President of the Whole Sixth Grade_Girl Code

by Sherri Winston

  Then she produced the bags she’d brought in.

  “Katy, this is for you,” Miss Addy said, producing a long, slender box from one of the bags. “I know you play flute. I bought this one from an old friend of mine, an African American woman who is a famous flautist, Sherry Winston.”

  Katy’s eyes went wide. She rushed over and took the box. Slowly, she removed the case, then opened it to find a white flute that sparkled like a grand piano.

  “Grandmother, Miss Addy, I don’t know what to say,” gushed Katy. “It’s beautiful. Thank you!” She immediately started tinkering with keys and so forth and began playing it.

  Flute music. Yay, that’s what this awkward moment needs.

  I rolled my eyes. Miss Addy pretended not to notice, saying to Katy, “Enjoy, my darling.” Then she pulled out two smaller bags, passing them to Mom and Dad.

  Dad removed a University of Michigan cap and a huge block of homemade fudge.

  He rushed over and threw his arms around her. Dad, like Katy, could be a real suck-up. Dad kissed her cheek and said, “Thank you! Thank you!”

  When he stepped away, I saw my mom holding something I didn’t understand. It was a pipe. She was cradling it like it was made of fragile glass, but I could see that it was made of wood.

  “It’s Daddy’s old pipe,” Mom said.

  “I was going through some things and found that. I knew you would want to have it. You can’t possibly hold it and not think of him. Jean, I know he’s proud of you.” Miss Addy’s face beamed. Mom had gone away somewhere inside her head. She held the pipe like a baby bird and raised it to her face and took a big long sniff. Then she looked at her mother with a dreamy little smile.

  “It still smells like him,” Mom whispered.

  “I know, baby,” said Miss Addy.

  We were all caught in the dreaminess of the moment. The dreamy moment was broken when we heard the back door crash open and Grandpa come stomping in.

  “That snow is getting terrible!” he grumbled. “Adeline! That you?”

  Grandpa spotted Miss Addy as he was taking his boots off. She went over to him, avoiding puddles of melting ice on the wooden floor around him. Dad grinned at his dad.

  “Come here, you old fox!” Miss Addy said, wrapping him in a warm embrace. As they walked to the living room Grandpa said to Miss Addy, “Girl, what you doing here?”

  Her eyes got too bright, and her voice sounded like a Disney Princess’s. “Well, you see, Brianna here invited me. She’s such a little entrepreneur, you know. And, well, she’s planning, hoping to have her own business…” she was saying as she reached the sofa, pulled out the final bag, and took out what she’d brought for me.

  It was a collection of things any business owner would love. And fancy, too. No, not fancy. Professional. A leather-bound legal pad with my name embossed on the top. And she had created a logo with the name of my company beneath it—Cupcake Ninja, Inc. At least, that was what I’d told her I wanted the name to be.

  She handed me an envelope and said, “Look inside. The name is official. I had it incorporated just for you!”

  Miss Addy was talking as I read the paperwork inside the envelope. She was sounding so wonderful, but I knew my mother, and I could see the pep talk wasn’t working.

  Truly, I appreciated what Grandmother Miss Addy was trying to do, but when Mom was in investigation mode, sneaking past her was hopeless. No wonder the FBI wanted to promote her. That woman was a human lie detector. She had turned toward me with her laser eyes. You don’t want to ever be the one getting stared down by her laser eyes. Trust me.

  My head dropped. I sighed.

  “Okay, Mom. It’s like this,” I said. When I finally raised my head and met her laser vision—yikes!

  Omigoodness! I feel her eyes burning into my soul. HELP!

  I drew another deep breath and went on.

  “Mom, Dad, you know how much I’ve wanted to start an online baking business. Well…

  “Well… I thought if Miss Addy was here she could, you know, help me make my case,” I said.

  Testing… testing… Is this thing on?

  Then I started babbling uncontrollably. Once again, motor-mouthing and wishing to goodness I would just shut up.

