I knock on the window. Come out, mouse.
Finally he opens the door and comes out. Brown wool skullie pulled down tight over his half-bald head. He’s chewing like a rat, fighting to get whatever down his throat. Rat with whiskers. Up and down, up and down. No. A mouse. A rat wouldn’t hide. A rat would come at me. I could respect that. I can’t respect a little brown mouse.
“Miss Duncan. Why are you in the teachers’ parking lot?”
Shayne and Vivica cackle hard because his teeth are rattling. He’s scared and it’s funny. I’d laugh too but I’m mad.
“Listen, Hershheiser,” I say, “I need my grade changed.”
He tries to walk fast but I’m on him. Little man, where you think you going? We ’bout the same height but I know you feel my shadow. I know you feel me sticking. Go ahead. Make a move. You move, I stick. You move, I stick. You can’t run from me, mouse.
“Miss Duncan, your grade i-is your grade. You’ll d-do better in your new cl-cl-class. The sec-sec-second semester’s j-just starting.”
“I don’t want that grade. All you gotta do is change the seventy to a seventy-five. Five points. That’s all, Hershheiser. Just five points and I’m off the bench.”
“Look, Miss Duncan….”
Calling me “Miss” don’t make my shadow smaller. I’m not playing with you, mouse. Change my grade.
“’Nique,” I correct him. “Look, Mr. Hershheiser, you can do this. You can change my grade.”
“Miss, er, Dominique”—mustache twitching—“you can’t accost me in the parking la-la-lot. This isn’t the way to do things.”
“I’m not costing you. You’re costing me. Costing me my minutes. My season. All I need is to be up a few points and I get my time back.”
Here I am, pleading my heart out like a stupid bitch in love and he’s running away. We’re already up the steps to the main door. See how he runs. He pushes the door open and is relieved. Little brown mouse is in the hole, makes it to safety, in with the other teachers. The cop nods him through and cocks her head up at us: Where you going?
“Girls, you know the deal,” Cop Dyke says. “Seven fifty-five. Not before. It’s either on your schedule or you have to have a note. Got a note?”
We don’t have a note. “That’s my teacher,” I say. “I’m talking to him.”
“Well, he left you hanging, didn’t he?”
I can’t say nothing back. That’s how mad I am. Mad enough to reach over, grab her club, and break it in two. Mad enough to pound the desk with my fist. The little brown mouse slides into his hole and then Cop Dyke blocks me like I’m some punk and I’m supposed to slink away with my head low. Say that’s all right. You don’t have to hear me out, mouse. You don’t have to let me through, Cop. And then she’s going to be funny too? Left you hanging, didn’t he?
But here we are. Out in the cold because the cop won’t pass us through. Viv and Shayne drop the ball completely. They can’t remember why we’re here to begin with. That they’re my girls and they’re supposed to just be here. Shayne’s a baby for that hot chocolate. I’m tired of hearing her whine, so me and Viv walk her over to the bagel man on the corner. She gets hers, then I tell her, “Get me one.”
“Get your own.”
I’m still mad but Shayne got a way with her and I say, “Don’t make me spill that cup all over you. You’ll really be hot.”
She knows I’m playing. She holds the Styrofoam cup out to me. I take a sip, to make things nice, but give it back. Too sweet. She and Scotty like that sweet, sweet stuff. I shake it off. It’s nasty sweet. She and Viv pass the cup back and forth. They try to get me to take another sip but then they stop. They know when to leave me alone.
We start back, this time to the side door at the back of the school. That’s the best way to get in or out. The building’s too big. They can’t put a cop on each door. If you want to, you can break in or out.
We stand there for a while. Viv and Shayne crunch up now that the hot chocolate is gone. They talk, talk, talk but I keep my eye on the door. I wait. The janitor opens the side door to take a smoke. Then boom. We rush him like a storm. Oh! That’s funny.
He wants to curse us so bad, grown man and whatnot. Can’t be bum-rushed by no girls. But what can he do? Tall, crooked grandpa. We’re too much for him, laughing like a pack of she-dogs, and it makes me feel drunk and silly.
