by Sharon Flake
None of it bothers Char. As long as she’s looking fine, she’s all right. But today, she don’t look so hot. She’s got dark circles under her eyes and her hair is all over her head.
″You look like you’ve been sleeping already,″ I say, picking lint out of her hair.
She pushes my hand away. ″I caught me a few winks about a hour ago. Juju didn’t even miss me. If she did, I would be in real trouble. She says she don’t pay me to sleep.″
Then Char lets out a giant yawn. She lays herself across the bed. I want to tell her I didn’t come here to watch her sleep, but I feel sorry for her. So I just sit in the chair, watching her nod off.
But before Charlese can get to sleep good, Juju yells at the top of her lungs. ″Charlese, what am I paying you for, girl? Get yourself down here. Now.″
Charlese jumps up and runs down the stairs.
Juju’s yelling and screaming at her in front of everybody. I keep asking myself, Why is Char taking that from her? Then I remember that Char hasn’t got nobody but Juju. Juju is only twenty-five.
I sit upstairs by myself for a long while, too scared to go downstairs. Finally, I tell myself to get on outta there. When I do get the courage to go downstairs, it’s still a madhouse. Char’s running around. People are lined up at the door trying to get in the house. Strangers are asking me where the bathroom is and how come there ain’t no toilet paper.
I don’t tell Char I’m going. I just walk out the door. Last I seen, Char was rubbing her eyes and handing out drinks. Juju was shaking her hips and smoking a cigarette, yelling for somebody to turn up the music.
CHAPTER 17
AS SOON AS I GET TO the street two boys I ain’t never seen before start hassling me.
″Hey, bean pole,″ one of them says.
″You mean, black bean,″ his friend says.
Across the street, some lady yells, ″Y’all leave that girl be.″
That just makes those boys tease me more. But I ignore them and keep on walking. Soon I’m halfway home. I’m getting hot, so I take my jacket off and sit myself down on some steps to cool off. Most of the houses on the block are vacant. I’m sitting on the curb, imagining what this street would look like if people picked up the trash and gutted some of the buildings. Then, when I look down the street, here come the two boys who were bothering me. I get up and start walking as fast as I can.
I keep putting my finger in my mouth and scraping off nail polish. I cross the street even when I don’t have to. They keep coming.
″I like a girl with long legs,″ one of them says, catching up to me. ″A sweet, chocolate brown baby with long legs.″
One of the boys is wearing biker pants. He laughs and starts walking faster. I walk fast too.
″Baby, baby, baby,″ he says, ″you my kind of woman.″ Then he gets in front of me. His friend gets behind me. He’s dressed in big, drooping pants that show his underwear.
″Give me a little kiss,″ he says. ″Right here on my soft, juicy lips.″
His friend twists my hand behind my back. I yell for him to let me go. But he doesn’t.
He’s big. He’s got muscles in his neck and everywhere else. ″Give my friend a little kiss,″ he says, pushing me toward the other kid.
I tell them to leave me alone. I tell them my dad’s a cop and he will lock them up. They don’t care. They are having fun.
The boy with the biker pants says that if I just give him a kiss he’ll leave me be. ″I wanna see what you taste like, is all.″
″No,″ I yell. But nobody can hear me. Ain’t nothing alive on this block except mangy cats and stray dogs, and they look like they want to jack me up, too. My heart is beating so fast I can’t breathe. ″I ain’t playing,″ I say, trying to pull loose from the big one with the droopy pants.
″You pretty black thing,″ the biker pants kid says. ″I ain’t gonna hurt you.″ Then he closes in on me. Tears come running down my face. My head is shaking no. His friend is laughing. Laughing and shoving me closer. I want to scratch his eyes out. Only I can’t get my hand loose. Next thing I know, the biker pants guy is standing over me, his breath smelling like green peppers and garlic.
I’m crying. Thinking what to tell Momma. She will be mad at me for walking down a street where nobody lives. I kick the guy who’s holding me. He looks like he wants to scream. He lets up on one of my hands for a second while he’s yelling for the other kid to hurry up. I dig my fingernails into that other boy’s stomach and hang on tight like a crab. He hits me so hard a knot starts to swell on my arm.
