Fighting Words

by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

  I picked through the rack of shoes. I hated the shoes I was wearing but Old Navy didn’t have much. I found a pair of plastic jellies my size. Six bucks, and at least nobody’d ever worn them before.

  “Della!” I heard Suki call from another part of the store. “Get over here, quick!”

  I hurried. Suki was standing in the center of the store, next to a table piled with shoes.

  Not just any shoes. Purple velvet high-top sneakers.

  Purple.

  Velvet.

  High-tops.

  “Oh,” I said. I’d never seen any shoes I wanted so much.

  “Get them,” said Suki. She was grinning.

  “You too,” I said.

  “Nah.” She waved her hand at me and laughed. “Look at the difference between your cart and mine.”

  Hers had blue jeans. Black underwear. Black socks. Black T-shirts and sports bras. Black eyeliner and mascara. If they’d sold black lipstick, Suki would have bought some. She liked black. Not me.

  The purple velvet shoes cost thirty dollars, more even than the glitter hoodie. I put them in the very top of my cart and stroked them, just once. Me, tomorrow, first day of school: new blue jeans, glitter hoodie, purple velvet high-tops. For the first time in my life, I was going to look fine.

  I’d added all the prices up so I knew I had enough money, but it turns out I forgot about sales tax, and in Tennessee that’s a lot. My cart came to $221.

  I thought about putting back the socks. The cheap T-shirts. But they didn’t cost enough to make a difference.

  I could get the plastic shoes.

  Suki took the high-tops off the counter and put them into her own cart. “I’ll buy them,” she said.

  “Really?”

  She put one of her sports bras back, and a shirt. “You got a washer?” she asked Francine.

  Francine nodded.

  Suki said, “Then I’m good.” She put her arm around me. “Gotta take care of my girl. Who needs more than two bras, anyway?”

  I could always count on Suki. Suki fixed everything.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  I put those velvet high-tops on my feet right there in the store. I was gonna throw my nasty shoes in the trash, but Suki said to keep ’em, you never knew when it might be handy to have a second pair of shoes. We went back to Francine’s house and Francine ordered pizza for dinner. Delivered. Pepperoni and sausage both. She opened cans of soda for us. Suki cut the tags off all our new clothes, and I sat and stared at Francine.

  She was seriously one of the ugliest women I ever saw. She looked like one of those little dogs with mashed-up faces and pouches hanging from their jaws. Also she had little round bumps of skin sticking out from her face. I don’t mean zits. They were zit-sized blobs that looked like they were on stalks, growing straight out from the surface of her skin. All over her face, and neck too. I started counting them. I got to thirty-six before she gave me the stink eye.

  “Knock it off,” she said. “They’re called skin tags. They’re not cancer, they’re not contagious, and pulling them off hurts.”

  I said, “What if they hatch?”

  She said, “If they do, it’ll be into little monsters that attack you in your sleep and make you itch till kingdom come. So you better hope it doesn’t happen.”

  When the pizza came, Francine slapped it on the table and passed out paper plates. “I keep foster kids for the money,” she said.

  I didn’t mind her saying that. I liked to know where we stood.

  “I only take girls,” she said. “Mostly old enough to do their own thing. Two at a time, when I can.” She stubbed her cigarette out on the edge of her plate. “I used to have a roommate, but it was snow, having to deal with people who never quite came up with their share of the bills. I thought, gimme roommates where the state pays their share, that’ll be easier. Usually it is.” She lit another cigarette. “Y’all going to court? Prosecuting?”

  Suki nodded. She leaned over and slid a cigarette out of Francine’s pack. Francine smacked her hand. “Nope,” she said. “You’re underage. I don’t contribute to the delinquency of minors. Plus, trust me, you’d wish you’d never started. I do. So. You’ve got clothes and we’ll figure out about the school laptop. What else you need?”

  “Phones,” Suki said. Clifton’d smashed hers. It was pretty new too. Clifton hadn’t finished paying for it.