We’re in. I’m fit to charge up the stairs, the third floor. Hunt down Hershheiser. If I keep pushing on him I know I can break him. We’re down in the basement at the far end of the building near the gym, near the coach’s office. I have a thought. A better thought. All Coach gotta do is change her mind. She can do that. Change her mind. It’s her rule: 75 and higher to take the floor. It’s not the law. It’s not in the rule book. She can change her mind. She can bend this one time.
Come on, Coach. Let me by this time. I just want my minutes. I’ll take sixteen. Eight. I’ll take four. Four minutes and she’ll want me in for eight. Four minutes when we’re down ten points and you’ll never sit me out. You’ll never bench me. Just don’t make me sit and watch. Don’t bench me.
I tell Shayne and Vivica to wait. I don’t want Coach to think I’m ganging up with my girls. Coach don’t respond to that. Coach is like, “You’ll break before I bend the rules.” Coach isn’t no Hershheiser. Coach’ll be up in your chest, standing six by six, a brick wall you can’t get around. But I’m not trying to charge at her. I just need her to hear me. Just hear me out.
When I go into her office the radio’s on some talk station. Sports talk. She’s reading the paper, drinking coffee. Only her eyes go up, then back down to the paper.
“Coach, my minutes,” I start.
“Not now, Duncan.”
“But Coach, I just—”
“Duncan, I said not now.”
“But Co—”
“Duncan. Out.” And she points to the door like she points to the bench. Like I’m a dog and I take commands. She has the minutes, the game, the season, and I got zip.
Shayne, Viv. Do not speak. Don’t say nothing. Not one sound. Just shut the hell up.
They get it. They read my face. They follow me from the basement up back, to the first floor where B meets C. I’m so mad I can’t even see them. Just their shapes. They’re not even Viv and Shayne to me. I feel hot and tight. Caged by the No box.
NO NO
NO NO
We’re inside where it’s warm but my breath comes out fighting. My chest is rising and falling, rising and falling. Just no one say nothing. Don’t speak. Just let me calm myself down. Just be quiet.
Some stupid little flit comes skipping down B Corridor like the Easter bunny carrying some rolled-up paper. Skipping. Hopping. In all that pink. Cuts right in between us and is like, “Hey” or some shit. Cuts a knife right through my space. Right through it. Wearing some perfume making a pink stink in my nose after she turns on C. Like she don’t see I’m here and all the space around me is mines so keep your pink ass on that side of the lane. No. She cuts a knife right through my space then turns. And I slam my fist into my other hand because she’s good as jumped and I say, “Her. I’m gonna kick that ass at two forty-five.”
4
On Speed Dial
LETICIA
CAN YOU BELIEVE MY LUCK? I sneak outside to skim dirt, and dirt finds me before I’m down the stairs. It’s all too good to waste. Every second counts. The bell will ring in five minutes. I fold the bathroom pass down to a padded wad and jam it on the inside of the door lock. I step outside the building where the reception is good and hit 3, Bea’s number on Celina’s speed dial.
Bea is on the “work” part of work-study. One week classes and one week the job. Unlike us, Bea doesn’t have to hide her cell phone. Her boss doesn’t care about that. But here in school, they confiscate your phone if they catch you using it or if it goes off during class. Principal Bates took my Celina away and I promised Celina I would never let that happen again. I would be more careful, espec
ially in chemistry. My teacher, Mr. Cosgrove, is funny about ringtones, especially if it’s an actual song. He dances his way to the groove of the ringtone all the way down to your seat, holds his hand out until you drop your phone in his palm. That’s why I keep Celina on vibrate, stashed in my bag. I wish Mr. Cosgrove would try to take my little girl. We’d have a custody battle in class because no one takes my sugar. Right, baby?
Celina’s plastic body is cold like metal. She can’t stand being outside when it’s freezing but just like Bridgette tells me, “Deal. It’s only temporary.” I’m not worried. Once I start talking up this fresh dirt Celina will get warm in no time.
Bea clicks and I start.
“BeaBeaBea. Girrrrl…”
“Ooh, what?” She knows the sound of fresh dirt dropping when she hears it. “What’s up with James?”
Who cares about Chem II James now? I just spill it: “Trina’s getting her ass whupped.”
“Tall Trina or Cute Trina?”
“Cute Trina.” Clarification needed: Trina isn’t cute by my standards. Trina thinks Trina is cute. But Bea and I are on the same page. She knows which Trina I mean.
