“If you don’t go and wash your face this minute, you’re gonna wish you had.”
I pass Hana on my way to the bathroom, and she jabs me with an elbow.
“Dummy,” she hisses at me. “Everybody knows you have to sneak the makeup to school and put it on there. Don’t you know anything?”
No. I don’t.
Once we get in the car, I’m sure Momma will keep on lecturing me, but instead she has the news radio on. They’re talking about the trial.
“Why do they even need a trial?” I ask Momma. “Everyone saw the video.”
“That’s not how it works. Both sides get to make a case. Attorneys are telling the jury why they’re right and the other side is wrong.” Momma’s face tightens some when she says the word wrong.
“But how can . . .” I don’t know what to ask exactly. It seems so obvious to me that the police officer acted wrong.
Maybe Momma could guess what I was struggling with, because she says, “The officer claims she feared for her life, so they’ll talk about that.” She reaches over and changes the station to the pop one she and I both like, but I know she doesn’t feel like singing to Beyoncé right now.
“I don’t get it. He was walking away from her. How could that be scary?”
“Shayla, stop fussing with me right now. You’re giving me a headache.”
I stay quiet for the rest of the drive.
17
History
Momma didn’t want to talk about the trial, but Mr. Powell sure does.
“Our country has so many great things, but it also has a long history of intolerance. Sometimes trials like this one are . . . benchmarks. They can show how far we’ve come, or how far we’ve yet to go.”
Alex raises his hand. “Why do people get upset just because someone’s different from them?”
Mr. Powell wears bright-colored scarves, and whenever he’s thinking hard on one of our questions, he’ll play with the edge of the fabric, like he’s searching the seam for an answer. “That’s a great question, Alex,” he finally says. “Sometimes people are scared about differences.”
I think about Momma saying how the police officer said she was afraid, and that makes me mad.
“That’s not fair,” I say.
“No, it isn’t,” Mr. Powell answers me. “Probably none of the reasons are fair. Ignorance. Fear. Anger. Jealousy.” He ticks off the reasons on his fingers. “But you all are so young.” He holds up his hands like a flood of arguments came storming at him. “I know you probably don’t think so. You must think you’re grown.” He chuckles at that, and almost everybody in the class groans. “But you can be different from the generations before you. You can celebrate people’s differences. Or step up and challenge beliefs you know are wrong. When this trial is over, whichever way the verdict goes, there’s going to be a group of people who are angry.”
I don’t want to call Mr. Powell a liar, but what he said doesn’t make sense to me at all. Right is right and wrong is wrong, and I don’t see how people can be angry over that.
I raise my hand. “Mr. Powell, don’t you think the jury is going to find the officer guilty?”
Mr. Powell rubs the edge of his scarf. “I don’t know, Shayla. Sometimes all we can do is hope for change.”
“What if it doesn’t happen? Change, I mean?” I feel a fluttering in my chest. It’s like when you think something scary is about to happen in a movie.
“Then sometimes we have to fight for it,” Mr. Powell says. Then he clears his throat and claps his hands. “Okay, let’s get back to World War Two. We were looking at causes.” He turns to the board and starts writing a bunch of dates.
I hate how much of history seems to be about fighting. With a sigh, I click my pen and start taking notes. I write down pretty much everything Mr. Powell says. Next test, I’m going to get the best grade in the class.
I check the big clock over the door. Class is almost over.
Sometimes Mr. Powell will let us out right before the bell for break, which is awesome. It means we can escape into the hallway before it fills up with people, all pushing and shoving, trying to get outside.
But today, when I’m anxious to get to my friends to tell them about my makeup fail, Mr. Powell takes forever to finish writing the history assignment on the board, and we can’t leave class until after the bell.
I jam down the hall. Twelve minutes goes awfully fast.
Outside, I find Julia in a tight circle with the group of girls we sat with at lunch the other day, instead of waiting for me with Isabella like she’s supposed to.
“Jules,” I say, and try to grab her arm to pull her away.
