“Wait!” Ed said. “We need to cut it open.”
I looked into his eyes. What I saw wasn’t hate or dislike, the feelings that swirled around my heart like a hurricane. What was that word Gladys sometimes used to describe white people?
Ignorance.
Ed didn’t have any idea why I’d wanted to throw the rock.
“You can keep it,” I said, tossing it onto the seat. I zipped open my pack and pulled out Ed’s tools. “I’m giving these back. Some boys in the park took the pick from me and broke it. They thought they were better than us, too.” I dropped the black bundle on the seat. “I’ll send you the money to replace it.”
Ed stared at the tools.
I put my hand on the camper shell’s window and P.J. licked the glass. “Bye, boy.”
Was P.J. a brown dog with white spots, or a white dog with brown spots? Didn’t matter. To me, brown and white looked like they belonged together just fine.
I tromped up my front steps and turned the doorknob. Locked. I started to reach into my backpack pocket for my key, but the door flew open.
Gladys grabbed my arm and pulled me inside. She held me by my shoulders. Her nostrils flared and her breath was hot on my face. Then she pulled my head into her chest and squeezed.
“Sorry, Gladys,” I said, and I truly was. Sorry that I had gone. Sorry that I’d met Ed DeBose. Sorry for how he felt about my parents getting married. For how he felt about me.
I pulled back. “Are you going to tell my parents?”
“No. But you are.”
My hands were dirty. I went to the kitchen to wash them. I didn’t want any reminder of my day with Ed DeBose. The experiment was over. I had my answer. But still no grandpa.
After my parents got home, Gladys raised her eyebrows a lot and kept poking me in the side when they weren’t looking. When Mom and Dad went to put their suitcases away, I whispered, “I’ll tell them tomorrow. Promise.”
She crossed her arms and lowered her chin, but she didn’t do any more poking or eyebrow-raising after that.
Gladys stayed for ice cream sundaes. While we sat around the table, Mom asked what we had done all day. I shoveled a huge spoonful of ice cream into my mouth so I couldn’t talk.
“I’m sure Brendan will fill you in tomorrow. He’s got lots to tell you.” Gladys’s mouth snapped shut. “As for me, I’m tireder than a petting zoo pony. Time for me to be getting home.”
Dad left with Gladys. I said good night and went to my room. I sat at my desk, thinking. The rock tumbler that had been in my stomach earlier had moved to my head. My thoughts spun around and around. What scientific proof could be given to show that black people and white people shouldn’t get married or have kids? The evidence actually proved the opposite.
Me. I was the evidence.
So what if one of my parents had brown skin and the other had white? It didn’t make a bit of difference to the molecules that came together to make me. I’d learned in Mr. Hammond’s class that I had some genes from my mom and some from my dad. Some genes from Grampa Clem and Gladys, and some from my mom’s parents.
I had Ed DeBose’s ears. He’d said so himself. And our interest in science—that could be genetic, too. It was possible.
He was my grandpa. We were blood-related, whether he liked it or not.
Didn’t Ed DeBose know that science was supposed to be unprejudiced? I wanted to hit something, but I couldn’t make noise.
I stood in front of the long mirror on my closet. I kicked to the front and my mirror self kicked back. I punched to the front. My mirror self punched back. Faster and faster, I kicked and punched. To the front. The back. Left. Right. Finally one giant jumping kick, then I crumpled on the ground. I had nothing left to kick or punch. I had kicked and punched all my mad feelings out. I lay there, nothing moving except my lungs. No sound except my breath. Eyes closed. Darkness. And then against the black screen in my head, one tiny yellow word: Why?
One little word, only three letters long, but it was the biggest question I had ever come across. And science couldn’t answer it.
CHAPTER 21
Sunday came and went (thankfully Gladys wanted to stay home because she’d been to our house Friday and Saturday), then Monday. Still, I couldn’t seem to get the words out of my mouth that I’d gone with Ed on the expedition. Every time my parents came around, my tongue turned to cement. I kept telling myself I’d already been grounded for two weeks—how much worse could it get?