“Right now?” I know Bea wishes this was study week and not work week. That would be something to see. An event too good to miss. Trina getting stomped on school grounds.
“No. No,” I say. “That’s the thing. It’s happening after school. Maybe you can get here for it. Leave work early. Tell them you need a book in your locker for homework.”
Bea gasps. She can’t believe it either. This is better than the tray of free doughnuts her boss puts out for the workers. She was going to miss Cute Trina’s beat-down.
“By who?” she asks.
“Basketball Jones.”
“Who?”
“You know. Big girl. Wavy hair. Dominique.”
Bea agrees I had it right the first time. Basketball Jones. When you think Dominique, you forget she has natural waves and a nice complexion. You think girl on the ball court in the biggy-baggy basketball jerseys and shorts, if you want to call those long bloomers shorts.
“That big girl?” Bea takes a moment to picture it. Big Dominique and little Trina. She makes a sound of shock and dread. A gasp swallowed by a groan. She can’t stop saying “Oh my God,” and I can’t stop saying “Can you believe it?”
The first bell rings but we keep talking. This is too good.
“Tell me what happened? How did it go down? What did Trina do to Dominique? Tell me everything.”
It won’t shatter anyone’s world if I walk into class late. I start spilling and stretching the story beyond the split seconds that it occurred. I tell Bea how I got the pass from Palenka, how I ran all the way to the end of the hall to slip out the side door in the back of the building. I tell her where I was standing when I saw them, and how Trina skipped by in those ghetto pink sweatpants, and how she cut between Dominique and her girls, Shayne and Vivica, and how Dominique smacked her hands together and pointed her finger all bang-bang and that she was going to get Trina at 2:45.
Now I’m really late, but Celina is hanging in there with four bars of reception like a good girl so I keep on talking.
“But what did Trina do?” Bea asks. “Why is Dominique going to beat her?”
“Haven’t you been listening?” I’m a little hot. Sometimes Bea just misses the point, which is I know something juicy and I share it with her. This is a little breakfast goodie. A yummy sausage, egg, and cheese to snack on. Instead of snacking, she’s asking questions.
I say, “Because she was being Trina, doing what Trina do. You know how Trina do. Being in everyone’s face. Shaking that tail. ‘I’m Trina. He-ey.’ You’ve seen her.”
“And that’s why Dominique’s gonna beat her?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
Bea said no. Fighting over stuff like that was trifling high school mess. Funny, it wasn’t trifling high school mess last semester when we rode up on Jay with Krystal. It was “on” then.
Bea says it’s not right and asks if Trina is crewing up or what.
“Crewing up? Bea, you serious?”
“Yeah, I’m serious, ’Ticia. What is she planning to do? Stick it out till two forty-five with her crew or cut out early?”
I’m not thinking about Trina’s next move. I just got this good dirt and ran outside to share it.
I say, “Trina don’t know it’s going down. Like I told you, her back was to them. She was skipping away, being Trina. Then she turned down C.”
Another gasp-groan. “She doesn’t know?”
“That’s what I said.”
Bea eats up thirty whole seconds of my phone minutes to say how wrong, how trifling it is and that—get this—I shouldn’t let it go down like this, and then asks again if I’m sure that Trina doesn’t know.
“Don’t make me say it again, Bea.” Bridgette will have a fit when she sees these prime-time minutes racking up on the phone bill. A fit. I need Bea to fast-forward but she’s stuck on poor Trina.
“So what are you going to do, Leticia?”
“What?” I can hear her. I just can’t believe she’s asking me what I’m going to do about it.
Then she says it again, all You heard me. “So what are you going to do, Leticia?”
“Me? Me do what?” I can’t even put these words together. How did this get to be about me?
“Weren’t you the only one to see it go down?”
“No,” I say. “Vivica and Shayne were right in it.”
She sucks spit to say I’m being trifling. “Vivica and Shayne are with Dominique, which is as good as them kicking Trina’s ass with Dominique. Come on, Leticia. Would you tell on you?”
I can’t believe how she’s turning this helter-skelter.
“You gotta give Trina a clue,” she says.