Julia says, “Oh, hey.” She moves her arm out of my reach and turns back to Stacy, who is talking like a tidal wave.
It’s like Julia is obsessed with Stacy or something, and I’m trying hard not to feel annoyed.
“Check it, right?” Stacy says. “He was playin’ all low key, but I know he was peeping me.”
I don’t know who Stacy is talking about. Whoever it was probably was just trying to figure out if that much glitter on her eyelids causes any permanent damage. I make another grab for Julia’s arm, but she dodges it.
“Anyway, I had, like, zero chill. Inside, I was all, like, yaaas! You know what I’m sayin’?” Stacy nudges me. “Sister, you feel me, right?”
I don’t know why Stacy is using the code for We are Black girls. Stacy is Chinese. “Come on, Jules,” I say. “We need to find Is.”
Julia gives me a weird look like I said something wrong, then smiles at Stacy. “I feel you, Stace.”
My hands are just creeping up to my hips when Isabella finds us.
“Shay! Jules!” Isabella calls. “There you are!”
“Julia and I were just coming,” I say.
“You guys go ahead,” Julia says.
She doesn’t need to tell me twice, and I march off with Isabella right behind me.
I start munching on my snack of cut-up apples before we even get to the portables, and I’m eating them so fast, I start to choke. Isabella pounds me on my back even though we know that’s not really what you’re supposed to do. Still, I say, “Thanks,” once I can breathe again. I’m glad we’re far enough away from Julia that I don’t have to hear Stacy’s donkey laugh.
I sure don’t want to believe Hana was right when she said the United Nations might split up, but I can’t help worrying, and today worrying feels a whole lot like being mad.
18
Nice
Isabella and I hide from the sun beneath the big magnolia tree. I unscrew the top of my water bottle from my backpack and take a long drink. Momma says if I drink plenty of water, it will help clear up my skin. So far it hasn’t made any difference except I do have to pee a lot more, and I miss soda. “Why is it so hot?” I click the bottle against my teeth. But that’s not the real question I want to ask. What I want to ask is why Julia is being weird and not hanging with us at break like she’s supposed to.
“I know!” Isabella pulls her hair high above her head to cool her neck. She looks like a palm tree. “Ugh, my hair is such a mess when it’s hot like this. It’s a big frizz ball.”
I do not see a bit of frizz anywhere on Isabella’s head. She says her hair is curly, but it’s totally not. What it is, is wavy. My hair is curly. And kinky. And sort of wild. Does Jace like wild or wavy hair? I wrap my hair in a tight knot bun.
“Stop complaining,” I say. “You have, like, perfect hair.”
Isabella lets her mass of waves plop back down and frowns at me. “Ay Dios mío, what’s the matter with you?”
“You sound just like your mom,” I say. I don’t hear Isabella speak Spanish that much. Usually when she’s frustrated.
“I sound like me,” Isabella says, but then her voice softens. “Seriously, Shay, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say. “Sorry.” I kick the dirt, and it’s so rock hard, not even a tiny bit of dust comes up. “I just . . .” I want
to tell her about the makeup and how I’m starting to worry that maybe Jace won’t ever smile at me again, but I want Julia to be there too like she’s supposed to be. That’s the problem with a three-way friendship. When one of us is missing, it’s hard to talk about anything important.
But if I say that to Isabella, it would feel a whole lot like talking about Julia behind her back, and any friendship manual you check would tell you friends don’t do that. “I want Jace to like me,” I finally say. Since Julia already knows that, it doesn’t seem wrong to say it to Isabella.
Isabella says, “My mom says women have to speak up for what they want.” Isabella’s face gets weird after she says that. Like, sad weird. Isabella doesn’t talk a lot about her parents, but I’m pretty sure her mom is the one who wanted to get divorced.
“Yeah, right. I’ll just walk up to Jace and say, ‘Hey! Like me!’”
“I could command you to talk to him,” Isabella says, smiling now. She rubs her hands together.