  “Mom, before you say anything. Please. Just listen. Wait!” I ran into the kitchen and grabbed my iPad. Quickly I swiped to the app where I kept my notes. Once upon a time I used my clipboard to keep up with my lists.

  I came back into the living room, heart pounding, hands sweating. “Look, Mom, Dad,” I said, thrusting my iPad at their faces.

  Top Reasons Why I Should Have an Online Business:

  1. Kids who own their own businesses learn how to be innovative, which is very important to our economy.

  2. Owning a business teaches kids to be better planners.

  3. It teaches hard work and…

  “BRIANNA DIANE JUSTICE!” Gulp! Oh, no! Not the whole name!

  Mom was practically vibrating as she yelled my name. I froze, heart doing a swift kick. Uh-oh. I’m dead. Brianna Justice, dead at two-fifty-eight on Sunday.

  “Mom, okay, let me just say—”

  “Enough!” In my whole entire life, I had never seen Mom so angry. I was standing between her and dad. Poor Miss Addy was across from us, her strange, pale eyes looking at me with sympathy.

  “You have said quite enough, Miss Missy!”

  Oh, no! Not Miss Missy. She only broke that one out when she was ready to send someone to prison. For real. There are convicts walking around right now who were once her Miss Missys. They did hard time, y’all.

  “Jean, wait,” Dad said, reaching out for my mom. But she batted aside his hand and took a wide sidestep away from him and me.

  She said, “You have pulled a lot of stunts in your day, young lady, but this really takes the cupcake. How you could even think that bringing my mother here was going to change my mind about an issue we’ve already discussed… well, you don’t know how wrong you are!”

  Oh, I think I was getting a strong idea just how wrong I’d been.

  But she wasn’t finished.

  “Did you ever, even once, stop to think that I, we, made that decision because it was what was best for you? Did you?”

  I blew out a sigh. My dry mouth turned bitter tasting and the burning in my chest that started out as fear was turning into something hotter—anger. I wasn’t the problem. She was the one trying to yank us all out of our real lives and force us to move to Washington, D.C. She had a lot of nerve being mad at me.

  So I said, “I know you might’ve thought you were doing what was best for me.” Okay, look. Every kid, especially girls, knows that there is a tone you don’t use with your mom. You just don’t. Not unless you really want to yank her chain. Well, I used that tone. And oh boy did it work!

  My mom got this wild-eyed expression, like a crazy ghost woman in a horror movie. She held up her hand and used her fingers to tick off point after point, going down her invisible list.

  “One, I told you I believe you’re stretching yourself too thin. You want to be in everything and you just can’t. Trying to do too much is making you unfocused. You’re all over the place! Two, I told you your dad and I thought spending so much time at the bakery was keeping you from just being a kid. And three, no one ever said you could never have an online business. We said you couldn’t have one NOW! You act like eleven is at the edge of retirement. You can’t wait until you’re fourteen, in high school, to have your own business?

  “Mom, what’s the difference? I proved I could be responsible enough to work in the bakery, save my money, keep my grades up, and make new friends. All the things you said you wanted for me, wanted from me. I did it, and it’s like I’m getting punished anyway!”

  Katy, my perfect and tranquil big sister who never seemed to disappoint my mother, stepped forward. Here it comes, I thought. She was going to take this opportunity to really make me look bad.

  “Mom, I’m sure Brianna didn’t mea
n any harm. You know how she gets carried away. She’s just always so excited about her money,” she said. I felt my mouth fall open, shocked that Katy was defending me when she could’ve tried to bury me.

  But Mom wasn’t having it.

  “Thank you, Katy, for playing peacemaker, but this time she has gone too far.” Mom turned to me again and said, “Brianna, you need to go to your room. And don’t you even think about coming out. I don’t want to even look at you right now.”

  Great! I’m in federal lockdown. Will I have to make a lock pick out of soap and break out? I half expected her to cuff me. I spun around to say something, but she shut me down.

  “You have the right to remain silent. Girl, you better use it!”

