Isaiah Dunn Is My Hero

by Kelly J. Baptist

  The bell rings, and we dump our trays and head to the playground. On our way from the cafeteria, I see a lunch monitor reach down and pick up a candy wrapper that someone dropped on the floor. The monitor frowns and asks another monitor, “Where’d this come from?” They both start scanning the kids as we rush for the door, and I nudge Sneaky.

  “Yo, they’re looking for candy,” I whisper. Sneaky crams his lunch pack under his arm and we get out of there fast!

  I’m guessing Sneaky’ll think twice about selling candy at school, but it’s the complete opposite!

  “I gotta sell four more candy bars,” he tells me once we’re on the playground by the monkey bars. “Then I’ll be halfway there.”

  Sneaky got his nickname because he was always sneaking something when he was little, but now that he’s older, the nickname sticks because he’s also into sneakers, especially Jordans. He’s saving for a new pair now, and he’ll probably have them in no time. I like shoes, too, but if I had a hustle, all my money would go toward getting us out of Smoky Inn.

  March 21

  THE ONE GOOD thing about Mama being tired all the time is that I get to go to the library almost every day. It takes about fifteen minutes to walk there from my school, and I stay until Mama picks me up, usually when it’s closing. At first I was mad that Mama stopped picking me up right after school. Now I’m glad I have a cool place to go, with no stinky smoke smells.

  “Hey, Mr. Shephard,” I say, giving my favorite librarian a fist bump. “Have you heard about the contest yet?”

  Mr. Shephard chuckles.

  “Isaiah Dunn, King of Questions,” he says. “They announce the winners on April seventeenth, remember?”

  I sigh. “I know, but I thought maybe you already knew.”

  “Nope!” Mr. Shephard grabs a stack of books from a table and takes them to a cart. “I’m not one of the judges this year.”

  I sit down at my favorite table by the window and pull out Daddy’s notebook. I entered one of his stories in the library’s short-story contest, and I can’t wait to find out if he won. The $300 prize money would definitely help us get out of Smoky Inn.

  “You’re flying through that, aren’t you?” Mr. Shephard nods toward the notebook.

  “Yeah,” I say. Only fifty-one pages left now.

  Mr. Shephard raises an eyebrow. “Usually kids are super excited when they get close to the end. What’s up?”

  I shrug, not knowing how to tell him that once I’m done with this notebook, I’m done with Daddy’s words.

  Mr. Shephard thinks for a second.

  “I get it, man,” he says. “If what you’re reading is really good, you never want it to end, right?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Well, here’s a trick,” Mr. Shephard continues. “Don’t think of it as an ending; just a pause button till you read the next great thing.”

  “Pause button?”

  Mr. Shephard nods. “That’s your dad’s notebook, right? So when you finish that one, see if he’ll let you read another one. Trust me, a true writer never has just one notebook. Plus, you could always just read that one all over again.”

  Mr. Shephard pats me on the back and goes off to put the books away.

  In the story I’m reading, Isaiah Dunn just got pulled out of class by secret agents, who tell him he needs to go undercover at a championship basketball game to expose a corrupt principal. I feel like my secret mission is to find out where Daddy’s notebooks are, so I bombard Mama as soon as I climb into the car.

  “Mama, did Daddy have other notebooks?”

  “Well, hello to you, too,” Mama says, looking at me in the rearview mirror.

  “Yeah, hello to you, too!” Charlie echoes around the two fingers she has in her mouth.

  “How was school?” Mama asks, making sure I buckle up before she starts driving.

  “Good,” I say, “but, Mama, did Daddy have other notebooks?”

  Mama stops at a light, and her eyes find mine in the rearview again.

  “You didn’t say hi to me, ’Saiah.” Charlie pouts.

  “Hi, okay?” I tell her. “And take your fingers out your mouth!”

  I lean forward, closer to Mama’s ear, even though I know she heard me. I don’t want to bug her, but this is important!

  “Mama, are there—”

  “I heard you, Isaiah,” Mama says. Her tone’s not mad or anything, but she’s taking forever to answer. I tap my foot, like maybe that’ll speed her up.

