World in Between

by Kenan Trebincevic

  I overhear two girls talking in what I think is Spanish, like my new neighbor Betsy. I’m so glad I’m not the only one here who speaks another language. I hope I can figure out where I fit in. I’ll be happy if I can just find somebody to eat lunch and kick a ball around with.

  In the office, we meet the principal, Mrs. Vatelli, who says, “Welcome to our school, Kenan.” I guess she’s Dad’s age, and she seems serious, in a navy dress with matching shoes. I’ve never seen a female principal before. I bet she’s strict, like Mom.

  “At the end of the day, take school bus number three,” Ellie tells me as she turns to leave. “The third stop will let you off two blocks from your street. You’ll recognize it.” I hope she’s right, and that I don’t get lost again.

  Principal Vatelli takes me to a guidance counselor, who gives me my schedule. Homeroom has ended, so he escorts me to my first class, American history.

  The teacher, Mr. Bauer, beckons me to stand with him in front of the class. “Everyone, say hello to our new student, Kenan,” he says, putting his arm on my shoulder. His voice is calm, like Mr. Sullivan’s, but the students clearly don’t care about meeting me. Half of them don’t even stop talking to each other or bother to look up from whatever they’re doing when the teacher speaks. In the back of the room, two boys are teasing a scrawny kid with short hair who’s wearing oversize Coke-bottle glasses.

  “Fat Specs, you nerd,” the taller guy yells, pointing to the kid.

  “For real, you tool,” the shorter one adds, cracking up.

  “Jimmy and Andre, that’s enough,” Mr. Bauer says. “We treat each other with respect here.”

  Andre is the shorter one, about five foot six and skinny like me, with an Afro and a jean jacket collar popped up like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. Jimmy is muscular and at least six three, taller than Eldin. He’s wearing dark jeans, a Knicks jersey, and impressive high-tops with untied shoelaces. He has a badass haircut, called a “fade,” that I’ve seen on American athletes, with the bottom half of his head shaved.

  I feel bad for Specs, but I’m relieved I’m not their target. Mr. Bauer is taking attendance as I find a seat. At Bedford, most of my classmates had short, American-sounding names, like John, Kyle, Lisa, Anne, Jill, Paul, and Matt. Here they’re much more interesting: Juan José, Santiago, Alejandro, DeShawn, Jendayi, Kalifa, Malika, Demetrius, and Nakeisha. I’m hopeful I’m not the only one who wasn’t born here.

  But nobody speaks to me. I figure out my schedule on my own, thankful that at least I can understand it and I’m not completely lost this time. I sit alone at lunch, eating the beef salami sandwich and apple Mom packed, missing Miguel and the guys, twenty minutes away.

  On the bus home, I find an empty seat in the middle and count the stops. At the third one, I stand to get off per Ellie’s instructions, and five other boys stand up with me. I recognize Jimmy and Andre from American history, plus two guys who were speaking Spanish to each other earlier and a scrawny white kid with spiky dark hair and a gold chain. Do they get off here too?

  “Vhere you live? Near me?” I ask the one with spiky hair, thinking I might make new friends in my neighborhood to play sports with. He doesn’t answer. As I walk off the bus, they follow but still don’t speak, just trail behind me, walking too close, like Vik, Marko, and Ivan in bully mode.

  I go faster, my palms turning clammy. My chest is thumping. I’m fifty yards from my building, and I search for an adult on the street to help, but nobody’s around. I wonder if I should run for it.

  Too late. Someone kicks my legs from behind. I topple over onto my hands and knees, palms scraping against the pavement. As I try to get up, Andre grabs me by my shirt collar and pushes me back down. Jimmy kicks my side. Another sharp kick lands on my rib cage.

  “Vhy you do this?” I yell, panting, the wind knocked out of me.

  “Because you took our seat,” Andre answers.

  “You veren’t sitting there!” I shout, struggling to get up, bicycling my legs in a circle to block their fists and feet.

  “You talkin’ shit about us,” Jimmy says, ramming his foot onto my hip. I yelp in pain.

  “Didn’t talk vith anyone,” I argue, rolling to the side to avoid more blows.