  I couldn’t help it. I gave her such a dirty look that I scared myself. Then I stomped loudly up each step while releasing the anguished cry of frustration only an innovative eleven-year-old can understand:

  “Grrrrrrrnghhhh!”

  And in the language of kids all over the world, I used the only weapon available. This is for all the kids unfairly bossed around by their parents. All the kids who’ve been misunderstood and confined without a proper trial. WHERE IS MY DUE PROCESS?

  Taking glorious aim, and using every aching muscle in my body:

  Yes, I slammed my bedroom door.

  Take that, Mom!

  Reporter’s Notebook

  Monday, January 15

  “When I talk to girls about the future, I like to ask: ‘When you leave this earth, whose life do you want to have made better? What do you want to be better on this earth because you were here?’

  “When you put it on a very practical level I think girls look at the question differently and understand they are or can be part of that discussion.”

  —Dr. Quincy Brown, PhD Program Director, STEM Education Research American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

  13

  The next day was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s holiday. No school.

  Thank goodness at the last minute Toya invited me and Red over to spend the night. Apparently, my mom had been too outraged to ground me. When Toya’s mom called her, I’d overheard her on the phone saying, “Please, Carrie, come and get her. I haven’t been home four hours and already I need a break from Miss Mouth!”

  Well! I wasn’t exactly celebrating her return, either.

  “Omigod! Justice, what did you do?” both Red and Toya asked. When I explained, they stared at me open-mouthed.

  Toya was the first to speak. She said, “Girl, you’re trying to start your own business now, too. On top of everything else?”

  “You’re moving?” Red asked in a hoarse whisper.

  I couldn’t even look at Red because my eyes were watering from trying not to think about it.

  So I said to Toya, “I really think I can handle it.”

  Toya didn’t go to Blueberry Hills Middle. She lived out in Bloomfield Hills and went to private school. Her father was a big-time attorney. I wondered if he’d represent me—Brianna Justice vs. Mom’s inJustice.

  She was tall, African American, with a beautiful tiny Afro and great smile. I couldn’t get over how much her hair had grown in just a few months. I’d met her when I’d written a story for the Blueberry about how she and another friend of hers had shaved their heads to match a third friend’s, Lacy, when Lacy lost her hair to chemotherapy. After the story, Toya and I hung out and now we were really good friends. What I liked most about her was that she was a tell-it-like-it-is friend.

  “I take piano lessons and Mandarin Chinese because Dad is convinced that one day China will rule the world. He says when that happens, I need to speak the language. But just those two things a week, plus regular stuff, and I’m wiped out. I think your mom is right. You’re trying to do too much. But that’s just my opinion,” she said.

  I nodded, but wasn’t a hundred percent convinced. My mind was constantly working. I was always thinking about what I wanted to do or be or how to achieve something.

  Red stared at me like she was reading my thoughts. She drawled, “Whatch’all need is to learn how to unplug. You know, sit quietly and meditate or do yoga or something.”

  I gave her such a hard look. Yoga! Oh, brother!

  We decided to forget about my problems for a while and just have fun.

  Still in our pj’s after lunch, we took bowls of popcorn into the den and vegged out watching movies. I was having such a good time that I didn’t want to think much about Mom and our blowup. Not to mention how ashamed I’d been of myself after what happened at the gym.

  “Toya.” I turned to my friend. “Do you ever watch those memes or videos that talk about people who act ghetto?”

  She snorted. “Not if I want to live. My mom would go ballistic and Dad would be signing me up for African dance classes again!”

  When I looked at her, she shrugged, and said, “When you live in the suburbs with predominantly white people, like out here, your parents get real sensitive if they think you’re forgetting your black roots.” By “out here,” she was talking about Bloomfield Hills, a very wealthy suburb of Detroit that was considered mostly white. No big deal to me, but I understood exactly what Toya meant.

  “Do you ever feel like you’re forgetting your roots?” I asked.

