My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich

by Ibi Zoboi

  “E-bone-y!” she sings.

  She pronounces my name with an accent, stretching the bone sound. It’s Bianca’s abuela, Señora Luz.

  “So good to see you. Oh, you got so big!” She gets ahold of my shoulder and motions for me to turn around like all the other grandmothers do down in Huntsville. She giggles as if I’m one big joke. Poor Señora Luz. They got her, too.

  Bianca comes out right behind her grandmother and the sight of her makes my eyes pop out. She’s in disguise, too!

  “Hi, Ebony-Grace,” she says really soft.

  She’s wearing a sky-blue fluffy dress that looks like a layer cake. Her hair is even curlier, but neater than yesterday.

  “Bianca Pluto, are you okay?” I ask.

  She rolls her eyes. A sure sign that some otherworldly entity has gotten ahold of her mind.

  “What happened? Did something happen to you, Bianca?” Señora Luz asks her granddaughter.

  Bianca rolls her eyes again, and I’m sure that she won’t tell her grandmother the truth.

  I inhale deep and brace myself to be an agent of truth, a messenger of good, a princess of peace. “I’m sorry to report, Señora Luz—” I start to say.

  “The Sonic Boom!” Bianca cuts me off. “You should’ve seen it, Abuela, it was all over the sky!”

  A warm, bright smile starts to rise from a deep place in my belly. It eases up to my throat and it’s trying to make its way out of my mouth and through my face so that I shine like the sun—my soulshine! It’s more than just a soulglow. But I stop it. I force it back down because Daddy is peering over the steps and looking down at us. I can’t let him see me smile. I can’t let him see me happy.

  “Broomstick, why’d you leave the house without telling me?” he asks.

  Señora Luz steps out of the doorway, wearing a purple dress with tiny flowers. “Julio, it’s so good to see your daughter. Look at how big she got. Why don’t you let her come to church with us?”

  “Fine by me. Is that okay with you, Broomstick?”

  Before I even answer, Señora Luz says, “But you have to put on a nice dress.”

  CHAPTER

  10

  I don’t put on a nice dress because I hate church. Church is where Momma pinches my arm if she thinks I’m not paying attention to the pastor, and that’s all the time. Church is where Momma’s friends talk about her when she’s not around and call her a divorcée. Church is where everybody from the deacon to the little kids in Sunday school try to convince me that Jesus is not an astronaut. “You do know there’s a whole universe beyond the clouds, don’t you?” is what I always whisper to the Sunday school kids. “Why would Jesus want to stay in boring heaven when he could visit other planets?”

  But if Momma ever heard me say those words out loud, I would get a licking right in front of the whole congregation. And then she’d blame Granddaddy for putting these demonic thoughts into my head. Granddaddy stopped going to church after Nana died.

  Upstairs in my room, I pretend to toss my clothes out of all my suitcases searching for a fancy church dress until I hear Daddy return to his room. I tiptoe back down the stairs still wearing my Superman short set to go to church with Bianca and her grandmother.

  “I don’t have a dress,” I lie to Señora Luz. I hold my head down pretending to be ashamed.

  “You don’t have a dress? Ah, that’s not true. I remember your mother. . . . So fancy! Like Dominique Deveraux on Dynasty. She didn’t put a nice dress in your suitcase?”

  I pout and shake my head. Momma is not around to see me fib. Granddaddy once said that fibs are like deflector shields. It’s okay to protect yourself or someone you love with a deflector shield.

  Señora Luz just shakes her head and motions for me to join them as they walk down 126th Street. “We’re almost late for church so Bianca can’t give you a dress. Next time, you dress up, okay?” she says as she walks ahead of us.

  I look down at Bianca’s shiny shoes—the grown-up ones without the straps. But she still wears young lady socks, the ones with the lace trimmings that fold over. I had on those same socks yesterday. But Momma isn’t here to make me dress accordingly.

  Bianca starts taking long steps, landing on her tippy-toes each time. “Don’t step on a crack so you don’t break your mother’s back,” she says.

