Isaiah Dunn Is My Hero

by Kelly J. Baptist

  April 10

  “OOOH, YOU STINK!” says Angel, making a face the minute I sit down.

  “Yeah, just like your mama,” I say back. I’m so sick of her messin’ with me!

  “Oooh, burn!” laughs Kevon.

  “At least my mama don’t make me wear the same clothes every day!” Angel says, glaring at me like “Gotcha!” I freeze for a second, wondering if she knows. How could she know? Kevon’s head swivels to me, waiting for me to put the smack down on Angel.

  I open my mouth, not sure what’s gonna come out, but Mrs. Fisher cuts me off.

  “Isaiah, no talking during announcements,” she says with a frown.

  “Yeah, your breath is distracting me,” Angel says.

  “Your ugly face is a distraction!” I tell her. She just doesn’t know how close I am to exploding.

  “Isaiah! I said be quiet!” Mrs. Fisher stands up. “Have you completed your Morning Minute?”

  “No.”

  “Well, focus on that instead of talking.”

  I roll my eyes. I wanna tell Mrs. Fisher there’s no way I’m writing about “my favorite room in my house” when I have no house. I open Daddy’s notebook instead and read a story about a little girl seeing the ocean for the first time. The little girl sounds a lot like Charlie.

  “What’s that?” whispers Kevon.

  “None of your business.”

  Kevon frowns and keeps working on his Morning Minute. I’m not trying to be mean, but Kevon’s not Sneaky, and this stuff is personal.

  The announcements go off, and Mrs. Fisher starts talking about our language arts project, but I don’t stop reading. I want Daddy’s words to magically sweep me away from here, like the waves he wrote about.

  “Isaiah, bring that up here, please.”

  Mrs. Fisher’s voice is like a Mama-smack on the back of the head, and I jump.

  “Bring what up where?” I ask, putting my hand on top of the notebook. Eyes glue themselves on me, including Angel’s.

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Mrs. Fisher says. “Bring it up right now. You may have it back at the end of class.”

  “Maaaan!” I groan extra loud and stand up slowly. I don’t like the idea of Daddy’s notebook being in Mrs. Fisher’s nasty spit fingers. She’s one of those people who licks her fingers when she passes back papers, and I always end up with a wet thumbprint. Gross!

  I grip Daddy’s notebook in my hand, and I already know I’m not letting go of it.

  Next thing I know, I’m tripping over something and almost face-plant in front of everyone. Kids laugh, including Angel. But her laugh is different. Mean.

  “Dang, watch it, Isaiah Dumb!” she says.

  That’s when I snap. I narrow my eyes and shove her as hard as I can. Both her and her chair go flying backward, and then she’s looking up at me with shocked eyes.

  I barely hear Mrs. Fisher yell at me to get out of her class. She reaches for her classroom phone and calls for Mr. Simms, one of the safety monitors, but I don’t wait for him to get there. I just take my notebook and leave. It doesn’t take long for Mr. Simms to find me.

  “Hey, slow it down there,” Mr. Simms says. “You know our walk is gonna be to the office, right?”

  I don’t answer. Me and Mr. Simms walk in the same rhythm: left, right, left, right.

  “So what’s going on?” he asks me.

  “Nothing.”

  When we get into the office, Mr. Tobin’s standing by his door. Man, Mrs. Fisher made her phone calls pretty fast.

  “Inside, Mr. Dunn,” Mr. Tobin says, super serious. I follow him and sit in the same chair I always do. Mr. Tobin sits, too, and stares me down.

  “I just got a disturbing call from Mrs. Fisher. Again,” he says, and I can tell he’s not playing this time. “Why don’t you share with me what happened in her class, and why you decided to disregard what we talked about last time.”

  “Angel Atkins calls me names and messes with me all the time. Today she tripped me in front of everyone, so I pushed her, and she fell out her chair.”

  Mr. Tobin studies me for a sec, like he didn’t expect me to confess everything right away.

  “Isaiah,” he says finally, “I think you know that we can’t have this kind of behavior at school.”

  I don’t say anything, but I’m wondering if we also can’t have Angel’s behavior at school.