  “Heck no!” Her answer was matter-of-fact. “No matter where I live, I know where I come from. I am the proud descendant of slaves. Daddy used to be into that whole trace your roots thing. I know when his ancestors were brought to America and everything. I know who I am.”

  I flipped onto my back.

  I knew who I was, too. At least, I thought I did. Dad and Mom hadn’t traced their ancestry, but I just figured we came from wherever all black Americans come from.

  “Hey, do you think your mom would mind if we baked something?” I asked suddenly.

  Toya’s face lit up. “If she does, I don’t care. Let’s go!” She jumped up and we followed. Their kitchen was amazing. I dug out pots and pans; flour, sugar, eggs, oil. I decided to do the same cupcake I’d done for Wetzel’s last week. I groaned a little, remembering that bright and early—five in the morning—I had to be up and at the bakery before going to school.

  Deep sigh. No time to get cranky about it now. Instead, we found chocolate morsels, butter, and cream. “It’s the recipe for my ‘I Have a Dream’ cupcakes in celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”

  Red asked, “Why do you always call him the doctor and junior part when you say his name? Why not just Martin Luther King?”

  Toya looked at me. I was elbow-deep in my batter but had to laugh. Before I could answer, Toya jumped in.

  “Because he worked hard for that doctorate and when we remember him, we have to remember his struggle to get it,” she said.

  I nodded. “And because if we don’t honor him as such, it gives power to those who worked so hard to tear him down. At least, that’s what Grandpa always says when I forget to call him Dr. King.”

  I glanced at Red to see if that offended her, but she nodded. “Well, living in Texas, we didn’t always have the most enlightened folks in our community. I never understood how grown people could be so afraid of people they didn’t know or refused to meet. I’m glad my parents were never like that. They always encouraged me to have all kinds of friends. But a lot of kids I knew did not have it that way. There is a lot of ignorance in the world.”

  We got to talking about the story Red and I were working on. Neither of us told Toya about the conversation at the gym. Perhaps we were both too embarrassed to bring it up.

  However, we did talk about neighborhoods and being disadvantaged and stuff like that. It wasn’t long before the smell of warm, baked chocolate cupcakes, filled with chocolate morsels and topped with homemade caramel and buttery baked pecans and cream cheese frosting, filled the entire world.

  Steamed windows hid the frosty beyond. We were cleaning up when her mom came home. We all held our breath for a second. I already had one mother mad at
me, I didn’t need another. But she grinned and immediately snatched up a cupcake and bit into it.

  “Oh, baby, that’s heaven!” she exclaimed.

  When it was time to go, we changed out of our pj’s and gathered our things. Toya surprised me by giving me a DVD.

  “It’s called A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry. You should watch it when you have a chance. Might give you some ideas for your story.”

  I said I would, then Red and I piled into her mother’s car. We sat side by-side in the back seat. What we’d been avoiding all night and day sat between us like a big, funky elephant.

  Finally, I turned to her and said, “I’m not moving. I can’t. I won’t,” I whispered.

  When she turned to me, her blue eyes were watery, but the smile at the corners of her lips curled up. She said, “Yes, you will. I didn’t want to leave Texas, either. But look at us. You’ll make new friends. I’ll be on the cheer team and hopefully will make more friends.” She shrugged. “That’s how it works with friends and families.”

  I sighed deep into my soul, wanting so much for everything she said not to be true.

  Reporter’s Notebook

  Tuesday, January 16

  “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?”

  –Langston Hughes (1951)

  Lorraine Hansberry was the first African American to have a play on Broadway, A Raisin in the Sun. Her award-winning play, whose title comes from the famous poem “Harlem,” by Langston Hughes, debuted on Broadway in 1959. A Raisin in the Sun is about a black family trying to leave a poor neighborhood in Chicago to live somewhere cleaner, safer, and more beautiful—a place where the white residents don’t want them to be.

  14

  At the Free Press, Red, McSweater Vest, and I were hard at work going over our notes and planning our strategy. I knew it wasn’t the same as investigating scammers or other crooks on TV news, but I was getting excited.

  I said, “I just want my story—”