  I stare at a homeless guy crossing the street, hunched down and slow, and it makes me even more impatient.

  “Mr. Shephard says all writers have more than one notebook,” I tell her. “So I bet Daddy had tons of them, right?”

  “Yes,” Mama says finally, so softly I don’t even hear her at first.

  “Where are they? You still have them, right?” I’m leaning forward again, too close to Mama’s ear.

  “Sit back,” Mama says, and this time her voice is much more serious. “I got other things to worry about than finding some old notebooks.”

  “But, Mama, I’m almost done with—”

  Mama slams on the brakes, and me and Charlie lurch forward. A driver behind us blares on his horn and swerves around.

  “Isaiah, do NOT ask me again!” Mama says. I’m gripping my seat belt super tight when Mama starts driving again.

  “Why did you do that, Mama?” Charlie asks. Mama doesn’t answer.

  I see the stupid motel sign up ahead, and my stomach clenches up even more.

  “We’re home!” Charlie calls, pointing a spitty finger at the window.

  I hit her on the arm.

  “Charlie, that ain’t our house,” I say sternly. “We’re just staying there for a little while.”

  Charlie rubs her arm, but doesn’t scream “Owwww!” like she usually does.

  March 25

  MAMA HAS GOOD days and bad days, and I never know which one it’s gonna be. Like today, she’s awake before me and Charlie, but she’s just sitting up in bed staring at nothing, so I think it’s gonna be a bad one.

  “Mama, you okay?” I ask with a groggy voice.

  Mama looks at me, and she smiles.

  “Of course, baby,” she says. Then she goes left field. “One day, baby, you gonna wake up, and your voice will be as deep as your daddy’s!”

  She’s laughing, so I do my deepest deep-voice impression.

  “What’cho mean, one day? It’s already deep!”

  “All right, li’l Barry White,” Mama says. She moves her covers and nudges Charlie, who’s curled up in a ball. “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. We got somewhere to be.”

  “Where we going, Mama?” I ask. But it doesn’t really matter to me, as long as we get to leave this room.

  “I have some tickets to the children’s museum, and they expire tomorrow.”

  “For real?”

  I’ve only been to the children’s museum a couple of times, and both times Daddy was there. I watch Mama’s face for sad shadows, but she seems okay.

  “Yes, for real,” she says. She walks to the tiny kitchen area and gets bowls for cereal. She actually starts to sing!

  “Charlie baby, Charlie baby, get on up! Charlie baby, Charlie baby, strut yo’ stuff!”

  I can’t stop my eyes from getting big, cuz Mama hasn’t sung in forever! I bounce on her and Charlie’s bed until Charlie starts to whine.

  “ ’Saiah, I’m sleepin’!” she says, all attitude-y.

  “It’s time to get up, Charlie baby!” I tell her, real close to her ear the way she does to me.

  “Stop!” she says. Whew! That morning breath ain’t no joke! I back up and fan the air in front of my face.

  “Yeesh! You need to go brush your teeth!” I say. I dig through my green basket of clothes
until I find my black jeans with no holes. I put on one of my nice shirts, the kind with buttons, and go to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face. I can still hear Mama humming the Charlie song, and I pray real hard that the whole day is just like right now—happy. I tell God that I’ll do everything I can to make sure Charlie behaves, but He’ll have to handle Mama. That’s only fair.

  * * *

  —

  We take the bus to the museum, “for the experience,” Mama says. I get my own seat for most of the ride, but an old man slides next to me once we’re almost there.

  “Is that the museum, Mama?” asks Charlie from the seat across from me.

  “No, baby, that’s the hospital,” Mama says.

  My heart beats a little faster, and I’m afraid to look at Mama. Was this the hospital they took Daddy to? Mama’s face still has a smile on it, and she wraps an arm around Charlie and pulls her close. I relax a little and turn back to the window. A few minutes later, Charlie’s at it again.

  “Mama, is that the museum?”

  “Charlie, stop!” I hiss, nudging her pink sneaker with my foot. Mama looks out the window and pats Charlie’s leg.