  Mr. Tobin grabs something off the bookcase behind him and holds it up.

  “Remember this?” he asks. I look at what’s in his hand. Woodson Elementary Student Code of Conduct.

  I shrug.

  Mr. Tobin flips through the pages and hands the booklet to me.

  “I want you to read the section on fighting,” he says. When I don’t take the book right away, he clears his throat.

  “That would be now, Isaiah.”

  I sigh and take the book. I stare at the page but don’t read a thing. Instead, I pretend it’s one of Daddy’s stories, that I’m Isaiah Dunn, Superhero, cracking a code that an evil principal has hidden inside a—

  “Isaiah.”

  “Huh?”

  “You didn’t answer my question. What if your classmate had gotten seriously hurt?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, not really caring if Angel was hurt or not.

  “You said she’s been teasing you.” Mr. Tobin waits.

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you talk to Mrs. Fisher about this, or to Ms. Marlee when you saw her?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  I shrug and study my shoes. I’m getting a hole where my big toe is. Sneaky would flip out if he found a hole in one of his shoes. I wonder what pair he’s gonna buy next.

  Mr. Tobin taps his fingers on his desk.

  “I know you’ve been dealing with a lot, Isaiah,” he says. “How are you and your mom doing?”

  “Good.”

  “Anything happening at home that you need to talk about?”

  I shake my head. No home, so nothing to talk about.

  Mr. Tobin says that even though I’m dealing with loss, my behavior is unacceptable. He says he has to suspend me. And that he has to call Mama. That’s when I start to get nervous. Mr. Tobin types on his computer and then picks up the phone. I stare at a crack near the bottom of Mr. Tobin’s desk and pray mad hard that Mama’s okay when she answers.

  “Hello, Mrs. Dunn? This is Principal Tobin from Woodson Elementary.” He pauses, and a small frown crosses his face. My stomach flips, and my palms get sweaty.

  “I said, this is Mr. Tobin, principal at Woodson.” A pause. Mr. Tobin taps his pen on his desk, gives me a funny look. “Well, Isaiah got into some trouble today. He’ll have to serve a five-day suspension, and we’ll need you to come pick him up.”

  That’s when I hear Mama’s voice through the phone, and it’s not pretty. Mr. Tobin tells Mama we’ll have a follow-up meeting when I come back. It’s super quiet when Mr. Tobin hangs up, like a thick secret is floating around.

  “Your mom wanted you to walk to the library,” Mr. Tobin says.

  I stand up quickly, but he’s not done yet.

  “But I told her she personally needs to pick you up.”

  “Huh?”

  “Is that where you go after school?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And your mother picks you up from there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where does your mom work?”

  “I don’t know,” I tell Mr. Tobin. I think about Mama’s old job, and how she keeps telling us she’s gonna try to go back. Mr. Tobin needs to stop buggin’ me with all these questions!

  “Okay, Isaiah, wait in the lobby with Ms. Kenney until your mom gets here.”

  I sit in the chair closest to the door and listen
to the rocket clock ticking and Ms. Kenney typing and answering the phone with “Woodson Elementary, how can I help you?” As soon as I see Mama coming in the front door, I jump up.

  “Hold on, Isaiah,” Ms. Kenney says. “She’ll have to sign you out.”

  “But—” I want to tell Ms. Kenney that’s a bad idea, cuz I see Mama coming, and she doesn’t look good at all. Before I can even think of a superhero move to get me away from all of this, Mama’s busting into the office. Her eyes find me, and I want to disappear.

  “Isaiah?” Her voice is strange and loud. “Today? You wanna act a fool today?”

  I open my mouth to tell her what happened, but she shakes her head.

  “No. Don’t even say anything. Come on, let’s go.”

  “Ma’am, you’ll need to sign Isaiah out,” Ms. Kenney says. “And I believe Mr. Tobin wants to—”

  “I don’t have time for all that,” Mama says. She scribbles her name on the clipboard on Ms. Kenney’s desk. “You called me up here to get Isaiah, so that’s what I’m doing.” Mama looks at me. “I said, come on!”