Then he puts his hand over my mouth. My heart’s about to beat me up inside. I open my mouth, grab hold of his hand with my teeth like a mad dog, and don’t let go. He’s trying to pull his fingers free. But he can’t. He’s screaming for me to let him go. But I hang on. He’s punching me upside the head, screaming and punching, till finally I set him free.
″You black thing,″ he says, putting up his big fist like he wants to slam me again. My big teeth marks have left a dent in his hand. He starts loosening his belt with his good hand.
″Forget it, man,″ the other one says. ″She ain’t worth it.″ He shoves me hard. ″Next time we see you, you better run,″ he says.
I don’t give those evil kids no second chances. I run like the wind. I run and run and run till I can’t breathe no more. When I’m almost home, I sit down on some steps near my house, and cry. My whole body is shaking and seems like it won’t ever stop. Tears and snot are running down my face. No more back streets, fool, I tell myself.
When I’m just about home, I run into Sweets. She’s headed to the corner store to buy her dad some snuff. I tell her what happened. ″Please don’t tell Momma,″ I beg. Sweets agrees. She gives me a sorry look. I know she knows all this happened ’cause I had to be around Char. But she says she’ll keep it quiet anyhow.
She gives me a used tissue to wipe my face clean. I don’t have no choice but to take the tissue. I can’t let Momma see me like this. By the time I get home, I don’t look so bad. I tell Momma that some boys was picking on me, but I don’t go into no real detail.
Momma studies me for a long minute. ″You better be careful out there,″ she says, setting a plate of pinto beans, rice, and pork chops down on the table. I rub my sore arm, and try to scoop some beans and rice into my mouth. But my throat won’t swallow them down without a struggle.
″I ain’t that hungry,″ I say, leaving the table before Momma can say anything. I go to my room and cry myself to sleep.
CHAPTER 18
IT’S BEEN A MONTH NOW, AND all I think about is that thing with those boys. Momma’s been saying I got my head in the clouds. She keeps asking if I’m in love or something. I spend a lot of time in my room and don’t even talk on the phone, not even to Sweets. Mostly, I’m thinking and writing in my diary—our diary, Akeelma’s and mine. Lately it’s hard to know where Akeelma’s thoughts begin and mine end. I mean, I might be starting off with her talking about how scared she is with the smallpox spreading around the ship and killing people. Then I end up the same paragraph with Akeelma saying she’s scared that maybe people will always think she’s ugly. But I’m really talking about myself. I’m scared people will always think I’m ugly.
Miss Saunders says it’s good that I’m getting so close to Akeelma.
″Good writers get close to their characters,″ Miss Saunders says.
I’ve even written in our diary about that thing with the boys, only it ain’t me the stuff is happening to, it’s Akeelma. She’s there on the boat, up on deck when the men running the ship come after her.
Dear Diary,
Where do you run when there’s no place to run? They had me trapped. I could see no way out. Then I scratched one on the face, bit the other on his fat, dirty hands. And when I was running, running to hide deep in the crowd up there, I saw someone I knew. It was Kinjari! Kinjari is not dead!
—Akeelma
I showed this last part to Miss Saunders. She said this is pow
erful stuff. ″Writing is clearly one of your gifts, Maleeka,″ she said. I know it sounds stupid, but when I was leaving Miss Saunders’s classroom, I hugged them papers to my chest like they was some boy I’ve been wanting to press up against for weeks. It feels good doing something not everybody can do.
Momma got a saying: ″Don’t go getting full of yourself ’cause soon as you do, somebody’s gonna come and let the wind out of your sails.″ Today that somebody is Char. She sees me walking down the hall like I’m wearing clouds for shoes.
″Why you looking all stupid?″ she asks, plucking me upside the head. Like a dummy, I tell her about Miss Saunders and my work. Soon as the words are out, I want to kick myself. I said I wasn’t telling nobody about this. Now look what I did.
″You Miss Saunders’s pet, anyhow,″ Char says, sticking gum in her mouth. ″She got you that job in the office just to keep you away from me, I bet.″
I start to tell Char that ain’t so, but she don’t want to listen. ″We’re hanging out in the bathroom next period. You coming?″ she asks.
