Money Hungry

by Sharon Flake

  Mai screwed up her eyebrows, but she throws up her shoulders like she could care less. Now she’s squeezing a pimple, watching a white, wiggly worm-looking thing ooze out all over. She looks a mess standing there with her messed-up eyebrows and that worm sitting on her cheek.

  “I gotta go,” Ja’nae says. “I gotta interview Ming for a class paper I’m writing.”

  Nobody asks Ja’nae what the paper is about, ’cause we know she’s gonna tell us even if we don’t want to know.

  “It’s for English class,” she says. “Mr. Knight says we should interview somebody we know. Get them to tell us something noteworthy about themselves.”

  Mai turns around. She got her hands on her hips and her lips stuck out. Her cheek is as red as an apple.

  When Zora sees Mai’s face, she turns away fast. I know she wanna bust out laughing. But she knows now ain’t the time. So she goes and lies down on the bed and shoves a fistful of cheese balls into her mouth.

  Mai tells Ja’nae she better not go dragging her business into school. “I’m not playing,” Mai says, getting loud.

  Next thing I know, Ja’nae is messing with Mai, telling her she and Ming should be proud of being mixed.

  “I ain’t mixed. I’m black . . . like you,” Mai says, throwing her tweezers at Ja’nae.

  I don’t know why Ja’nae even goes there.

  She knows how Mai feels about her mixed race, and how Ming feels about being mixed, too. Ming don’t want to be called black, African American, or Korean. He says he’s biracial. Mai don’t want to be called Korean or biracial. She’s black. Call her anything different, and she will go off on you.

  Ja’nae won’t stop talking about her paper for school. She’s saying maybe she will even interview Mr. Kim, Mai’s dad.

  Mai’s looking like she wanna hurt somebody. “Why don’t you go write about your own screwed-up family,” she says, getting up in Ja’nae’s face, stomping loud on the floor. Now Zora’s dad is yelling upstairs for us to stop making so much noise, to stop acting like hoodlums, and start acting like young ladies.

  Ja’nae and Mai get real quiet, but they’re still in each other’s face.

  “You interview my dad, or Ming and I’ll . . . I’ll . . . I’ll tell your grandfather you snuck Ming into your house when he wasn’t home.”

  Ja’nae’s eyes get all big. She knows what happens to sneaks in her granddad’s house.

  They get into big-time trouble.

  Jan’ae tries to defend herself. “It’s not like we did anything. We just watched TV. Anyhow, my grandmother knows about Ming. She was there when he came over.”

  “So your grandmother gonna get in trouble, too,” Mai says, rubbing Vaseline on her eyebrows.

  Zora don’t seem bothered by none of this. She’s just watching it all, lying on her bed, still stuffing her face with cheese balls.

  “Forget you and your brother and your whole stupid family,” Ja’nae says.

  All of a sudden, Zora’s making this sound like a cat coughing up hair balls. Soggy, half chewed-up cheese balls come flying out her mouth and all over Ja’nae’s feet.

  “You pig. You did that on purpose,” Ja’nae says, shaking her foot, kicking cheese stuff onto Zora’s white rug.

  Soon Ja’nae’s got Zora pressed down on her bed, and she’s pouring the can of cheese balls down her shirt. Mai and me grab the can and start bouncing cheese balls off each other’s head.

  When I look up, there’s Zora’s mom standing in the doorway. “What’s going on here?” she wants to know. “Pick up the mess and keep down the noise, girls,” she says, stomping over to the bed, and jerking Ja’nae’s hands off Zora.

  I want to ask why she even cares what’s going on. She ain’t living here no more. Her and Zora’s dad are divorced, only you wouldn’t know it. Her mom comes by a couple times a week and walks around the house like she owns it. Tells the housekeeper what to do, stuff like that.

  Zora thinks it’s goofy, too. But her parents say they don’t want their divorce to change her life.

  When Ms. Mitchell turns around to leave, I grab one of the cheese balls and throw it after her. It gets stuck in the back of her hair.

  “Somebody thinks they’re funny?” she asks, stomping out the room, pulling the cheese ball out her hair. Ja’nae falls down on the bed, laughing, with her hand over her mouth. Zora runs into her bathroom, slams the door, and starts cracking up. I cover my head with a blanket, but I can hear Ms. Mitchell walking down the steps, saying she don’t know why we always gotta be hanging out at her child’s house. Me, I’m wondering the same thing about her.