  We move toward the door, and Mama waves off Mr. Tobin when he heads over, asking Mama to calm down and talk with him for a minute.

  I keep my eyes glued to the ground all the way to the car.

  April 13

  SNEAKY PRETTY MUCH sucks at basketball, but he always wants to play. We’re at the park near where he lives, and he’s losing a game of H-O-R-S-E. It’s the first time I’ve been away from Smoky Inn since I got suspended. Mama says it’s not supposed to be all fun and games. She barely listened when I tried to tell her what happened, just shook her head and said she couldn’t believe I got put out of school. I wanna tell her I’m not some bad kid, but she should already know that. So after a while, I just stop explaining.

  Being suspended sucks. I always thought it would mean playing video games in your pajamas all day and eating cereal from a huge mixing bowl. That’s what Sneaky said he got to do the time he was suspended. It’s a whole lot different for me. Suspended means being stuck at the Smoky Inn, watching Charlie and hoping Mama doesn’t stay mad. Never thought I would miss being at school. The only reason I’m at the park now is cuz Mama brought Charlie to Miz Rita’s to get her hair done.

  “Okay, let’s play elephant this time,” Sneaky says after I beat him in the first game. I laugh when his shot bangs off the rim and he gets an E right away.

  “You still gonna lose,” I tell him, grabbing the ball and making a layup. Sneaky tries it, too. Gets an L.

  “Man, shut up!” Sneaky says. “Betcha a dollar I make this shot!”

  Sneaky’s a little bit in front of the free-throw line, but I’m pretty sure he’ll miss.

  “Bet.”

  He shoots way too hard and his shot thumps off the backboard.

  “Brick!” I yell. “Gimme my dollar!”

  “Nah, nah, I meant to bet a candy bar,” Sneaky says, grinning and shooting again even though it’s my turn.

  I make a few crazy shots, and before we know it, Sneaky’s at T.

  “Hippopotamus,” he says.

  “Nope,” I tell him. “Beating you is gettin’ boring.”

  Sneaky rolls his eyes and keeps shooting. I sit down on the bench and reach inside my backpack for Daddy’s notebook. I feel words swirling in my head, but like always, they stay stuck inside. Instead, I read Daddy’s story about Isaiah Dunn, Superhero, playing in a championship basketball game.

  “What you doing?” asks Sneaky. He holds the ball under his arm and gives me a weird look.

  “Nothin’.”

  “Man, whatever,” Sneaky says, throwing up another brick. “You and your little diary.”

  “You and your missed shots,” I say, putting the notebook away before Sneaky can say anything else. “Ready to go home crying?”

  “Yeah, right.”

  Sneaky shoots again and then sits down beside me.

  “So when you guys gonna get a new place?” he asks.

  I shrug. But when Sneaky opens a pack of Twizzlers and hands me one, I get an idea. It’s not the greatest one, but it’s the best I can come up with.

  “We gotta get enough money for a new place,” I tell Sneaky. “So I was thinking. What if I was your business partner?”

  Sneaky pretends to choke on the Twizzler.

  “I’m for real!” I say. I tell him about how I passed the cafeteria during fourth-grade lunch and heard some kids yelling that the food sucked. I say that if someone could sneak in there, they’d probably make a ton of money. When I say “ton of money,” Sneaky starts listening.

  “I dunno, bro,” he says, moving on to a lollipop.

  “C’mon, Sneaky, it’ll work,” I tell him. “I really need to make some money so we can get a new place.”

  Sneaky sighs. “All right, man, guess I can give it a try. But we split everything sixty-forty.”

  “Cool,” I say. It’s better than nothing.

  “Good.” Sneaky grins and nudges me. “That means we gotta go to P.J.’s and stock up.”

  “Nah, man!” I groan. Sneaky knows I hate going over there. Last time, we bought candy at 7-Eleven, and Sneaky was mad because it cost us more.

  “I ain’t spending money like we did last time, ’Saiah,” Sneaky tells me. I know he’s right. But still.

  “Man, Charlie’s probably done by now,” I tell him. Mama dropped us over here, like, an hour ago, and might be back already.