  “Break my mother’s back? What?” I ask.

  She glances over at me. “You broke your mother’s back,” she says, walking as if trying to avoid craters on the moon.

  “Why would I want to do that?” I ask.

  “You just did it again. You broke your mother’s back.”

  I freeze. I won’t take another step. I would never want to break Momma’s back, no matter how many fancy dresses she makes me wear. That would be no good, terrible, and awful!

  Bianca grabs my hand. “If you step on a crack on the sidewalk, you break your mother’s back.”

  “Who told you that nonsense? The nefarious minions?” I say.

  We’re at the corner of 126th Street and Lenox Avenue waiting for the light. The streets here are wide as if every single block were supposed to be a freeway.

  “What’s a nefarious—” Bianca starts to ask.

  “Those kids from yesterday. All of them are nefarious—evil, despicable little street urchins.”

  Momma’s exact words ring in my ears: And make sure you stay far away from those despicable little street urchins.

  “They’re not evil. They’re my friends. And why do they have to be onions?”

  “Not on-ions. Min-ions! They’re sent to carry out the unspoken rule: No visitors shall smile, or giggle, or laugh in No Joke City. King Sirius Julius commands it be so.”

  Bianca doesn’t say anything as we cross the street. Other kids walk past us with their grown-ups, but they don’t strike me as nefarious minions because they don’t smile or laugh or wave hello. They’re minding their own businesses. They’re not trying to trick me into being happy. They couldn’t care less.

  When we reach the corner, Bianca starts again with her game of not stepping on a crack that will break her mother’s back. I watch her grandmother walk ahead of us as she steps on crack after crack and wonder if there’s such a thing as breaking your granddaughter’s back.

  So I try to skip all the cracks, too. But the sidewalk isn’t the backs of everybody’s momma. It’s the big, fat, giant silver moon instead. “If you step on a moon crater, Earth will explode!” I say.

  We get to 127th Street and we stand on a safe piece of the sidewalk, waiting for the light to change. In front of a corner building are a group of grandpas sitting around a small table playing card games. One of them waves to Señora Luz.

  The buildings are taller and wider here, and they seem to be all glued together side by side like the brownstones on Daddy’s block. Some people lean out of their opened windows as if it’s no big deal. They don’t seem to understand the law of gravity. They don’t have rocket engines in their shoes, so why do they think it’s okay to lean out of windows?

  Bianca pauses for a long minute before she asks, “Who cares if the Earth explodes if we’re already on the moon?”

  My soulshine starts to well up again. I push it down and make sure that Bianca Pluto stays in her imagination location. “Don’t you care about your abuela?” I ask.

  “She’s on the moon with us,” Bianca says.

  “What about my daddy?”

  “Well, that’s your problem.”

  “That’s not fair!” I say.

  “That’s because he’s the king and he has to protect the nefarious onions,” says Bianca.

  I cover my smile and have to keep quiet for a little while because I want to laugh so badly. I just might burst out into hysterics, as Momma would say when Granddaddy and I are deep in our imagination locations—the kind of laughter that will make me float up to t
he air, through the clouds, and straight into outer space.

  We reach a building with a big white cross in the front and a sign that says, HOUSE OF THE LORD. A few people stand outside with their fancy hats and church suits. I dust off my Superman shirt and get ready to be scolded by the church grandmas for not wearing a nice dress. But Señora Luz walks right past that church and doesn’t even wave at the other church grandmas.

  I shrug and step back into my imagination location. “But he’s my daddy. I can’t destroy Earth if he’s still there. We have to go back and save him.”

  “If you save him, then you have to save the nefarious onions, too! They’re my friends,” says Bianca.

  “Hmmm.” I wonder, placing an index finger on my chin. “But we have to quickly get back onto the Uhura, leave the galaxy, and enter Planet Boom Box’s orbit so we can save Captain Fleet.”

  We cross the street and at the other corner is another church—Mount Zion Baptist Church. People are walking into the small building, so we’re right on time. That definitely has to be the church we’re going to.