  The principal put it in writing this time.

  Dear Ms. Hill: Your daughter is no longer permitted to sell items in the school. Her entrepreneurial spirit has brought us more than our share of complaints. Just yesterday, three students came to me complaining about something else she had sold them. Two weeks ago, it was the Valentine’s Day incident. The next item or items that she brings to sell at Beacon Middle School will result in her suspension....

  We’re in the car on the way to school again. The windows are foggy, and it’s raining real hard. Momma hands me the letter from the principal. She says she don’t wanna get no more letters like this from him. “As of this minute, you are out of business, young lady. That means you ain’t—aren’t—permitted to sell a thing in school ever again,” she says, shaking the letter at me.

  I let her know I’m finished with selling things. Then I tell her how me and Zora, Mai, and Ja’nae are gonna clean people’s houses to earn money. Momma’s face is pressed close to the windshield. Every once in a while, she takes her hand and wipes the glass so she can see better. Our defroster ain’t working today, so it’s a wonder we ain’t crashed into a pole by now.

  “You think I’m gonna let you go into some stranger’s house and mop up? No way,” she says pulling the car over in front of Sato, Kevin, and some other kids. I wipe away the window fog with my coat sleeve. When we pull up to them, Sato and his boys look me dead in the face. I wanna die.

  Momma will pick up anybody. She ain’t gonna let somebody she knows stand in the rain for a bus.

  “We ain’t gonna work for strangers,” I say, not really telling the truth. “We gonna work for people we know . . . neighbors, and friends of you and Dr. Mitchell.”

  I don’t get to hear what Momma thinks of my idea. Her mind is fixed on picking up Sato. She puts the car in park, opens the door, and sticks her head out in the rain to tell him and his boys they can ride with us. When she looks over my way she got rain running down her face, and into her mouth. I’m sliding down in the seat again . . . hoping they tell Momma they’d rather take the bus.

  But just my luck, Sato’s yanking on my door, knocking on my window. He’s trying to get me to open up the back door on my side. I shake my head no. “Go around to my mother’s side. This side is stuck today.”

  They squeeze in behind Momma. Four boys with legs long as ironing boards. Not one of ’em carrying a school book, or a book bag. Before they’re in the car, I hear one of the kids cracking on our broken rearview mirror, and Sato’s telling Momma she gotta do something about the back seat. “Miz Hill, you can’t be going ’round with your seats taped up. It ain’t cool, you know.”

  Momma’s laughing right along with ’em. She should just pull over and toss ’em out. But no, she’s holding a conversation with them about fixing cars. And she’s asking how they think they gonna learn something without books.

  Naturally, Sato’s homework is rolled up like a newspaper in his back pocket. And Kevin says his books are in his locker. Momma believes anything they say. And today they’re saying plenty.

  “Miz Hill,” Sato says, getting close to Momma’s ear. “Did you know your daughter’s in love?”

  I shoot my eyes back at Sato. Wondering why he’s making up stuff on me.

  Momma plays along. “Is she, Sato? She didn’t tell me that. You wanna give me the four-one-one?”

  Sato looks
at his boys and laughs. “You all right, Miz Hill,” he says, shaking his head.

  The car pulls up to school, and I’m pushing myself against the door trying to get out. Sato and his crew are cracking up. “Better crawl out the window,” he says, making me mad. I don’t tell him the window don’t work either.

  When we all start to get out the car, Momma asks him, “Now who is Raspberry in love with?”

  “Oooh. You know she likes old men, really old men,” Sato says, digging in his pocket and pretending to pull out some money. “Washington, Lincoln . . .”

  Momma covers her mouth, but she’s laughing with Sato.

  “Can I get out, please?” I say. She opens her door, gets out, and stands in the rain to let me out on her side.

  When we get under the awning at the front steps of our school, Sato’s still cracking on me. “Pistachio,” he says, messing with my name again. “Your mom’s ride is messed up.” He’s got this big, pretty smile on his face. “It needs some serious help.” His boys are listening, taking off their wet leathers and saying smart stuff.