  “Aight, let’s go see,” Sneaky says. I sigh and walk with him to the building.

  “See, her car ain’t here,” Sneaky says. “Let’s just go real quick, man.”

  “Okay, okay,” I tell him. “But I’m not tryin’ to take forever.”

  “I said real quick, right?” Sneaky grins, way too excited about this. I always hate buying candy, because I have to hand over money to do it.

  We half walk, half run so it doesn’t take us long to get to P.J.’s. I don’t see Mama’s car anywhere, which is good, but there’s a bunch of guys standing around outside the store, and their eyes focus on me and Sneaky as we walk up. I swallow hard and grip the straps of my backpack as I follow Sneaky in.

  We don’t have to talk much, cuz we know the drill: Snickers, Milky Way, Now and Later, M&M’s, Sour Patch Kids, Twizzlers. The same dude is working at the register and gives us a look when we dump the candy on the counter.

  “Y’all got some kinda crazy sweet tooth or something?” he asks, ringing everything up.

  “Nah,” Sneaky says. I feel like we should say something else, but I don’t know what, so I keep my mouth zipped.

  “Fourteen seventy-three,” the guy tells us, crossing his arms as me and Sneaky count the money. We split the cost of the candy, and I hate going into Daddy’s sock to take out seven dollars and some change. We put the bags in my backpack before we leave the store. When we step outside, the same dudes are there.

  “Ay, what y’all doing over here?” asks one of them. He looks like he’s Antwan’s age, and just as mean.

  “Gettin’ candy,” Sneaky says.

  “Y’all should do that over there,” says another guy, pointing toward where Sneaky lives.

  “Matter fact,” says somebody else, “y’all go to Woodson, don’t you?”

  Aww, man. My stomach is really kicking now, cuz Creighton schools have always been rivals of Woodson schools.

  “Man, we just came to get candy,” Sneaky says, and we keep walking.

  “Oh yeah? I think for being over here, y’all owe us some of that candy,” the first guy says, and I feel a tug on my backpack. I jerk away hard. They all start laughing.

  “Nah, man, they need to give us some of that money,” says another guy. “There’s a fee for y’all Woodson punks being over here.”

  I look over at Sneaky, and I hope he hears what
I’m telling him, even though I don’t say a thing. When the first guy reaches for my bag again, I spin around and take off.

  Runnin’ seems a whole lot easier when it’s on a track somewhere, or when you’re racing one of your friends. It’s different when you’re runnin’, cuz somebody’s chasing you. A lot of somebodies.

  My book bag’s thumping against my back with each step, everything inside slamming into my spine. Somehow Sneaky gets ahead of me. He turns a corner, then another, and I know that knife-stabbing feeling in my side is about to start up any second. But there’s no way we can stop, not with all the footsteps and yelling behind us. I’m running so hard, after a while, I don’t even notice sounds anymore.

  “Over here!” Sneaky says finally, cutting into an alley. We crouch behind an old car and take deep breaths for a few minutes.

  “Dang!” Sneaky says, coughing. I know why he says it, cuz it matches what I’m thinking: We ain’t gettin’ candy at P.J.’s anymore.

  “We can find another spot,” I tell him. Sneaky’s definitely not good with that idea.

  “Nah.” He shakes his head. “Maybe we’ll just come with Antwan next time.”

  “Why?” I ask. Sneaky stands up and doesn’t look at me.

  “They won’t mess with us if we’re with Antwan.” Sneaky peeks around the car. “C’mon.”

  We walk back to the park, glancing over our shoulders, and I’m wondering about Antwan the whole time.

  April 17

  I DON’T CARE what Ms. Marlee says; I got nothing to say to Angel Atkins, and I’d be cool if she never says anything else to me. Ever.

  But Mr. Tobin said we have to sit and talk and work out our issues in this stupid thing called Rocket ReStore with Ms. Marlee. Me and Mama had to listen to Mr. Tobin go on and on about the program; how peer counseling is so good, and how it’s required once a kid gets suspended. And Mama actually signed the paper saying she agreed! I knew better than to complain, especially when she gave me a look and said I better not mess up again.