  Francine shook her head. “Not my problem. You want one, get a job.”

  “Della’s ten,” Suki said. “She can’t.”

  Francine shrugged. “She’s ten. She don’t need a phone. Neither do you. I got a landline in the family room. Use that.”

  “Seriously?” Suki looked annoyed.

  I said, “We did too need Suki’s phone.”

  Francine and Suki looked at me. Francine said, “Don’t worry. You’re safe here.”

  Suki laughed. “Yeah, right.”

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  We threw the paper plates in the trash, and the pizza box, and that was the end of dinner. Francine turned on the TV and slumped in the recliner. Suki and I sat down on the couch.

  “You see Teena today?” I asked Suki.

  She grunted. “No. Quit asking.”

  “You had to,” I said. “Unless she’s sick or something.” Teena was in Suki’s grade.

  “Didn’t,” Suki said.

  Teena’s mom had called the cops on us, which I didn’t appreciate, but still. “Teena’s our best friend,” I explained to Francine. “She’s, like, my other sister.” I turned to Suki. “It wasn’t her fault.”

  Suki jumped to her feet. “Bedtime.”

  “Suki,” I said. “It’s only—”

  She grabbed my arm. “Bed.”

  “There’s an alarm clock in your room,” Francine said. “Get yourselves up however early you need. I’ll drive you to school tomorrow, Della. After that you’ll take a bus.”

  I put on my brand-new pajamas. I’d never had new pajamas before. They felt crinkly. “Brush your teeth,” Suki said.

  I rolled my eyes at her. I always brushed my teeth.

  She said, “And get them tangles out of your hair.”

  I said, “You are not the boss of me.” Which was a joke between us, because of course she was the boss of me.

  When I came out of the bathroom, teeth brushed and hair as good as it was going to get, Suki was already under the blanket on the top bunk. I climbed up beside her and snuggled close. I said, “It’s way too early for sleeping.”

  “Won’t hurt you none,” Suki said. She held her right hand up, fingers splayed. I put my left pinkie against her thumb and my left thumb against her pinkie. We walked our hands into the air, pinkie to thumb, pinkie to thumb, climbing up as high as we could reach. Suki’d taught me to do this and recite “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider,” but we’d cut the spider song out long ago. When our hands were stretched as high as I could reach, we marched them back down.

  “Skinna-ma-rink-y-dink-y-dink, skinna-ma-rink-y-do,” Suki sang. “I love you.”

  I joined in.

  Skinna-ma-rinky-dinky dink, skinna-ma-rinky do,

  I love you.

  I love you in the morning, and in the afternoon. I love you in the evening, underneath the moon.

  Skinna-ma-rinky-dinky dink, skinna-ma-rinky-do.

  I love you.

  The car Teena’s mother used to have had this thing called a tape player. It played music when you stuck little plastic cartridges called tapes inside it. Somewhere Teena’s mom had picked up a tape with all these goofy kids’ songs on it, and, since it was the only tape she had, she played it all the time. Teena’s mom didn’t drive us around much, but still, by the time that car quit running we knew every one of the songs, Suki, Teena, and me. Suki’d sung “Skinnamarinky” as my lullaby f
or almost as long as I could remember.

  It wasn’t even dark outside yet, but Suki’d pulled the curtains and the room was full of shadows. I tucked my head against my sister’s shoulder. The bed was unfamiliar and my new pajamas itched, but Suki was the same as always.

  That first night at Francine’s, we fell asleep holding hands.

  3

  Suki didn’t stay asleep. She thrashed around half the night, pounding on her pillow and flopping from front to back to front again. She must have woke me up a dozen times. Finally she settled, and we were both hard asleep when Francine’s alarm clock went off across the room.

  I jumped down but didn’t know how to turn off the noise. I smacked some buttons. The numbers on the clock started flashing but the alarm kept going. I smacked some more. Nothing else happened.