  “Charlie, that’s a church!” Mama says, giving Charlie a tickle. “You know that!”

  Charlie giggles and settles into Mama, and for a quick second, I wish it was me sitting there, close to Mama, laughing. Or even better, I wish that it was Daddy sitting next to me instead of the old man who keeps bumping me with his arm.

  Charlie turns it into a game after that. She’s all, “Mama, is that the museum?” when we pass a car wash, and, “What about that, Mama?” when we stop at a light in front of a real fancy restaurant. Mama plays along, and I want Charlie to stop so bad! I don’t want Mama to use up all her happy before we even get there.

  Finally, Mama says, “This is us,” pushes a button, and a few minutes later, we’re inside the museum. We stand in a line that’s kinda long, and when we finally get to the front, Mama hands the clerk our tickets. One thing I notice, though, is that Mama really has four tickets. She puts one back into her purse super fast, and I pretend not to see.

  Daddy’s ticket. Now I remember him telling us that we’d go to the museum over Christmas break. I can’t help but feel down for a second, cuz he’s not here, but I’m also glad we are.

  “Enjoy your time,” says the ticket clerk with a huge smile.

  “Thank you, we sure will,” Mama replies, and she has a big smile, too. Whew!

  Inside the museum, me and Charlie make huge bubbles, create a song on a giant keyboard, and pedal a bike that makes a light come on. Even Mama has fun with that, and we talk about riding our bikes once it’s summer.

  Before we leave, Mama gets us pretzels and pop in the museum snack shop. She doesn’t get a pretzel for herself, but she takes a bite out of mine and Charlie’s.

  “Not bad,” she says.

  “Why don’t you get another one, Mama?” I ask.

  “Nah.” Mama shakes her head and smiles. “Mama’s not that hungry.”

  I shrug and take another bite of the warm, salty pretzel, thinking that this is the best day in forever.

  “Look at that, Charlie,” I say, pointing to the girl twisting dough into the shape of a pretzel. She moves her hands so fast, it’s like magic.

  “I wanna get a job doing that,” I say. Mama smiles.

  “You have five, six years before you have to worry about getting a job,” she says.

  But she’s wrong. I’m worrying about getting a job right now.

  We watch the pretzel girl a little longer, but then Mama looks at her watch, taps the table, and tells us we gotta catch the bus back. Charlie can’t finish her pretzel, so Mama gobbles it up. I guess she was hungry after all.

  It’s colder when we go outside, and the sun is setting, but we’re all happy anyway. I grab one of Charlie’s hands, and Mama grabs the other, and we stand outside the museum. Once we’re back on the bus, I stare out the window at the buildings and cars, and especially the people. I think about how I can see all of them, but they can’t see me; and even if they can, they still don’t know me. They have no clue that me and Mama and Charlie had the most awesome day ever, or that we need a ton more.

  I can’t get out a poem when I try to write in my notebook later, but at least I have a few words to add. Happy. Warm. Sunset. Safe.

  March 30

  “HEY, MAMA, THE hot water’s not working!” I say, peeking my head out of the bathroom door. Mama and Charlie are in their bed—Charlie asleep, and Mama staring at the old detective show on TV. She doesn’t even look my way. I see a bottle on the raggedy nightstand by her side of the bed. She doesn’t even rip the labels off anymore, like she used to.

  “Mama,” I say again. “I’m trying to take my shower but the—”

  “What am I supposed to do, Isaiah?” she snaps. “Go to the office and tell them!”

  I close the bathroom door and turn off the freezing cold water. I was letting it run, thinking maybe it would change to hot, but it was still ice after five minutes. I pull my jeans and T-shirt back on and open the door again, kinda hoping that maybe Mama went down to the office herself.

  Nope. She’s still in the bed, watching—but not really watching—the TV. She does the same thing with me and Charlie—watching us but not really watching.

  I zip up my jacket and make sure my key card is in the pocket where I always keep it. I walk outside into the cold, dark night and follow the sidewalk to the office. When I open the door, I feel like coughing. Man, why does everywhere smell like smoke around here? The guy at the desk nods at me but doesn’t say anything.