My birthday was coming up. What if they said I couldn’t have a party—or there’d be no presents? I couldn’t tell them.
Tuesday night was my purple belt exam. I spent most of the day in the basement, going over my forms. Mom and Dad came with me to the dojang. They sat in the back next to Khalfani’s dad.
“How’s prison life?” Khal whispered when I joined him on the mat. I hadn’t even told Khal that I’d gone with Ed DeBose to hunt thunder eggs, but he knew that I’d been grounded for going to see him before.
“All right,” I said, then fixed my eyes to the front, where Master Rickman was introducing the first testers—little guys who couldn’t have been older than five or six. The cho bo ja—beginners—wore white belts symbolizing innocence. A very long time ago, or so it seemed now, that had been me.
We had to sit cross-legged and watch all the groups before us: white, yellow and blue. Just when I thought my butt couldn’t take any more, Master Rickman called for the blue belts with purple stripes. Khal nudged me. We walked to the front.
Khal and I went first. I bowed, then stood in ready position. Each form we’d mastered required us to demonstrate a series of kicks and punches, in the correct order. Master Rickman gave us the signal, and we started to move through the hyungs for each level.
Chon-ji came so easily at this point that I didn’t even have to think about it. Just like riding my bike.
My bike. Would I ever get it back? My parents were letting me earn extra allowance by doing more chores so I could buy a new one, which I’d do after I sent Ed money for the pick.
I forgot where I was in the sequence. I hesitated, feeling my ears get warm. I glanced at Khalfani, trying to remember what to do next, then jerked back into motion, hoping my mistake hadn’t been too noticeable.
We moved on to dan-gun—planting the seeds. Then we were sprouting—do-san—the form for the yellow belt. Then on to won-hyo and yol-guk.
Finally I reached joong-gun, the pattern I’d learned after I received the purple stripe on my blue belt. I flowed through it like the water in the stream at Olympic View Park. It was a cinch.
After that, Khalfani and I had to demonstrate our kicks and punches in a sparring match. The hardest part was not touching each other. Our school of Tae Kwon Do uses noncontact sparring as a way to promote discipline. I spun, jumped and kicked. I blocked every one of Khal’s punches. I finished with the “killing blow”—my fist an inch away from Khalfani’s head.
The last thing we had to do was pass the kyepka—the break test. Master Rickman placed a board in the holder on the wall. Khal turned to the side, balanced himself and shot his leg through the wood. Snap! He’d gotten it in one try!
I wanted to high-five him, but I kept my cool.
It was my turn. I stepped into position and focused on the board. Just as I was about to raise my leg, I caught Dad’s eye in the mirror. Suddenly I felt like Superman in front of kryptonite. I kicked in a feeble attempt, but I knew: I didn’t deserve the purple belt.
Master Rickman let me try two more times. I broke the board on the third attempt, but still I knew. I couldn’t take the belt, even if it was offered.
I bowed and returned to my seat on the ground. “What happened?” Khal asked. I just shrugged. The room was crowded and hot, the floor as hard as brick. My do bok seemed to have shrunk on my body. It felt two sizes too small. The belt was suddenly too tight.
By the time the brown belts got up to test, I wanted to run out of the room. At the end of this exam, Master Ric
kman would call my name, bow to me and present me with my new belt. A belt I couldn’t accept.
I hadn’t been noble at all. I’d snuck out of my house, almost gotten Ed killed, and then not told my parents what I’d done.
I’d found a way to feel okay about it before, but now, about to be honored as a purple-belt Tae Kwon Do warrior, I knew I was wrong.
I held myself still, feeling like a melting candle as sweat dripped down my face and sides. My deodorant was failing me big-time.
When Master Rickman invited me forward, I bowed, then stepped close and whispered in his ear. He put the belt back on the table and I returned to my seat, seeing my parents’ confused stares.
When I went over to my parents afterward, I kept my head down.
“What was that all about?” Dad asked.