  “I got some more tape in my locker if she need some to hold her seats together,” one of ’em says.

  I reach into my pocket and hold tight to my money. “I’m gonna have me a Lexus one day. Y’all won’t be laughing then,” I say, turning my back on them.

  Ja’nae and Mai are waiting at the door for me as soon as I get inside the building. Ja’nae’s got spit on her finger. She’s telling Mai to come closer so she can use it to help lay down them wild eyebrows of hers. Mai says she better not put that stuff on her. Ja’nae wipes her finger off on her skirt. “I gotta talk to you, girl,” Ja’nae says to me. Then she tells Mai her brows look funny. Like they painted on or something.

  “What?” I say. “Tell me now.”

  “Later,” Ja’nae says, telling Mai she needs to use her own spit on them brows. Mai sticks her finger in her mouth, and traces her brows with it. She tells Ja’nae to get off her case about her eyebrows, but she keeps wiping spit on ’em till the three of us are way down the hall.

  We’re almost to Mai’s locker when Kevin calls Mai over to him. She tells him she ain’t got time to talk. That she’s going to class. Kevin says, “So?” and keeps waving Mai over his way. After Mai turns him down four times, he yells out real loud, “I don’t want no crooked-eyed half-breed—no way.” That’s when Mai stops, turns around, and stares Kevin down.

  Mai is so small that he could fold her up and put her in his pocket if he wanted. But she’s all guts, and so she drops her books and goes to him. She don’t get in his face, point her finger, or make her head go from side to side like some girls do. She’s standing straight and still. She’s talking slow and easy. “I’m black, like you,” she says.

  “Your daddy ain’t black,” Kevin says under his breath. He won’t leave it alone. “That rice walker father of yours ain’t black, and neither is you,” he says, picking up his books.

  Mai’s standing there, like she don’t know what to do. But she don’t want to defend her dad. Shoot, he’s the reason she’s always being picked on. But she don’t want to back down neither. “If you want to know what I am,” she says, “look at my nose and my hair, and my skin. Not my mixed-up mom and pops.”

  Kevin starts to walk away. But he stops a minute to mouth off one more time. “I seen your parents. That’s why I know what you ain’t, no matter what you say you is.”

  Kids are standing around laughing. Me and Ja’nae stick up for Mai, letting cabbage head Kevin know that he ain’t God, and he ain’t got the right to say who’s what.

  Mai is picking up her stuff, holding back tears. Kevin is about to start up again. But Ja’nae says something that ends the whole thing. “Kevin, wasn’t the police at your house last week ’cause your mom and dad was fighting on the porch again?” she says, grabbing hold of Mai’s arm and pushing her up the hall.

  Everybody starts laughing good now. Kevin’s trying to say she’s lying, making stuff up, which she is. But Mai is our girl. And we ain’t gonna let him keep roughing her up with his words.

  “You three dingdongs think you smart,” Kevin says, acting like he wants to come mess with us some more.

  “We know we smart,” I yell, turning around and making a face at him.

  “Hey, Kevin, here’s something for your stinking feet,” Ja’nae says, throwing one of her cotton balls at him. Then we start running, and we don’t stop, even when the principal yells after us to walk like we got good sense.

  The four of us ain’t in every class together. Just a few. Today Miss Brittle, our math teacher, has to tell us three times to be quiet. We’re trying to tell Zora what happened with Kevin. Every time we try, one of us busts out laughing. “Ja’nae, you shut him down good, girl. Shut him down,” I say, leaning over to give her five. Mai gives me this funny, fake smile. She knows, like we know, that Kevin’s gonna come back saying something else ’bout her. And even if he don’t, other kids will. They always do.

  When lunchtime comes around, I’m so hungry I break down and buy me some real food. Cheese fries, chicken fingers, and vanilla pudding. Before I can even swallow one bite, Ja’nae comes in the lunchroom, asking to borrow money.

  “Money?” I say, hoping she ain’t really expecting me to cough up no cash.

  “Yeah,” Ja’nae says, leaning over and taking a bite out her homemade sandwich. The spiral curl hanging in her eye is swinging back and forth like a rope. The rest of her hair is shooting out the top of her head like a water fountain on high blast.