“One.” I show her my uncrossed fingers. “I’m not playing. And two, that would be totally uncool.” I screw the top back onto my water bottle and wipe the sweat from my forehead. It’s hot even in the shade. I can’t help thinking it wouldn’t be so awful if someone commanded Jace to talk to me.
“Yeah,” Isabella says, and rolls her eyes. “My mom wouldn’t say that about a boy anyway. She said I can’t go out with anybody until I’m sixteen. And once I do go on a date, she’s going to make my tíos come over and have a talk with him.” She grimaces. “Scare him away is what she means.”
“That’s awful!” Isabella’s mom likes to remind all three of us to be strong independent women. But having all your uncles come over and scare a guy? Not even Momma would do something that mean.
“Right?” Isabella picks up a seed pod and starts eyeing it. I know she’s thinking about a project she could use it in. “Maybe if she didn’t hate my dad so much, she wouldn’t care.”
I don’t know what to say to that. Sometimes I feel bad that my parents get along so well when Isabella’s parents can’t even be in the same room together. When she has birthday parties, her dad isn’t allowed to come. I would hate that. “Yeah,” is all I can think to say, and then neither of us talks for a minute.
“I don’t really care,” Isabella says after a while. “I mean about the boy thing. It’s not like I even like anybody like that.”
“I’m starting to wish I didn’t,” I say, sighing, and Isabella laughs at that. “Seriously, Is. It’d be easier if it didn’t even matter that Jace doesn’t think I’m cute.”
“What are you talking about?” Isabella asks, sounding shocked. “You are cute.”
Not as cute as you, I think, which isn’t all that cool to think. But then I get an idea. “Hey, you know your green top? The one with the glittery peace symbol?”
Isabella nods slowly.
Of course she knows. It’s her absolute favorite. I smile really big because I know I’m about to ask a huge favor. “Can I borrow it?”
“I . . .” Isabella’s face looks like she just dusted it with blush. She probably wants to say no. I shouldn’t be asking her to borrow it. Not her favorite one. But it’s the same color as Jace’s eyes, and she looks amazing in it, so maybe I could look good in it too.
“Come on, Is, say yes,” I beg.
Isabella twists her hands into a knot, but I know she’s going to say yes. She can’t help herself.
“Okay,” she says, and she smiles but her eyes don’t look happy.
It’s rotten of me to ask her to borrow it, but she looks fantastic now, so she doesn’t need help like I do.
“You’re the best! I’ll come over after school to get it, okay?” I say.
Isabella nods and I give her a hug, and then the bell rings. “Gotta go,” she says.
I watch her run off and wish Julia was there to give me a roller whip. Or to tell me I’m not a bad friend for asking Isabella for her favorite top.
On my way to English, someone grabs my shoulder, and at first I think it’s a yard-duty teacher ready to tell me to slow down.
But when I turn around, it’s Tyler. “What’s up?” I ask him, not working all that hard to hide my irritation. It’s not that Tyler is that bad, but he’s annoying, and since I already have to put up with him in shop, I don’t really need him stalking me outside of class.
“Hey, Shayla,” he says, and shows all his tiny teeth. “Um, you don’t sit at the basketball courts, huh?”
Since obviously he knows I don’t, it doesn’t seem like a real question. “I sit with my friends at the lunch tables.”
“Oh, cool,” he says. “Maybe we could eat lunch together one day?”
As if. “Yeah, sure, Tyler.”
He nods happily as if I just said we were going to go to prom together or something. That boy seriously needs to chill.
“See you in class later,” he says, and runs off.
Yolanda is always nice to Tyler, and I don’t know how he doesn’t bug her. She never even seems to mind when Tyler butts into our conversations in shop. That’s being too nice.
I think about how asking Isabella for her top wasn’t really that nice, especially since I know Isabella has such a hard time saying no. But Hana tells me nice doesn’t get you anywhere in this world. All Yolanda is getting out of being nice to Tyler is a big pest. No thanks to that business.
Still, at lunch, I offer Isabella my bag of chips.
“What’s gotten into you?” Julia asks, looking at me suspiciously. She knows I like to hoard my chips.