″I have to work,″ I say.
″That’s what good little slaves do, obey their masters, right?″
If Char knew, really knew, what girls like Akeelma went through, she wouldn’t be talking down slaves.
″You gonna be a slave, or your own master?″ Char asks, crossing her arms. If I was my own master, I wouldn’t ever speak to you again, I want to say. But, instead, I just tell Char I’ll see her later.
″You better be there,″ she says, walking off. She’s halfway down the hall when I hear Worm call her name and see him run to catch up with her. Worm is sliding his arm around Char’s shoulder. She yanks it off like he’s got body odor. Now that Char has finally stole Worm away from Daphne, she don’t even want him no more. That’s how she is—sometimey.
It ain’t no real choice when you think about it. Hanging with Char and them in the bathroom is more fun than stapling papers in the school office. So when I push open the bathroom door, I put all that stuff about Akeelma and Miss Saunders and the office out of my head. Hanging out in the bathroom is party time, Char likes to say. So I go in there ready to have a good time.
I scoot myself up on the sink and kick off my shoes. Char gets up in the mirror and puts on another coat of mascara. She and the twins, Raise and Raina, laugh. They’re talking about Worm and some other boys I don’t care nothing about. I smile and act like I’m listening. Next thing I know, I’m reading one of Akeelma’s letters.
Char asks what I’m up to. I tell her nothing. She grabs my stuff so hard my books fall on the floor.
″Maleeka’s tripping on that slave stuff again,″ Char says, taking out her cigarette lighter and setting one of my pages on fire. I can feel my ears burning hot with anger. I blow out the burning papers.
″Why does Maleeka got to be with us, anyhow?″ Raina asks, putting lipstick on for the third time. ″Maleeka is corny and ugly.″ Raise sticks her face in the mirror right alongside her sister’s. A matching set.
″It used to be fun watching Maleeka half kill herself learning to smoke,″ Raina says, cutting her eyes at me.
″But Maleeka’s just a pain now,″ says Raise.
Raise and Raina pull back from the mirror at the same time. They both puff up their hair and scratch the same side of their necks at once.
Char says the only reason she lets me hang with her in the first place is to get her grades up.
″It seems like it’s been forever, and they ain’t up yet,″ Raina says.
Char shakes her head and smiles. ″You’re right, Raina. I’m thinking about letting her go anyhow.″ Char is talking like I ain’t even here. ″Only I can’t cut her loose yet. We got that big book report due in social studies. After that you’re history, girl.″ Now Char is looking my way.
Raina’s still on my case. ″Maleeka, ever since you got that new hairdo, you think you’re something, don’t you, Miss Baldy,″ she says, laughing.
I don’t laugh. I look at her like she’s getting on my last nerve.
Next thing I know, cigarette smoke is everywhere, and Raise is showing us how to do some new dance. Char asks me to hold her cigarette. She digs in her purse and takes out a marker. She writes her name in big, black letters on the wall near the sink: Charlese Jones.
All of sudden, Miss Saunders comes busting into the bathroom, like she’s a cop. ″All right,″ she’s says.
″Dag,″ Raise says. ″Why you always gotta be ruining stuff, Miss Saunders?″
Charlese is pissed. This is the third time Miss Saunders has busted her in the bathroom this month.
Miss Saunders comes over to me and yanks the cigarette out of my hand. ″I’m surprised to see you here, Maleeka,″ she says, flushing the cigarette down the toilet. Then she rubs her hands on her slacks.
″Maleeka ain’t no goody two-shoes like you’re trying to make her out to be, Miss Saunders,″ Char says, putting her arm around my shoulder. ″Her and me done all kinds of things together.″
″Save it, Char,″ Miss Saunders says, moving up to where I’m standing. She accidentally bumps Charlese’s arm and makes her drop her lipstick on the floor. The lipstick lands right on its tip.
″You did that on purpose,″ Char yells, as she gets up on her toes, up in Miss Saunders’s face. But Miss Saunders gets as serious as a heart attack. ″I am not a child. I do not play games with children,″ she says, staring hard at Char.