  Ja’nae sticks her tongue out the corner of her lips, and starts drawing on the table with a red pencil short as her baby finger. Next thing you know there’s a fat, gray heart on the table, with her and Ming’s name in it.

  “If I don’t get some money quick,” she says, “my granddaddy’s gonna explode.”

  Ja’nae’s still got her tongue circling her lips like that’s helping her draw better. I wanna tell her to keep her tongue in her mouth, but I just listen up. “Last week somebody asked to borrow money from me. She said she’d pay me back. But now she’s broke, ain’t got a dime. And neither do I.”

  I’m trying to figure out who Ja’nae lent money to. She only hangs out with me, Mai, and Zora. If she lent one of them money, I’d know about it.

  Then Ja’nae fesses up. She says she got ahold of her granddad’s stash while he was in the bathroom taking a pee. He’s been looking for the missing money ever since. “I told him that he’s getting old,” she says, “that he probably hid it from hisself, you know? But if he don’t find it soon, he gonna start suspecting me.”

  “You better tell whoever you lent that money to, to give it back,” I say, taking that curl from in front of Ja’nae’s face and wrapping it behind her ear.

  Ja’nae’s drawing another heart on the table. I wanna tell her to forget about Ming when he walks into the lunchroom, wearing a new black leather jacket.

  I look at Ja’nae, she looks at me, and starts with the stupid hearts again.

  Ming don’t come over to us, which ain’t like him. He stays with Sato and his friends. They fingering his coat. Slapping him five. Asking how he coughed up the cash to pay for it. Shoot, they know his parents ain’t buying leather. They put every penny they make back into their food truck.

  “You gotta give me the money, Raspberry,” Ja’nae says, moving over one seat to get closer to me. “You know how my granddaddy is. If he don’t find that two hundred dollars quick, he’s gonna know I took it.”

  “Two hundred dollars! You crazy?” I say so loud kids at the other end of the table turn and look my way.

  “You always gotta be talking about money,” Seneca says, walking up to the table and slamming down her books.

  I roll my eyes at her. What she know about needing money? She’s like Zora. Her parents got big-time jobs. They’re both supervisors at the factory across town. She got every kind of coat in the world. Leather. Suede. Silk. Long. Short. Me, I got one—a beat-up pea ja
cket.

  Seneca takes the hint. Next thing you know, she’s up in somebody else’s face.

  “C’mon, Raspberry, if you lend me the money, I’m gonna give it back,” Ja’nae says, looking scared.

  Ja’nae just don’t get it. I don’t even spend my own money on me. I watch money. Count it. Smell it. But I don’t spend it. I can’t. You spend it, and it’s gone. Then you got nada, nothing.

  Ming finally comes over to our table. He sits down next to Ja’nae and next thing you know, she’s cheesing big-time. Rubbing his new leather, asking if he wants some of her lunch.

  For ten whole minutes, neither one of ’em speaks to me. They’re all up in each other’s face, whispering to each other. Ming is playing with a piece of Ja’nae’s hair. Ja’nae’s got her pinkie finger through the tiny baby ring Ming wears on a chain around his neck. It’s real gold. His dad gave him and Mai one when they each turned one year old. It’s a Korean custom to give kids gold on their first birthday. Mai keeps her ring in her junk drawer at home.

  Ja’nae takes out a pen and writes her name on Ming’s hand. Then he writes his name on her arm. All the while, she’s rubbing the sleeve of his coat, telling him how nice it feels.

  When Ming says, “Thanks for hooking me up,” Ja’nae gives him a look that lets him know he needs to shut his mouth.

  I can’t believe it. We’re only thirteen. How can a girl our age give a boy something that expensive? I mean, I know a girl who gave a boy some gloves and a hat for his birthday. But a whole coat? No way!

  Ming stands up to leave. “See you in Spanish class,” he says, walking away.

  Ja’nae starts with the money talk again. “Raspberry. You gonna help me out or what? You know my granddad will go off if he finds out I took his money.”

  “Get it from Ming,” I say, throwing my book bag over my shoulder and walking out of the lunchroom.

  Everyone in Ja’nae’s house is fat, even the dog. But that don’t keep her grandma from cooking all day long. Me, I ain’t complaining none. They feed me good. Always send me home with a plate of food so big it lasts Momma and me a few days.