On the bus, I kept thinking about Mom and Ed DeBose. He was her dad. He didn’t live that far from us. But they never saw each other. She never talked to him. And he’d never talked to us.
I didn’t talk to my dad once for a night. I was mad at him for missing my baseball game, because I hit the winning run. But the next day he came into my room and told me about a little girl they had found drowned near the Narrows Bridge and said that was why he had missed my game. Then I felt bad for not talking to him. I hugged him the hardest I ever had.
Maybe Ed DeBose had done something like my dad missing my game, and Mom had gotten mad at him, but Ed never told her his good reason. It was a solid hypothesis. One thing I knew: Ed DeBose expected me to come back, and I would. For sure.
CHAPTER 8
“I gotta pee,” Khalfani said, hopping from one foot to the other.
We were in my basement, supposedly practicing the joong-gun form for our current level. Whenever Khal and I get together to practice, it always turns into sparring. But dare ee on—sparring—is one of the four disciplines of Tae Kwon Do, along with forms (hyungs), self-defense (hosinsul) and the break test (kyepka), so we figure it should still count for something.
“You always have to go pee,” I said, crouched in a horse stance. Even with my knees bent, I stood taller than Khal. Our height difference sometimes made sparring tough. Like when I would try to go for his chest and end up almost kicking his head.
“So? Everyone’s got to go sometime.”
“But you have to go more.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He punched with his left fist. “Well, maybe I got a better metabolism than everyone else.”
Khal was wiry—the kind of kid who could eat two hundred and fifty gallons of fudge ripple and still be just as skinny. I blocked him with my forearm. “Maybe you got a smaller bladder.”
He punched with his right fist. “Who you saying got a smaller bladder?”
I blocked him with my other forearm. “You.”
He put his arms down. “Well, you got a square head, Frankenstein.” I was Frankenstein for Halloween this year. Mom painted my face green. I didn’t need a mask because my head is kind of blocky.
“Well, you got a round one, Lightbulb.”
“I don’t got a smaller bladder.” Kick.
“You could.” Block. “Nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I don’t got a smaller bladder. And if you say it again, I’ll pee on you.” He raised his bent leg like a dog in front of a hydrant.
“That’s not a Tae Kwon Do stance,” I said.
He grinned.
Khal knew better than to do what he was threatening. I’d get him with my lethal edan ap cha gee—jumping front kick. “I know how we could find out.” My scalp had started to tingle as soon as I’d realized we were dancing around a question without an answer.
He put his hand on his hip and scrunched one eye at me. “Find out what?”
“How big your bladder is.”
Khal’s nostrils flared out like he thought I was a crazy man. I didn’t let his look stop me, though.
I went through the door from the basement to the garage and pulled two pop bottles out of the recycling bin. Mom was at the store, so we could conduct our experiment without unnecessary questioning.
I handed an empty two-liter to Khalfani. “First, you’ve got to hold it as long as you can.”
He shook the Mountain Dew bottle. “How’s holding this going to tell you how big my bladder is?”
“No, hold your pee. You can’t go until you think you’re going to explode. If you go before then, we won’t get an accurate measurement.”
He looked at my bottle, then smiled at me. “You’ll never out-pee me. I’m going to win.”
Khalfani always turned everything into a competition, but I didn’t care about that. I wanted answers.
We dropped the bottles and ran upstairs to drink water. We each gulped down a full juice pitcher, then Khal went for another one. After that, he ran around the house—into and out of every room, except for the bathroom, probably because it would have been too tempting.
I just stood in the living room and watched him jog around. He made faces as if he were pulling a train with his teeth.
After a while, I started to feel a burning sensation. I jumped up and down a few times in case that might help my bladder fill up faster or make more room or something. By this time, Khalfani was rolling around on the floor, clutching his stomach and moaning, “Ohhh…ohhh…” He beat the ground with his fists. “Ohhh…ohhh…”
Watching him flail like a fish, I started to laugh. I tried not to, because it made me have to go, but I couldn’t help it. I laughed so hard, I peed a little in my pants. I limped to the kitchen and made myself drink another half pitcher.