“I went with Ed again. To look for rocks.” I held still, waiting for Mom to tell me what big trouble I was in, but she didn’t say anything. “And because I needed to ask him for the truth. About what happened in the past. Because that’s what scientists do. They search for the truth.” I looked at them. “And Tae Kwon Do warriors are supposed to tell the truth. I’m sorry I wasn’t honest.”
“That’s why you didn’t accept your belt?” Mom asked.
“Purple stands for noble.” I lowered my chin again, feeling my eyes get watery.
Mom pulled me into her arms. “Oh, Boo, sometimes people do things and don’t know why. I guess it’s time we talked about Ed.”
I looked up at Dad. “Are you mad?”
“I think I can understand why you did what you did.”
“Are you mad at Ed?”
“I was mad. But in the end it was his problem.” He put his hand on my back.
“Science is supposed to be unprejudiced,” I said, “but I guess that doesn’t mean scientists always will be.” Mom squeezed me again.
Dad patted my shoulder. “Your color is not who you are. Understand?”
I pulled back from Mom. The streak test. Hematite was black, but its streak was red. “Color is just a part of who you are…like a mineral,” I said. I remembered what that boy had said at the park, and the truth that everyone bleeds red. That was sort of like hematite, too, and like me. Black on the outside, red on the inside.
Dad rubbed my back. “An important part, but only a part.”
Mom swiped my sweaty hair away from my face. “Now go get your belt,” she said. “You’ve told the truth.”
Back home, Dad went to the kitchen to make his specialty, macaroni and cheese, in celebration of my purple belt. I grabbed my Book of Big Questions. Mom and I were finally talking about Ed, and I had plenty to ask. Had Ed met Dad before he decided he didn’t like him? Had he ever asked to meet me? Why did he think the way he did about blacks and whites getting married?
I wanted to know the real deal about Ed. It didn’t make sense to keep the truth covered up. It’d been covered up all these years, and that hadn’t helped anything. I would dig for answers as if I were back on that mountain looking for a thunder egg. And I would accept what I heard, even if it felt like taking an ap cha gee—front kick—to the gut.
Mom put her feet up on the coffee table. She patted the couch next to her. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to my notebook.
“Brendan Buckley’s Book of Big Questions About Life, the Universe and Everything in It.” I sank onto the brown leather.
“Life and the universe, huh? Those would be some big questions.” She rested her head on the back of the couch. “So, what kinds of questions does my curious kid have?”
I opened my book. “Well, for one, what makes bananas taste so good and peas taste so gross?”
“I’d be very interested to know what you find out about that.” Mom doesn’t like peas, either. “I guess you’ve probably got a few about your grandpa in there.”
I nodded, scanning my list. Over the past couple of months, I had written down more questions about Ed than anything else. “Did Grandpa DeBose even meet Dad before he said you couldn’t marry him?”
Mom shook her head.
I’d had a feeling that was the answer I’d get.
“They met the day we got married.” She pushed herself up and put her feet on the floor.
“Ed was at your wedding?” It still felt weird to call him Grandpa.
“Not exactly. I told my parents your dad and I were getting married at City Hall, and they were welcome to come if they wanted. My father came—to stop us. He and your dad”—she hesitated—“exchanged some words.”
Ed and Dad had had it out? Whoa. “Were Gladys and Grampa Clem there?”
She nodded.
That was how Gladys had known what Ed looked like. Apparently, Ed hadn’t remembered her as clearly.
Mom continued. “Gladys wasn’t exactly excited about your dad and me, either, but Grampa Clem helped her see that it would be all right. They stood by us when we said our vows, and from that day forward, they treated me like their own daughter.”
“You said Ed knew about me. How?” The question wasn’t in my notebook, but it would be soon, along with the answer.
“I sent my parents a letter after you were born. I guess I just wanted them to know.”
I stared at my notebook. “Why didn’t you take me to see them?”
She gazed in the direction of the chandelier over the table. “I was angry, and hurt….”
“Did Ed ever ask to meet me?”
Mom looked at her feet. “He did.”
“But you wouldn’t let him?”