“Can’t a friend be generous?” I ask, smiling with all of my teeth.
I hate that Julia didn’t hang with us at break. And I hate that Isabella and I didn’t talk about it. But we can’t talk about Julia behind her back because best friends don’t do that, and Julia’s still one of my best friends; I just hope I’m still one of hers.
I bet Isabella is hoping the same thing. (She’s also probably hoping I don’t ruin her top.)
I seriously don’t know why Tyler keeps hanging around. You’d think he could take a hint.
19
Book Club
When I ask Momma if we can drive by Isabella’s to pick up something, she gets all exasperated with me.
“I have book club tonight,” she says.
I shudder. Nothing gets Momma more hyped up than hosting book club.
The guest bathroom has to be perfect, and Hana and I are forced to be Momma’s prep cooks with lots of dicing and measuring and cleaning up after. You’d think Toni Morrison and Oprah were coming over when really it’s just Momma’s best friends. At least she agrees to swing by Isabella’s on the way to the market. (I tell her Isabella has something I need for school, which isn’t really lying.)
Hana is at Regina’s house, so I’m stuck helping Momma all by myself.
She is a terror. I don’t know why anyone would care if the butternut-squash cubes aren’t exactly the same size.
When the book-club ladies arrive, Daddy hides in his office and I try to escape to my room, but Momma catches me and tells me I have to come out and say hello.
I like Momma’s friends, but they always put me on the spot.
“How’re your grades, Shayla?” Ms. Theresa asks.
“You know Shayla can’t live with anything less than an A,” Momma says with a proud smile in her voice.
“That’s the way to do it, Shayla. You’ll need those A’s when you’re ready to apply to college.” Ms. Coretta has been talking to me about college since I was five years old. She really wants me to go to an HBCU—that’s a historically Black college or university—and I have to keep reminding her I’m not even in high school yet.
“You sure are tall, Shayla,” Miss Dee says. (She says this every time she sees me, and just like every other time, I have no clue what to say back.)
“Yes, ma’am,” I say.
“Do you have any Black teachers this year?” Dr. Walters asks.
Everyone in
Momma’s book club is Black, and they’re always asking me stuff like this. Even though I know it’s not my fault all the times I had to say, No, I don’t have a Black teacher, it still makes me feel guilty, so I’m glad this time I can say yes. “My PE teacher is Black. She’s my track coach too. Coach West is really nice and totally beautiful.”
“Mm-hmm,” Dr. Walters says. “Figures it would be a gym teacher.”
“But she’s great!” I say.
Momma gives Dr. Walters a side-eye. “Don’t start, Mary—there’s nothing wrong with teaching children about fitness and health.”
“No, indeed,” a few of the other women murmur.
“Track?” Miss Dee says. “You’re on the track team, Shayla?”
I prepare myself for humiliating laughter. “Yes,” I say, and straighten up tall like Momma is always after me to do.
“Well, go on, girl!” Mrs. Anita says. “I ran track back in my day. Don’t be too fast, now, or the boys won’t be able to catch you.” She laughs and slaps her thigh.
“Now, Anita, don’t be filling Shayla’s head with your foolishness,” Momma says. “You go on to your homework, sugar,” she tells me, and she sure doesn’t need to ask me twice.
When I get to my room, I pull Isabella’s top out of my backpack and hold it up so I can check myself out in the mirror. The green looks good against my brown skin. But will it be good enough for Jace to notice me?
Wearing Isabella’s top just might be the thing that finally makes Jace see me as the girl of his dreams instead of the girl with the five-head.
20
Green Tops & Green Monsters
When Jace walks into class, he looks over and smiles, and I smile back really big, then force myself to look away like I don’t even care.
All during class, I swear I can feel Jace’s eyes burning into my back. When the bell rings for second period, I slowly get my things together so he has time to catch me.
“Hey, Shayla,” Jace says.
“Oh, hey, Jace,” I say, sounding all casual, as if fine boys talk to me all the time.
A Good Kind of Trouble Page 6