I sat at the top of the stairs and pinched my legs together. I bounced my feet up and down. I cracked every one of my knuckles and both wrists. I leaned back on my elbows to make more room down there.
“Ohhh…ohhh…” Pound. Pound.
I could feel the pressure in my gut. The burning traveled all the way to my knees. I gritted my teeth and squeezed my legs together.
The garage door creaked and groaned. Mom! I tiptoed as fast as I could to the basement.
“Wait up!” Khalfani yelled.
We hid in the room where we’d been sparring. The door from the garage opened. “Bren, come help me with the groceries!” Mom called.
“Shoot,” I whispered. I pinched my legs as tight as I could and waddled to the garage like a penguin.
Mom handed me a bag. “Where’s Khalfani?” she asked.
“In the other room. Practicing some moves.” I smiled, remembering Khal rolling around on the floor. Those were some moves.
I took the stairs carefully. One trip and I would lose control—and not of the bag of groceries.
Mom came into the kitchen behind me. “Do you know how those bottles ended up on the garage floor?” she asked, setting her bags on the counter.
I raised my eyebrows and shrugged, trying to look as uninvolved in anything having to do with two-liters as possible.
“Put them back in the bin for me, would you, sweetie?”
“Okay,” I said, already halfway down the stairs.
I could feel liquid rising into my throat. My gut hurt so bad, I wondered if it was possible to fill your bladder to the point that it could actually burst.
I reached the bottom of the stairs. Khalfani exploded past me, screaming like someone running straight into enemy fire. I rushed into the garage behind him.
Khalfani didn’t seem to care that the garage door was open and anyone walking by would see him, zipper down, peeing into a Mountain Dew bottle. I pressed the garage door button, hoping Mom was too busy unloading groceries to investigate the yelling. The door rumbled closed.
“Ahhh…” Khalfani sighed. The inside of his bottle steamed up.
I pulled down my shorts and fumbled with the cap. Aiming into a hole the size of a quarter wasn’t too easy, nor was controlling the pee that wanted to gush out of me like a flooded river bursting a dam, but somehow I got it to work. The quickly filling bottle warmed under my hands.
When I had squeezed out the last possible drop, I capped the bottle and set it next to Khalfani’s.
“Ha!” he shouted. His bottle was half full. Mine was only about a third full.
“You drank more than me,” I said. It was a variable I hadn’t considered in setting up the experiment.
“That’s not my fault. You should have drank more.”
I didn’t consider the results conclusive, but I was impressed with the initial findings. One liter for an eleven-year-old’s bladder seemed pretty big to me.
“You know what this tells us, right?” I said. “You don’t really need to go as often as you say you do.”
“Maybe so.” He straddled his bike and pushed the garage door button. “But I’ve also got a bigger bladder than you
.” He smiled. “Now let’s go to the park like we said we were going to.”
“First let’s take these bottles and water my mom’s flowers.” I sloshed the liquid around the two-liter. That had been in my bladder. Cool.
Khalfani grinned big. I’d known he’d like my idea.
I enjoyed bouncing up the stairs without pain. I jogged to my room and dug out Ed’s tools from where I’d hid them, in a box of winter clothes in my closet. I shoved the black bundle into my backpack and slung the bag over my shoulders.
On my way out, I let Mom know we were going to the park. Then Khalfani and I poured the results of our experiment into Mom’s flowerbed and raced off, feeling a whole lot lighter.
At the park, we ditched our helmets and backpacks by a tree. Khalfani wanted to ride down the slide on his bike. While he wrestled the bike to the top of the playground fortress, I sat on mine and practiced balancing without the kickstand.
Khal rocked back and forth at the top of the slide, then flew over the edge, pedaling fast. At the bottom he caught air, just like a motocross racer doing a jump. His mouth opened in a big O. I watched, hoping to see a bug fly in.