  “Hey, we’re in 109 and the hot water isn’t working.”

  The guy looks at a sheet in front of him, and then up at me, his face all funky.

  “Room 109?” he asks. “You’re lucky you got water at all. You’re two weeks late.”

  “Late for what?” I ask him, frowning.

  “Paying for the room,” the guy says, like, duh! “Money’s due on Friday. Every Friday. Tell your mother that.”

  I just stare at him. How am I supposed to know about the money for the room? I’ve seen Mama bring cash to the office before, lots of times. Maybe she forgot?

  The guy shakes his head, like maybe he’s remembering that I’m just a kid. Then he sighs, like I just disturbed his amazing life by walking in.

  “Well, all right,” he says, shooing me off with his words when someone else walks in. “We’ll send somebody to look at it.”

  I walk past the man and lady who just came in and jog back to 109. I always call it that—109. It’s not our room; it’s not our home. It’s just 109.

  “They said they’ll send somebody,” I tell Mama. “They also said they need money for the room.”

  Mama doesn’t say a word. She barely blinks, but when she does, it’s super slow, like her eyelids are exhausted.

  I was gonna do my math homework after my shower, but now I just yank out the sofa bed and climb under the covers without taking my clothes off, remembering how Mama used to yell at me for doing that.

  April 3

  I GET A bad feeling the second Mrs. Fisher says, “Class, today marks the third day of National Poetry Month, and we’re going to form groups of two for our poetry unit.” I look around the room, wondering who I’ll pick to be my partner. Maybe Kevon or Malik. But then Mrs. Fisher flips it.

  “I have each of your names in this tin, and I’ll pull two names at a time. The two names I pick will be partners.”

  The class groans, including me. Everyone wants to just pick their own partner, but Mrs. Fisher tells us we’ll actually be more productive by working with a partner she chooses. Nobody buys it. Mrs. Fisher starts reading names, and I hold my breath.

  “Greg and Malik. Frankie and Marissa. A.J. and Zoe. Kira and Amani. Kevon and Stac
i.”

  This is not looking good. My stomach is going crazy, and I squeeze my pencil so tight, I could break it.

  “Isaiah and Angel.”

  My head drops. This has to be a late April Fools’ joke!

  “Uh-uh, Miz Fisher, no!” Angel says loudly, shaking her head so hard, the beads on her braids make clicking sounds. “I’m not working with him.”

  Mrs. Fisher pauses, and for a second, I think she’s gonna draw a new name for Angel. Nope!

  “Angel, that’s unnecessary. I’m sure you and Isaiah will work fine together.”

  “No, we won’t,” Angel says in a rude whisper. Mrs. Fisher’s already calling the rest of the names, so she doesn’t hear.

  I have the worst luck in the history of luck. Not only do I have to sit by Angel every day, but now she’s my partner. Mrs. Fisher says we’ll have fifteen minutes every day to work on our project together, and we’ll present at the end of the month. Great. Fifteen minutes of torture.

  The thing is, this should be my favorite month of the year, where everything is about poems, and I can just write and write and write. But all I do is sit frozen when Mrs. Fisher reads us a poem about baseball and asks us to write one of our own.

  “Why I gotta get stuck with Isaiah Dumb?” Angel says when we move our chairs closer for partner time. “Do you even know how to write anything?”

  “I can write way better than you,” I tell her.

  “Prove it,” Angel says. “Write a poem right now.”

  My stomach churns like a blender. Man, if this was last year, I could do it easy. But since November 24, my words just won’t come. Angel’s sticking her lips out and glaring at me, and I know my words will never make it to the paper in front of me.

  “I’m not writing nothing,” I tell Angel. She laughs.

  “See? Isaiah Dumb; betcha can’t even read!”

  The cuss word’s outta my mouth before I can stop it, and everyone at my table goes “Oooooh!” Angel tells Mrs. Fisher what I said, and Mrs. Fisher tells me to go to the office.