“Why do I gotta get involved?” As much as Bea and I have shaken heads over Cute Trina being Cute Trina and now it’s up to me to save her?
Bea says, “Trina can’t stand up to Dominique. You gotta tell her, Leticia. You’re the only one who witnessed it all go down. This is your mess.”
The second bell rings and I tell Bea I have to go, I’ll call later. Celina is warming up but I’m freezing. I power Celina down to save her energy for later.
5
H-o-t C-h-i-c-k
TRINA
I GIVE MY ARTWORK to Mr. Sebastian and speed along, beep-beeping, to Biology, minding my business, when Assistant Principal Shelton pulls me aside.
“Trina.” He shakes his head, wags his finger.
Uh-oh. Sounds serious.
“What did I do? I didn’t do nothing.”
“That outfit.”
Big relief! Is that what this is about? I give him my famous shaky-shake. “Cute, right? I got it at Marshall’s. They only sell it in my size and that’s only right because you can’t wear this and be packing pound cakes. I don’t care what the big girls say.”
Now that that’s settled, I start to walk away. Miss Womack closes the door at five after and talks real fast about polypeptides so I must be in my seat ASAP. But AP Shelton is blocking my kick-ball-change. He’s not even smiling.
“That outfit is hardly appropriate for school. We’ve had this discussion before, Trina.”
“Yes, I know. So why you breathing on me? I’m not cut down to there.” I slide my finger over my lucky gold chain and along the zipper, where most girls have cleavage. His face turns red. I make his day. This is just a little game between him and me. He knows he likes messing with me in the hallway. This time it’s not the tatas popping. The bottoms on my warm-up suit hang a little low and the top a little high, almost showing my appendix scar, but that’s practically invisible. I say, “It’s only a little belly button and a cute one. At least I don’t have an alien knob sticking out. Now that would be disgusting.”
Last semester AP Shelton got me for sporting a low-cut top. But in all fairness, it was technically still summer and that top needed to get some wear before it wen
t in with the mothballs. I wasn’t offending anyone. But Shelton made Mami come up to school with a big sweater. How embarrassing! The way they threw the sweater over me was like they do on Animal Kingdom. The hunters spot the innocent zebra peacefully munching on a patch of grass. They creep up from behind, blast the unsuspecting zebra in the butt with a tranquilizer dart, and then throw a net over her. Only thing that burnt me about that whole episode was Mami clicking her tongue and acting outraged when she blew me kisses and said I looked cute that morning.
I pull the bottoms up a little and then tug the top down. “Problem solved?” Assistant Principal Shelton rolls eyes to the skies. Where does he begin?
“It’s only flirtware,” I say. “It don’t mean nothing.”
“You come to school to learn, not to flirt.”
I laugh like we’re friends and he made a funny. He doesn’t think I’d take that seriously, does he?
“Come on, Mr. Shelton. This is high school. What do you think flirting was made for? Last year we socked boys in the arm, this year we hit ’em low, if you get me. It’s all about flirting. Flirting’s what we do when we’re not taking notes.”
Awww, Mr. Shelton knows he wants to laugh but he holds back. I’m winning him my way. Come on, Shel-E-Shel. Crack a little gap below the mustache. You know you want to.
Nope. Still tight.
I dance for him, a stomp and shake I borrow from the Boosters. “Look. Arm, arm, leg, leg, belly, tatas covered. Happy?”
When I finish turning around for him he says, “Trina, I can read hot chick on your, your…”
He actually says “posterior,” but I’m not through with him yet.
“Mr. Shelton. You reading my booty? Is that what this is all about? You reading h-o-t c-h-i-c-k on my ass?”
“Go to class, young lady.”
“I’m going, Mr. Shelton. I’m going. Don’t forget to check out my artwork in C Corridor. Black History Month,” I say. “See, Mr. Shelton. You made me late. I’m going to miss the polypeptides and fail the quiz but I’ll have an alibi. I’ll tell Miss Womack I was showing Shel-E-Shel my outfit.” I do my shaky-shake and keep it shaking down the hall. I know he’s laughing, trying to look serious, but why turn around and bust him? I brighten his day. He’ll smile from now until 2:45. Why? Because that’s what I do. Bring a little joy to someone’s drab, dull day. That’s right. I bring color to this school.
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