His back wheel touched down. The front tire flipped up. Khalfani thudded to the ground and the bike crashed on top of him.
I jumped off my bike and ran over.
His eyes were squeezed shut. He moaned.
“Are you hurt?” I stooped, expecting to see blood. What if he’d broken his back?
His crescent moon smile appeared. “Got ya!” He pushed the bike off and rolled onto his side, but not very fast. “Was that awesome, or what?”
“Yeah, until the end. Khalfani, meet gravity. Gravity, Khalfani.” I held out my hand and pulled him up.
“Your turn,” he said.
“I’ve got a better idea. The stream.”
Khalfani suddenly moved as if he hadn’t just back-flopped onto a bunch of wood chips.
I ran to my helmet and pulled it on. I threw my pack over my shoulder. Khal just left his things where they were and took off. We always raced to the water. We zoomed over the footbridge—Khal almost hit an old lady—and skidded down the bank to the water’s edge.
I dropped my pack and yanked off my shoes and socks. I would’ve beaten him, but a rock embankment at the base of the bridge caught my eye. Khalfani splashed into the water. “You’re slower than a dial-up connection!” he yelled.
“Just a sec.” I pulled the tools from my pack and took the prospector’s pick and chisel over to the tan rock. Opposite from the pointy end of the pick was a blunt, square face that could be used to hammer against the chisel.
The rock face glistened with water and the slight green sheen of moss. I used the chisel and hammered away until a chunk came loose in my hand. I’d take it home and identify it with the field guide.
“Hurry up. My feet are turning to ice cubes.” Khalfani stood shin-deep in the water, holding himself and shivering.
I set the tools and sample on top of my pack and ran into the stream, doing a spinning kick when I got near Khal. “Shower time!” I yelled.
“You want a piece of me?” He raised his hands and wiggled his fingers.
We kicked into the air around each other’s heads and bodies, trying to make the other one lose balance and fall in. It was our usual contest when we got in the stream. This time, though, the bumpy rocks under my feet begged me to stop and look at them. Maybe pick a few up.
“Time out,” I said, breathing hard. I put my hands on my knees and peered into the water.
“I’m just getting started!” Khalfani bounced around with his fists up. He jabbed a few times.
“Stand still. You’re stirring up the water.”
“What are you looking for? You don’t wear contacts.” He came over and looked down.
“Rocks.” I reached in and pulled out a flat black stone with jagged edges. I was pretty sure I’d seen one like it in the field guide. Slate? I held it up, then dropped it into my pocket.
“Hey, kids, what’re you doing? Trying to catch guppies for show-and-tell?”
Laughter. Older boys’ voices.
I looked over my shoulder. Four white boys stood on the bank watching us. One of them picked up my bike and sat on it. White cords hung from his ears and disappeared under his Slim Shady T-shirt. His head bobbed in time to his music.
The tallest one stood with his arms crossed over his puffed-out chest. He wore a white tank top. “Or are you fishing with your hands, like the natives?”
“We’re not fishing,” Khalfani said through a clenched jaw.
My feet felt like frozen pieces of meat, but my face was burning hot.
A boy with shaggy blond hair spoke. “They’re not going to catch anything in that nasty water except a foot fungus.”
The tall boy smiled at him. “You know that from personal experience, Marty?”
The blond boy scowled.
The fourth boy, who had been standing to the side grinning, stepped up to the water. “I know how to make it nastier.” He snorted long and hard and spit a huge loogie into the water. “Some seasoning for your fish!”
They all laughed then.
I stood still, not daring to move or to look away, but not knowing what to do, either. They were bigger than us. A lot bigger. And they had our bikes. But tenet number five told me I couldn’t just jump out of the stream and run away. Baekjul boolgool. Indomitable spirit. A Tae Kwon Do warrior should never be dominated or have his spirit broken by another.
The boy who had spit glanced at the ground. “What’s this?” he asked. My backpack. The tools. He grabbed the pick and held it up. “This looks dangerous. We better keep it so the little boys don’t hurt themselves.” He tossed it to the boy with shaggy hair.