  “What happened to Captain Fleet?” Bianca asks.

  I can’t help but to grin big and bright because, finally, this is a sign that I’m pulling Bianca Pluto out of the mind-controlling prison of No Joke City. I don’t erase my smile. We’re almost at church, and I’ll be safe from the watchful eyes of the nefarious minions.

  But we pass that church, too! Señora Luz keeps on walking without checking to make sure that she hasn’t made a mistake.

  “Hey, where are we going?” I finally ask.

  “To church,” Bianca says.

  Señora Luz looks back, glances down at my clothes, and shakes her head.

  “But we just passed two churches. And look! There’s one across the street. And another down there!” I say, pointing at all the white or black or lit-up crosses on different buildings. How many churches can there be on one block, in one city?

  “Yeah, but those aren’t our church,” says Bianca.

  Finally, we turn on 138th Street. An even bigger church than the ones on Lenox Avenue stands in the middle of the block like a castle. Its bright red doors are like hearts pumping loud gospel songs, tambourines, and a preacher’s shout to the rest of the block. Surely, that must be the one we’re going to.

  But we walk straight past it as grandmas in wide, colorful hats smile and nod at us.

  We make a right up a street named Frederick Douglass Boulevard where we pass by open lots with even more old tires, torn mattresses, and garbage bags. There’s a crumbled building at the very edge of one of the lots. It looks as if a giant Transformer had crashed through its brick walls, making it fall to pieces with a single blow. I even see a big round metal container with a large, blue-orange flame raging on top of it like it’s a barbecue grill.

  I’ve never been so far and deep into No Joke City. The last time we were here, Momma kept me cooped up in Daddy’s house, away from the despicable little street urchins. Even as some kids rode their bicycles or played in the lots or leaned out of windows, there still wasn’t anything funny about No Joke City.

  If the churches in No Joke City are anything like the ones down in Huntsville, then I’ll have to lock up my imagination location and act like the little lady Momma tells me to be. But Bianca is with me and she’s already in too deep. She’s been on the Uhura and has come face-to-face with Captain Fleet. There’s no way we’re going to be able to keep those doors closed!

  CHAPTER

  11

  We make it all the way to 140th Street—fourteen whole blocks and more churches than I can count—before we arrive at the Holy Redeemer Church. There’s another small crowd gathered outside—grandmas and grandpas, regular grown-ups and kids, lots of kids. And it’s not even the church grandmas who shake their heads, scrunch up their faces, or wag their fingers when they see what I’m wearing. It’s Pigeon-Chest Boy and some of his fellow nefarious minions.

  “Why are they here?” I ask Bianca as we join the small crowd piling through the narrow double-doors of the church. The building looks more like one of the many stores along Lenox Avenue instead of a church.

  “They come here for worship,” Bianca says. “That’s Calvin. We’re gonna be in Sunday school together.”

  “Calvin,” I repeat with disgust, as if I’m saying cauliflower or cabbage or callous. “Callous Calvin. Stone-Cold Calvin.”

  Stone-Cold Calvin is pointing at me. I furrow my brows and clench my fists, ready for an attack. He makes his way over to us with some of his nefarious minions.

  “Oooh, you’re gonna be in trouble! How come you don’t have on church clothes?” he sings with a voice that sounds like broken concrete.

  I scrunch up my face even tighter.

  “You look like you wanna hit me,” Stone-Cold Calvin says, stepping closer. “Go ’head. Right in front of church. See what happens.”

  I pull up my right arm in front of me with all my might and shoot out a strong “Pew!” in his direction. Before he even blinks, I do the same with my other arm. “Pew!”

  Bianca touches my shoulder. “No, Ebony. Not here,” she whispers.

  But it’s too late. Stone-Cold Calvin and the nefarious minions start to laugh.

  “You think you’re Wonder Woman?” he says. ‘You ain’t no Wonder Woman.”

  “And she has on boys’ clothes!” one of them calls out.