  I scramble to my feet, push Andre away, sprint to my building, and go inside. Once I’m safe in the hallway upstairs, I cry from frustration as I dust the dirt and pebbles from my pants.

  When I step inside our apartment, I’m embarrassed to find Ellie sitting in the kitchen with Mom.

  Ellie’s eyes dart from my ripped shirt to my dirty knees to my messy hair. “What happened?”

  “Oh my God, are you okay, Kenji?” Mom rushes over, horrified. “Who did this? Where?”

  “Five boys from school followed me off the bus,” I say in Bosnian, sobbing. I feel spineless and ashamed that I barely fought back. “I want to go back to Bedford. I hate this place.”

  “Let me clean you up.” Mom pulls off my shirt and puts ice on my scraped legs and burning cheek.

  “I’m calling the principal right now!” Ellie grabs the phone. “We’re going there to speak to her about this tomorrow.”

  At least I have one American on my side who knows what to do to stand up for me.

  “Tell me their names,” Dad says when he gets home and Mom tells him what happened.

  “I’m going after them,” my brother snarls. “Where do they live?”

  “I have no idea.” I shrug, wishing they would all just leave me alone. “I barely remember where I live.”

  * * *

  The next day, Mom and Ellie take me to school late in Ellie’s car. I feel protected by her authority. Some classmates playing outside at recess stare as we walk into the building. I see the guys who’d jumped me laughing on the playground.

  “What a sissy,” Andre calls.

  “Momma’s boy,” Jimmy hisses as one of his buddies makes kissing noises.

  I’m suddenly embarrassed that I’m bringing my mom and Ellie to the fight, my armpits sweating.

  “Don’t pay any attention to them,” Ellie says.

  Mom mutters under her breath in Bosnian, glaring at the kids making fun of me.

  In the principal’s office, Mrs. Vatelli takes out a yearbook and asks me to show her who beat me up. When I do, she goes out, and after we wait in silence for what seems like hours, she comes back with all five, asking each one, “Did you attack Kenan after school yesterday?”

  “No.” They all lie in unison.

  “Kenan, are these the boys who did it to you?” she asks.

  “Yes, this vas who jump me.”

  “Snitch,” Jimmy mutters.

  “I’m calling your parents,” Mrs. Vatelli tells the boys. “You’re all suspended for a week. You’d better apologize, now.”

  “Sorry,” they mumble, staring at the floor.

  “But he was trash-talkin’ us,” Andre jumps in.

  “Vas first day of school. Don’t know you enough to talk about. I vasn’t talking to anyone,” I tell him.

  I’m relieved that the principal believes me. She sends me to class while my bullies stay and wait for their parents to be called.

  Mr. Bauer sees me in the hallway. “If anyone hurts or threatens you again,” he says, “you tell me. They’ll be punished.” I nod, grateful to have a teacher looking out for me.

  But as soon as he’s gone, a kid calls me a tattletale as I walk past. Others laugh and whisper. Yesterday I hated being invisible. Today I’m famous—for the wrong thing.

  I keep quiet, with my head down. I want to disappear. At least I’ll have five days without the suspended boys harassing me. Only two more months of school to go.

  * * *

  Later that week, I’m having a snack at home and watching CNN by myself when Wolf shows footage of the children’s hospital in Sarajevo. It’s in flames. I stop eating, walk over to the TV, and crank up the volume, sweating. I want to grab the chair and smash it through the screen.

  “C
an’t we do anything?” I ask Mom when she comes in to see what the racket is. “Do you think Grandma and Auntie are safe? Did they get your letters?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t heard back,” she tells me, turning down the volume. “I’m sure the phone lines are still cut, and the post offices are closed indefinitely. Getting mail during the war is almost impossible.”

  I feel helpless, five thousand miles away from my family and home. I wish I could do something to save my people. But we’re barely saving ourselves.

  * * *

  The next Tuesday, the gang who hates me is back. Andre glares at me as I walk into shop class.

  “There’s the rat,” Jimmy says.

  I look to the teacher, Mr. Williams, but he pretends not to hear.