I charged out of the stream. “Give it back!”
Shaggy-Hair Boy smiled and threw the pick to Tank Top Boy. “Monkey in the middle!” Shaggy called. He made chimp sounds and pushed out his ears. Was he making fun of my ears?
I rushed toward my pick, but the tall boy held it over his head. I jumped at it and bumped into him. He shoved me and I fell hard, wincing from the sharp rocks that stabbed my palms.
Khalfani blasted out of the water, yelling. He jump-kicked his foot straight into the guy’s stomach.
Tank Top Boy grunted and stumbled. No one moved. The boy on my bike stopped bobbing. I’d turned to stone.
The boy regained his balance. He narrowed his eyes at Khal. He still held the pick overhead, but now he waved it in the air like a weapon.
I had to move. Now. I jumped up and stepped in front of Khalfani just as the pick came stabbing down.
High block!
My arm popped up, deflecting the force of the blow. A searing pain ripped through my forearm.
Tank Top Boy glared at me and raised the pick again. I forced myself not to flinch. I made my legs like cement and kept my fists near my face. My ragged breaths sounded like a steam engine. I could smell my sweat and almost taste the fresh blood oozing from my arm. Or was my tongue bleeding? It pulsed where I’d bitten it on my way to the ground.
The boy hurled the pick. I watched in disbelief as it spun through the air, hit a large rock and broke.
The tool lay silent, but I still heard in my head the clang of metal striking stone. The pointy end was gone. A jagged edge was all that was left.
“I think that’s enough fun for one day,” the boy said. He turned and climbed the bank. My bike thudded on the dirt as Music Boy followed.
I stepped toward the pick and reached for the handle with my cut arm. Spit Boy stood over me. “Hey!” he said to the others. “I thought they had purple blood.” His voice sounded surprised, but it wasn’t real surprise. He was still mocking us.
He stepped on the head of the pick and ground it into the dirt.
My forearm throbbed. Blood trickled from the gash. Red blood, same as everyone else’s.
CHAPTER 9
By the time I got home, Dad’s car was in the driveway. The law
n mower roared to life in the backyard. Cool. Dad was out back. I just had to get past Mom.
My arm had stopped stinging, but the rest of me was still burning up over how those boys had bullied us. Worse, Ed’s pick was busted. I had found the pointy end and wrapped it with the tools. Question was, how would I fix it?
I snuck into the house and up the stairs. I tensed when I saw Gladys sitting on the couch—until her head bobbed and I heard her snore. Mom was nowhere in sight.
In my room, I took the black bundle from my bag and unrolled it. I laid the pick and its point on my bed. The tool’s jagged edge taunted me like those rough boys and their sharp words. It was useless. The pick was broken. There was no way to fix it.
My chest tingled as I remembered the pick hurtling past my face and smashing to the ground. Why had the boy done that? Why had they even stopped to bother us at all? We weren’t bothering them.
I pulled out my Book of Big Questions. “What makes people be mean?” I wrote. I didn’t know if science could answer a question like this, but it probably could. Science could explain everything.
I went over what had happened, how it had started and what they had said to us. When I got to the last boy, the one who had stepped on the pick, my face turned warm. I thought they had purple blood.
Khalfani and I were the “they,” and I knew why.
Because we were black.
For the first time I could remember, someone had been mean to me because of my color. I wrote on the next line: “What makes white people be mean to black people?”
Grampa Clem had told me about a few bad things white people had done to him, but it always seemed like a really long time ago. And there was Dad, with his warnings about how things were tougher for black boys. But it had never been something I worried about for myself. I closed the notebook and slipped it behind my bed.
I rolled up the tools and buried them in the box of old clothes. I didn’t even know when I would go back to Ed’s. Maybe now I just wouldn’t.
I took the chunk of rock I’d chipped off the embankment and the one from the stream and set them on my desk. I looked through the field guide for the picture of slate.
Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in It Page 5