  They keep laughing and I’m ready to pull out my secret and most powerful weapon of all, but a grown-up pulls one of the boys by the ear and they all get really quiet as if the Sonic Boom has stolen their voices. My grown-up isn’t here to pinch me or look at me sideways. Momma is all the way down in Huntsville and she won’t see me act insolent or unbecoming or discourteous.

  “Shawn, what’d I tell you about acting a fool right before church?” a woman says through clenched teeth.

  She glances at me and scrunches up her nose. Even as she pulls the boy into the church, she keeps looking at me. Soon, the nefarious minions are making their way into the small building without paying me any mind.

  Then, I catch another church lady staring at me, too. And then another. I slowly realize that a few of them have gathered around Señora Luz and they all have their eyes on me. These church ladies and grandmas are not nefarious minions, of course. They’re grown-ups who’ve been locked out of their imagination locations. Bianca is no longer by my side, and it’s like having Momma watching me through all these ladies’ eyes.

  If Momma were to secretly teleport from Huntsville to land right in front of me and see me on a Sunday, in front of a small and not-so-fancy church, wearing a Superman short set, I’d surely get a licking or two and be forbidden to have caramel cake or banana pudding for the whole summer.

  I pretend to look away and kick around tiny pieces of litter from the sidewalk while activating my bionic ears. Their whispers become as loud as car horns.

  “Julius ain’t minding her. How’s he just gonna dump her on you like that, Luz? You already got one of your own,” a grandma says.

  “I got a prayer cloth in my bag. Could wrap it around her skinny legs twice to cover up them boys’ shorts,” another church lady adds.

  “Just this Sunday, okay? Next time, she’ll be appropriate.” Señora Luz says something else, but my bionic ears stop working.

  I can’t help myself, so I blurt out, “There won’t be a next time!”

  The ladies and grandmas all gasp. A few kids are left standing outside, and their eyes get really wide as if I’m about to get in the worst trouble. I’m sure this will make it back to King Sirius Julius. But I’m not smiling or laughing. So there’s no reason for him to keep me as his prisoner.

  “That is not the way to speak to your elders, young lady,” a grandma says with a voice almost like a man’s. She steps closer to me, and I step back. “This is a holy place, now you watch your
tone.”

  I keep my eyes on her, staring her down, making sure she doesn’t lay a finger on me. This isn’t Huntsville where Momma gives any and everybody permission to pop me one time if I get out of line.

  “Ebony, sweetheart,” Señora Luz says with her singsong voice like molasses. “Come inside for service. You can stay with Bianca for Sunday school.”

  Bianca is not looking in my direction. She’s slipping from me. I have to save her! I can’t lose this battle.

  I walk over to Bianca, grab her hand, and walk right into the church with her—she in her fancy dress and me in my Superman short set.

  CHAPTER

  12

  The Holy Redeemer Church is not really a church. It’s a hallway. Chairs are lined up against the walls in rows of four on each side. A long, narrow walkway leads to the pulpit where there’s an organ, a drum set, a box of tambourines, a pile of spare bibles, and six grown-ups in black graduation gowns—the choir.

  Bianca pulls her hand from mine. She walks ahead of me and I follow her through the hallway church, past the pulpit, and through a secret door that opens up to a portal—a steep staircase leading down to a musty basement.

  I knew the Holy Redeemer wasn’t a real church. It’s the command center for the No Joke City rebel alliance! Who knew that Bianca was plotting along with the nefarious minions to overthrow the king? Maybe she even obtained a complete tactical readout of his battle station!

  “Wow!” I whisper as we reach the very bottom of the steps. The ceiling is so low that I can reach up and touch it with my fingertips. I have to duck to dodge the swinging lightbulbs.

  We’re in an even narrower hallway and a few doors line the walls. Laughter pours out of one of the rooms whose door is left open. I’m careful not to smile just yet. I have to know who exactly is leading this rebellion. I have to understand the terms of this impending war.

  “It’s so small. How can anyone breathe down here?” I whisper to Bianca.