“I was angry, and hurt. Maybe keeping you from my father was my way to get back at him.” She put her hand on mine. “I never meant to hurt you, sweetie.”
I felt like one of Ed’s chess pieces. Mom had used me like a pawn, trying to win the game. In the end, no one had won anything. We had all lost out.
“Did you try to make up with him?” I asked.
“As far as I was concerned, it was his responsibility to make up with me. He was the one who caused the problem. He needed to be the one to fix it.”
I remembered the fortune I’d gotten at Mom’s office. I still had it in my desk drawer. “The one who forgives ends the argument,” I said.
Mom’s eyelids lowered. She smiled. “When did you get so grown-up?”
“I’m almost eleven, you know.”
She sighed. “I know.”
“And that stuff about forgiveness is from a fortune cookie. Remember?” I grinned.
Dad poked his head out from the kitchen. “Grub’s on in five.”
I inhaled the smell of buttery cheesiness. Mmmmm. “So are you going to talk to him?” I asked.
Mom wrapped her arms around her middle as if she’d been cut in half and needed to hold herself together. “I’m not sure. Would you like me to?”
There was that question again. Did I want to see Ed anymore? I shrugged. “It was kind of nice having a grandpa again.”
Mom nodded.
“But I wish I understood why he didn’t want you to marry Dad, especially when he didn’t even know him.”
“That’s a big question, sweetie. And the answer is even bigger. But what you just said gets at part of it. People get caught up in appearances. We don’t look beyond to the person inside.”
I thought again about what minerals had taught me. A mineral’s color was important, but it was only part of what made it what it was. The color on the inside—what you learned by scraping the mineral against a hard surface—told you much more about what that mineral actually was.
Mom put her arms around me and I let her hug me as long as she wanted, even if I was almost eleven.
CHAPTER 22
A couple of Sundays later, Gladys came over for dinner as usual. She had just asked what we were going to do at my birthday party when the doorbell rang. Mom pushed back her chair. “You expecting someone?” she asked Dad.
“Nope.” He shook his head.
I sawed on my chicken. For my birthday the following Saturday
, I’d invited Khalfani, Oscar and Marcus over for a pizza party, and I couldn’t wait. I hoped my parents would get me the salamander I’d asked for.
The door opened at the bottom of the stairs, but no one spoke. I stopped chewing so I could hear.
“Who is it, Kate?” Dad called out.
Mom didn’t reply.
“I—” A rough voice, like granite. I pushed out of my chair and rushed to the top of the stairs. Ed stood at the door. His mouth made a straight line like a zipped-up zipper. The wrinkles on his forehead were dark lines. He glanced at me, then back at Mom. “I came to give Brendan something.” He held a box wrapped in newspaper comics. An envelope poked out from underneath.
Mom stood in the doorway like a small giant guarding a castle. She didn’t move. “This is quite a surprise,” she said.
“For me, too.” He shifted on his feet.
“Are you going to come in?” I asked. It seemed dumb for them just to stand there staring at each other. Plus I wanted to know what was in the package.
Dad’s hand pressed down on my shoulder. Gladys came to my other side. “It’s about time,” she said under her breath, but loud enough that everyone probably heard.
Mom stepped back and motioned for Ed to come in. He stood in the corner while she closed the door, then followed her up the stairs.
“Ed,” Dad said.
Ed nodded at him. At the top of the stairs, he handed me the box and card. “Happy birthday,” he said.
“You remembered.” I stared at the present.
Dad pointed to the love seat and Ed perched on the edge. His face was as pink as rhodochrosite. He wrung his hands between his knees. Gladys leaned back in the rocker, and Mom and Dad sat on the couch.
I shuffled toward the love seat. Sitting next to Ed reminded me of being in his truck. I set the envelope on the seat next to me and ripped the paper from the box. “My first birthday present,” I said. “Just five days”—I looked at my watch—“four hours and fifty-two minutes until I’m eleven.”
Ed chuckled.
I held up a wooden box with a glass lid.
“I made the box,” he said, “but the real gift is inside.”
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