Char tries to stare down Miss Saunders, only you can tell Miss Saunders ain’t backing off.
″That lipstick cost me twenty dollars. It’s designer stuff. I want my money,″ Char says.
When Miss Saunders tells us all to get to the office, there’s no mistaking that she means business. She tells everybody to walk a few steps ahead of me and her.
Miss Saunders is harder on me than anybody else. She grabs me by the arm and pulls me off near the lockers. I’m looking at her hand, like she better get off me. I guess she has a second thought about what she’s doing, because she turns my arm loose and starts giving me one of her speeches. Talking about how well I was doing in class and working in the office. Telling me I need to choose my friends better.
When we walk into the office, Miss Carol and Maxine act like they haven’t even noticed Charlese or the twins. But they have sure noticed me. And I swear I can see the corner of Maxine’s mouth go up, like she’s holding back a smirk. A teacher standing in the office asks what’s happened. Miss Saunders says we were cutting class in the bathroom, smoking, destroying property. Dag, I’m thinking, it wasn’t like Char was ripping out the sink. She was just writing her name on the wall with a marker. Just letting people know she’d been there.
CHAPTER 19
Dear Diary,
They took us up top today. I cried when the sun touched my face. It has been a long time since I seen it. The others, they jumped and ran and laughed like they was free. I sat down in a corner by myself. I stared at the sun, then shut my eyes tight. I want to hold onto the sun for as long as I can. To save up the picture for when I am below again and need to remember that the sun is always shining. I squeeze my eyes closed till I see stars. When I open them again, Kinjari is there.
—Akeelma
The school detention room is in the basement, next to the boiler room. Damp. Cramped. Hot. Nothing but desks and chairs, with Miss Birdy, the detention teacher. Even when it’s snowing out, you can go sleeveless in there and still be sweating. Today ain’t no different. It’s hot. I’m sweating, and it ain’t nobody’s fault but Miss Saunders’s. So here I am, writing in my diary, trying to see the sun.
I’m supposed to be doing English homework. Miss Saunders gave me twenty-five pages to read in two days. I don’t get too far with it, though. Caleb comes into the detention room, making noise. He’s excusing himself all the way across the room. Squeezing between desks. Knocking over books. You’d think a boy that has been the president of the class and student representative on the PTA would know how to wal
k into a room.
I’m hoping he will sit up front. No such luck. He plops down two seats away from me, and starts talking before he’s seated.
″Hey,″ he says in that low, soft voice of his.
I stretch my legs out till they’re even with the front legs of the chair in front of mine. ″What are you doing here?″ I ask.
″Mr. P. put me in here,″ he says. ″I was doing the boys’ bathroom.″
For a while, I just doodle on the edges of my paper. But I can’t help asking, ″Doing what in the boys’ room?″
″Scrubbing down the joint,″ he says plain as day.
″You cleaned the boys’ room?″ I’m frowning up my face. ″You touched the toilet and all that stuff?″ Caleb’s shaking his head yes with every word I say.
″Disgusting.″ I suck my teeth.
Miss Birdy comes over to us and tells us to separate. ″Get some more space between you,″ she says. ″Two more seats over, Caleb,″ she insists.
Caleb moves over, then, as soon as Miss Birdy starts grading papers again, he’s back near me.
″I don’t believe you,″ I whisper. ″Ain’t nobody at this school crazy enough to clean the bathrooms,″ I say, then I shut my mouth.
But Caleb, he does seem crazy sometimes. He and his dad go feed the homeless on the weekends, and once a month Caleb volunteers at the senior citizens home. Last year, he even got the school to hold a neighborhood cleanup day.
″Yeah, I cleaned up the boys’ room,″ Caleb says, smiling. ″Got down on my hands and knees like my Momma taught me.″
″You should’ve asked the janitor to help.″
″He’s doing his job,″ Caleb says. ″It’s the rest of us that aren’t doing ours.″
Caleb’s hands don’t look like they been in no toilets, even if he was wearing gloves. His hands are big, with nice white straight nails, and his fingers are long and strong and they move all over the place when he gets excited.