  Suki reached from behind me. She punched one button and the noise stopped. The clock went back to normal. “Figure it out, Della,” she snapped.

  “Good morning to you too.” I loved it when she woke up like this.

  In the kitchen Francine poured us bowls of raisin bran. She told us that it was the only kind of cereal she had in the house, and also that after this we’d be eating breakfast at school, because kids in foster care automatically get free school breakfast and lunch.

  “You mean, like, hot lunch?” I asked.

  We never got free lunch before, but Clifton usually didn’t give us money for school lunch neither—or at least, if he did, Suki wasn’t about to spend it on school lunch. We packed our lunches. Mostly peanut butter sandwiches. Sometimes chips.

  Suki said, “I don’t want to eat school lunch. Or breakfast.”

  “Suki!” I thought it might be interesting, eating at school. The school breakfasts always looked kind of tasty—muffins, juice, stuff like that.

  “I always fixed Della lunch and breakfast,” she told Francine. “I fed her. I don’t see why you can’t feed us.”

  Francine shrugged. “I’ll feed you plenty. But if the state gives me a benefit, I ain’t turning it down.”

  Suki stomped off to school, still muttering. Francine poured herself another cup of coffee. “You sure you don’t need school supplies? We could quick stop at Walmart.”

  “Nah.” Teachers always found a way to get me anything I really had to have. Most of the kids in my old school couldn’t afford school supplies. The teachers were used to it.

  In the car on the drive to school I asked, “So, foster mother. Does that mean you’re, like, legally my mom?”

  We had lawyers now, Suki and me.

  Francine glanced at me. “It’s kind of complicated. Clifton wasn’t ever your legal anything—”

  “Shoo,” I said, “I knew that.”

  “And your mother should have lost her parental rights when she got sentenced to such a long prison term. But that never actually happened. The social workers are getting you and Suki named wards of the state. Until that goes through, I don’t actually have much power.”

  She glanced at me again. “It doesn’t matter,” she added. “You’ll be taken care of.”

  “I know,” I said. “I have Suki.”

  “Suki can’t have legal rights over you, though,” Francine said. “She can’t have legal rights over herself. She’s only sixteen.”

  That didn’t mean anything. Suki was still in charge of my world.

  “How many foster kids have you had?” I asked.

  “Six,” she said.

  “What happened to them?”

  She didn’t even blink. “None of your blessed business. Their stories are their own.”

  I thought for a moment. “Okay. What’s your superpower?” Teena said everybody had at least one.

  Francine tapped her hand against the steering wheel. “I work with idiots all day every day and never lose my temper,” she said. “Given some of my customers, not to mention my co-workers, that’s a daily miracle.” She took another sip of coffee. “What’s yours?”

  I said, “I don’t take snow from anybody.”

  Francine snorted. Coffee flew out her nose. “Snow!” But she wasn’t mad, she was laughing. “Grab me some of the paper napkins off the floor, there, will you?”

  I did. Francine wiped the steering wheel. She tossed the dirty napkins back to the floor. “What’s Suki’s superpower?” she asked.

  “She can make herself invisible,” I said.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  The school was big, brick, kind of shabby, just like my old one. The security officer smiled at me. The principal introduced herself—Dr. Penny—and shook my hand.

  My new teacher, Ms. Davonte, didn’t. She didn’t even smile. She didn’t look glad to see me at all. The first thing she said was, “I don’t know where we’re going to fit in another desk.”

  Like that was my fault. Everyone in the class stared at me. Nobody smiled. I said, “I can sit on the floor.”

  A boy in the front row, white skin, freckled face, plain brown hair, said, just loud enough for me to hear, “Next to the garbage can.” The boys sitting near him snickered.

  Ms. Davonte said, “Strike one, Trevor. And it’s only eight o’clock.” She walked over to the whiteboard and drew a slash under the name TREVOR written in the corner of the board. Trevor sighed, rolled his eyes, and muttered something else. Ms. Davonte said, “What was that?”