  “‘Vas my first day school. I vasn’t talk to anyone,’” Jimmy says, imitating my accent, cracking up. “We’ll be waiting for you at your bus stop again, Kenan.”

  I ignore him and try to focus on my woodworking project: a miniature soccer goal I plan to give to Miguel, if I ever see him again. But I forget to turn off the saw after making a cut, and a piece of wood flies across the room.

  “Jesus Christ! How dumb are you?” Mr. Williams screams, rushing over to turn it off. “You stupid immigrant.”

  The class breaks out in laughter.

  I freeze, my skin heating up, not knowing how to respond. He already hates me, like Mr. Miran did.

  “Right, how dumb are you?” Jimmy laughs, as if Mr. Williams’s slur is the funniest thing ever. He and the others gather around me.

  My face is hot, sweaty. I feel trapped.

  “Go back to your own country, you stupid immigrant.” Jimmy gets into my face, and the room goes blurry. I see Mr. Miran holding his gun to my temple and hear Vik, Marko, and Ivan calling me traitor. I’m boiling over, thrown into a war zone of rage.

  Exploding, I spin around, wind my right arm back, and punch Jimmy hard in the face. He falls over a bench, clutching his cheek, then stares at me from the floor, astonished. The other kids are amazed. I am too. I’ve never clocked anyone like that.

  “Oooh, it’s a knockout,” Juan José says, counting one-two-three, like a boxing referee.

  “Ha-ha, little white boy’s only half your size,” Andre taunts. “You got skills, son,” he tells me.

  “Need some ice?” Demetrius teases as Jimmy stumbles to his feet.

  I put my fists up, heart racing, ready to keep fighting.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Mr. Williams grabs me and holds me back.

  “Jimmy jumped me last veek, and now he make fun of me because of you,” I spit out.

  “You’re going to the principal’s office right now!” Mr. Williams says. “Jimmy too.”

  “Good. I vill report both of you,” I say, outraged. I’ve had enough bullies lording their strength over me for one lifetime.

  * * *

  But as we sit waiting to be called into Principal Vatelli’s office, some of my anger is replaced by worry. If I’m suspended, Mom will kill me. Dad will be disappointed. Ellie and Katie and Don won’t respect me. I hope they’ll see my side.

  “What happened?” the principal asks Jimmy and me as we walk in.

  “He threatened to beat me up again and said I vas a ‘stupid immigrant’ after Mr. Villiams called me that,” I say. “I phone my mother and Reverend Hodges and Ellie Lovenstein.”

  “Oh good, call your mommy,” Jimmy jumps in. “We’re not even yet.” He spits at me, right in front of the principal. He’s fearless, like Ivan was.

  “Jimmy, if you do this one more time, you’re suspended for the rest of the year,” Principal Vatelli warns.

  “Yeah, tough guy, next time don’t be a covard and jump me vith four other kids,” I add.

  The principal lets Jimmy go back to class and summons Mr. Williams. “Did you call Kenan a stupid immigrant?” she asks him right in front of me.

  Mr. Williams defends himself. “He could have taken someone’s eye out.”

  Mrs. Vatelli turns to me. “I’m sorry, Kenan. They were both wrong to say that. I’ll call your parents later to apologize. And so will Mr. Williams.” She glares at him.

  “I’m sorry,” he mutters.

  Then she turns back to me and says, “You may go now. But please—do not hit anybody else.”

  I don’t see Jimmy and his friends for the rest of the afternoon, but they’re on the bus when I board it at the end of the day. I sit in the front, far away from their seats, my blood pumping. I’m on high alert, waiting for a revenge attack. But this time, no one else gets off at my stop.

  I tell Mom what happened, and later, when the principal and Mr. Williams call, we listen together and I translate their apology for her. She shakes her head, then slams down the phone, hanging up in the middle, having none of it. “We fled monsters in our country,” she says. “I didn’t expect to be persecuted here in the land of the free.”

  I’m relieved to have parents who believe me.

  * * *

  The next day at recess I sit on the pavement by myself, away from the other kids. Andre is captain for touch football. He picks Jimmy and Juan José for his team. Then he spots me watching and yells, “Hey, Kenan, you throw as good as you punch?”

