip. But is it enough? Will it last? I review what I’ve learned so far about X, and I plot the data points against the Randall-plus-me equation, but the answer is far from clear.
First of all, there’s no Romeo/Juliet Thing. Nobody’s trying to keep us apart.
We are not really opposites. In fact, Randall and I both tend toward the geeky and are prone to unrequited crushes. So we’re more similar than not, much as I hate to admit it.
And yes, the Mutual Rescue worked major X-mojo, but it would be difficult, not to mention painful, to reenact that on a regular basis.
What else is there? Think, Felicia, think!
The setting . . .
so very conducive to romance . . .
Ich bin ein Berliner. . . .
That’s it! The Romantic Setting.
Thanks, Mr. Frasconi!
But Randall and I don’t have to go to Berlin, because Saturday night we’ll be hangin’ and chillin’ in the most Romantic Setting evah! A sunset cruise on Trip’s dad’s boat. What could be more perfect?
I resolve to go all out: wear something girly, sneak a spritz of my mom’s perfume, beg Kat to bring her violin. Because the power of the Romantic Setting must not be squandered, and let’s face it: Randall is smart, brave, open with his feelings, and capable of boyfriend-like behavior. And he likes me.
If I didn’t notice Randall’s X-cellent qualities before, was it only because I was wearing Matthew-blinders?
Matthew Dwyer, who is many, many
wonderful things. But boyfriend-like is not among them.
“A boyfriend”—I hear my mother’s voice, reverbeverbeverberating in my head like a gong—“a boyfriend is NOT the only golden road to happiness!”
Yeah, well, she only says that because she doesn’t have one.
Maybe my mom doesn’t want a boyfriend. Or maybe she just can’t find one.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t.
I thought Kat had summoned us to the Moonbeam to plan outfits for the party on the boat, but I thought wrong.
Her violin case is on the seat next to her, but tough Violin Kat, swearing-in-Russian Kat, get-out-of-my-way-or-I’ll-stab-you-with-this-bow-Kat is nowhere to be seen. Instead, it’s a defeated and totally heartbroken Kat who sits here in our favorite booth, sobbing. She pushes a piece of paper across the table to me and Jess. It’s a letter, scrawled in teeny-tiny letters.
Dear Miss Katarina,
I have made terrible, terrible mistake. I write you this letter so you can please forgive me.
You are very serious person, and tall, and the language you say when you practice violin is like grown man! Like angry sailor! I never think a teenage girl to say such things. And that is why my mistake. Katarina, I think you grown woman!
When you say we rehearse at “school,” I say, yes, you are music teacher. When you tell me you have boyfriend, my heart break but that is life. Then the little boy comes. Your student, yes? But when he call you honey, baby doll, I see he is boyfriend of which you told me!
Only then do I realize you are high school girl!
Every time I see you for practice, I am full with humiliation to remember my idiot mistake. To think I wrote such words of love to a child!
Forgive me. I cannot recital with you. I cannot appear in public with this shame in my heart. You are talented girl. Use no more the dirty words, they are not for your girlish lips.
And be careful, dear Katarina. I think your little boyfriend is too much possessive. You shall “play the field,” yes? That is what the young people do in America.
Forgive again for my advice but you are like baby sister to me now—
Sex Kittens and Horn Dawgs Fall in Love Page 14