  Trevor said, “Nothing.”

  Ms. Davonte said, “What?”

  Trevor said, “Nothing. Ma’am.”

  Ms. Davonte turned back to me like she’d half forgotten I was there. She sent someone off to the custodian’s to get another desk. She looked down at the papers the principal gave her, frowned, and looked back up at me.

  I knew what she was thinking. I said, “I go by Della.”

  She nodded. “Good.” She introduced me to the class as Della, not Delicious. She didn’t make me say anything else, which I appreciated. The custodian brought in a desk. Ms. Davonte made everyone in Trevor’s row, except Trevor, get up and push their desks back a space. She put me in between them and Trevor.

  “How come I don’t get to move back?” Trevor asked. “Put the new girl in the front.”

  “I don’t think so,” Ms. Davonte said.

  Then she said she was just about to pass out a math quiz. She wouldn’t expect me to do well, but she’d have me take it to see what I knew. She said, “Do you have a pencil, Della?”

  I shook my head. Her eyes traveled from my face down to my glitter hoodie past my new blue jeans and purple high-tops, to my total lack of backpack or school supplies. When she looked me in the face again her expression had changed. Like, Girl, maybe you should have got yourself a pencil along with those new shoes.

  I rolled my eyes and said, “My mama said the school had plenty of pencils I could use.”

  My mama never even put me into school—it was Clifton did that—let alone told me anything about pencils, ever, or cared if I had school supplies. But the whole class was still watching to see if I could hold my own, and I had to let them know I could. Like the way that boy Trevor made it clear he didn’t care how many strikes Ms. Davonte gave him. You gotta be tough from the start.

  4

  Ms. Davonte found me a pencil. Said she wanted it back at the end of the day. Whatever. I went through the math quiz and wrote some numbers down. I didn’t know any of the answers. Couldn’t tell you whether I’d been taught any of it before or not. Sometimes stuff teachers say just doesn’t stick. Like today—there wasn’t room for math inside my head when it felt like the whole class was still staring at me. I had hoped my new shoes would help more.

  Trevor turned around. “Nice shoes,” he said.

  I didn’t know if he meant it. “Thanks.”

  He said, “Too bad you’re so ugly, wearing them.”

  I guess not.

  Ms
. Davonte said, “Trevor, are you talking during a quiz?”

  He said, “No, ma’am, the new girl asked me a question.”

  “Della,” Ms. Davonte said, “please be quiet. If you have a question, raise your hand and ask me.”

  I raised my hand. Ms. Davonte nodded. I asked, “How come I have to sit behind this snowman?”

  The class exploded with laughter. Ms. Davonte’s face froze. When she got it unfroze, she said, “You’re not getting off to a very good start, Della. We don’t use language like that in my classroom.”

  Sure we did. I just had.

  Ms. Davonte told us to pass our quizzes to the front. The girl next to me turned and whispered, “What’d you do that for?”

  I nodded toward Trevor. “He’s a jerk.”

  She said, “Ignore him. We all do.”

  I turned my quiz upside down before I passed it forward, but Trevor turned it right-side up when he took it from me. His eyes widened. “You’re stupid!” he said.

  Better stupid than a snowman. I was trying not to say that out loud, but I still might have, except that Ms. Davonte spoke first. “Trevor, that’s two.” She drew another slash under his name on the blackboard. “Three strikes and you don’t get recess.”

  Trevor glared at me. “She didn’t get in trouble for calling me a snowman—” More laughter. It’s just hilarious, the word snowman. “Three.” Ms. Davonte drew a third slash.

  Since it wasn’t even nine o’clock in the morning I wondered what she was going to threaten Trevor with for the rest of the day. I mean, three strikes is the limit, right?

  Also, I felt bad. Because by rights one of those strikes should have been mine. I had called him a snowman right out loud, and hadn’t gotten in trouble at all. That wasn’t fair. The whole class knew it and I did too.