  Is this a trick so they can all gang up on me one more time? I look away.

  “You gonna play or not?” Juan José calls.

  “C’mon, Kenan, we need eleven,” pleads Andre.

  Maybe it’s not a trick, and they just respect me more since I stood up for myself. If they see I’m a good athlete, maybe they’ll like me. “In my country, vee don’t play this,” I say as I stand up and walk over. “But I vatch on TV and tried at Vestport.” I join in, excited but nervous. It’s the first time I’ve played football on a team. I worry that if I drop the ball or get tackled, they’ll never ask me to play again.

  The other team kicks the ball toward us. It goes over Jimmy’s head, but I catch it and run quickly toward the end zone, which is marked with two sweatshirts, not entirely sure what I’m doing. But somehow I score a touchdown. My teammates cheer, then tell me it’s my turn to kick off. I punt, the way Miguel taught me, and the ball spirals into the sky.

  “Man, check out those missile legs,” Demetrius shouts, whistling.

  When the game is over, Santiago comes over to me, saying, “That was the bomb!”

  “Yeah, sorry we hit you, Bomber Boy,” Andre adds. “But why’d you snitch?”

  “In my country, bullies vith guns and tanks murder my people and try to kill me. No more!”

  “Oh, snap. This kid saw some mad shit,” Andre says. The guys seemed impressed by what I went through. Even Jimmy looks up and nods.

  That night at dinner, I tell Mom, “I want to get a fade.”

  “What’s that?” Dad asks.

  “It’s a haircut the American basketball players have,” Eldin explains. “Shaved on the sides and in the back.”

  “No.” Mom nixes the idea. “We don’t need you looking like a soldier.”

  * * *

  The next day at recess, Jimmy’s spinning the football, looking right at me. His expression is unreadable. Is he going to jump me? Or ask me to play? Then Andre calls out, “Hey, Bomber, you with us?”

  When I join their team, Andre gives me a high-five. Jimmy holds out his hand, but pulls it back before I can slap it and makes a move like he’s combing his hair instead. Then he smacks my palm really hard and says, “Bomber Boy’s in.”

  I run onto the field, grinning. My hand still stings, but I’m so psyched that Bomber Boy is taking the place of Bugs.

  Twenty-Eight

  May 1994

  “We can’t live on what we’re making,” Mom says at dinner one night. “The first check I take home will be only one hundred dollars.” She sighs. She has a new job at the Nivea factory, inspecting each makeup jar to ensure that the lids are properly sealed, but it’s only twenty-five hours a week.

  We’re eating spaghetti with her home
made tomato and garlic sauce, which is cheaper than the canned supermarket version. “We barely have enough for rent, phone, electric, food,” she goes on. “We can’t afford a car. I’m trying to send twenty dollars a month to the International Organization for Migration to pay back the three thousand for our airfare.”

  “But Dad and Eldin both work forty hours a week. How can we still be broke?” I ask.

  “After taxes, each of their paychecks is only three hundred every other week,” she explains. “That barely covers our rent and bills. I might have to look for babysitting jobs on the side.”

  It upsets me that my parents and brother are working so hard and we’re still so poor here. I wish I could get a job too. After dinner, I put on the Rollerblades Miguel’s mom gave me and skate in circles in the parking lot until it gets dark. When I come back in, I pick up our newly connected phone and call Miguel’s number. I get the answering machine, but I don’t leave a message. I don’t want to sound needy or pathetic.

  That Saturday, Dad and I ride our bikes to a nice new ShopRite store we’ve discovered, to buy groceries. At the checkout, he approaches a guy in a white shirt and tie wearing a name tag that says MANAGER.

  “Are you hiring part-time?” Dad asks. “I’m a war refugee, new here. I work at the Polystar factory until three. I could get here by four during the week, earlier on weekends. Slice meats, stock shelves.”

  “I wish I could hire you,” the manager says, “but the only opening we have is for a bagger. Minimum wage.” He looks much younger than my father, closer to Eldin’s age.