Isaiah Dunn Is My Hero

by Kelly J. Baptist

  “Welcome, Isaiah,” Ms. Marlee says when I come into her classroom, which looks more like a cozy bedroom, with chairs in every color you can think of. Angel’s already there, and she turns away when she sees me. There’s another kid in the room, and I guess he’s supposed to be our peer counselor. I’d be mad if I were him, having to be at school all early when you’re not even in trouble.

  “You can have a seat wherever you’d like,” Ms. Marlee says. I pick an orange chair, far from Angel. I notice a pink notebook at her feet, but she kicks it under her chair when she sees me looking at it.

  “So are you related to Bob Marley?” Angel asks, all rude.

  “Not that I know of,” Ms. Marlee says. “Our last names are actually spelled differently. But who knows, we might be! I do love singing!”

  Angel doesn’t say anything to that. She seems disappointed that Ms. Marlee didn’t get rude back. Ms. Marlee’s like sunshine to Angel’s ugly rain clouds.

  “So…” Ms. Marlee claps her hands. “Isaiah, Angel, you probably don’t know Tayshaun, so I’ll let him introduce himself and why he’s here.”

  “Hey, everyone, I’m Tayshaun Peterson,” he says. “I’m in seventh grade. Last year, I got into a lot of fights and didn’t really do my work. I had to do the whole Rocket ReStore thing, and I thought it was gonna suck at first. But once we all started talking about stuff, things got better. Now I’m friends with some of the guys I used to fight with.”

  I think about what Tayshaun’s saying, but I can’t ever imagine being friends with Angel. Her face looks like she’s thinking the same thing.

  When Tayshaun’s done, Ms. Marlee talks about Rocket ReStore, and she’s saying all the same stuff Mr. Tobin did. But when she says the R in ReStore stands for Respect, she looks right at Angel.

  “Everyone in this room has value, and we will speak to each other in a way that shows we believe that.”

  I look at Angel and try to imagine what value she has. I can’t think of anything.

  “So, Isaiah, what do you know about Angel?” asks Tayshaun.

  I stare at my feet.

  “Ummm, I don’t know.”

  “Take a few seconds to think about it,” Ms. Marlee says. “One thing you know about her.”

  I think about how Angel’s sneakers are pink, and she usually has a pink headband or ponytail holder. And the notebook.

  “Ummm, she likes pink?”

  “Good,” says Ms. Marlee. “That’s a great observation. Now, Angel. What’s one thing you know about Isaiah?”

  I look down again and try to stay cool, cuz even though Ms. Marlee said we have to respect each other, I just know Angel ain’t gonna listen.

  “He likes writing,” Angel says, “but he don’t do it anymore.”

  “How you know that?” The words fly out of my mouth before I even think about it. Angel doesn’t say anything, but Ms. Marlee does.

  “You’d be surprised how much you two really know about each other, and how much you have in common.”

  I think about Angel shopping in Seven Baskets and wonder if her family’s in a motel, too. I wonder if she has a dad.

  Ms. Marlee asks us questions about what’s going on with the two of us, and why we don’t get along so good. At first, neither of us talks too much; I guess no one wants to snitch.

  “Why do you feel you can’t get along with Angel?” Ms. Marlee asks me.

  “She always talking ’bout me,” I finally say. “For no reason.”

  “No, I’m not!” Angel shoots back.

  “Angel, let’s respect Isaiah’s feelings,” Ms. Marlee says. “Have you said mean things about him, or called him names?”

  “No,” Angel says, but she hangs her head, and we all know she’s lying.

  “We’ll give you a few minutes to think about it, Angel,” Ms. Marlee says. “No one likes being teased.”

  “Oh yeah?” Angel looks up and narrows her eyes. “Well, Isaiah ran his mouth about me, too!”

  “What?! I never said anything about you!” I say. I wanna tell Ms. Marlee and Tayshaun, “See? Angel’s mean and she lies!”

  “Isaiah, let’s respect Angel and let her finish,” Ms. Marlee says.

  I cross my arms and narrow my eyes right back at Angel.

  “Last year in Ms. Harrison’s class,” Angel says, “you said that poem about my hair to Sneaky.”

  Huh?

  “Isaiah, do you know what Angel is referring to?”

  “No,” I say.

  “ ‘Look at that on Angel’s head; looks just like a rat that’s dead!’ ”

  When Angel says it, I remember. It was at recess, after Ms. Harrison had read us poems in class. I said it to Sneaky, and we laughed. I didn’t know Angel had heard me.

  “Did you say that?” Tayshaun asks.

  “Yeah,” I say, feeling pretty bad, especially when I take a peek at Angel’s face. “But I didn’t mean for her to hear me.”

  “Well, she did, Isaiah,” Ms. Marlee says. “And it seems like it really hurt her feelings.”

  I want to tell Angel sorry, but I remember all the mean things she’s said to me, and how it’s hurt my feelings, so I don’t say anything.

  Ms. Marlee tells us we’re done for today. Two meetings to go. Before I leave, I see Angel reach under her chair and grab the pink notebook. She holds it super close, the same way I do with Daddy’s.

  April 18

  MR. SHEPHARD’S GRINNING up a storm when I walk into the children’s section of the library.

  “Isaiah Dunn, Superstar!” he says, holding his fist out.

  “What’s up, Mr. S,” I say, heading for my table by the window. I drop my bag on the table and dig around inside for Daddy’s notebook. Only forty pages left now. I’ve been trying not to read so fast, but it’s, like, the only thing to do at Smoky Inn. Before I sit down, I notice that Mr. Shephard’s still standing there, giving me a funny look.

  “Well?” he asks.

  “Well what?” I say, scrunching up my face.

  “You’re really gonna keep me in suspense?” Mr. Shephard shakes his head. “What did your dad say?”

  “Huh?” Now I really give Mr. S a look.

  “You don’t know? After bugging me for weeks and weeks?”

  That’s when I realize what he’s talking about. The contest. By the way Mr. Shephard’s grinning, it’s gotta be good news! My heart starts racing with excitement.

  “What happened? Did we win?”

  “They announced it yesterday,” Mr. Shephard says. He raises an eyebrow. “You guys don’t check email?”

  “I forgot,” I tell Mr. Shephard. I don’t say that the past few days have been not-good days for Mama. “Who won?”

  Mr. Shephard shakes his head, the smile still on his face. It’s gotta be good, but he’s not saying. He points to the computers.

  “You gotta see for yourself,” he says.

  I move like the Flash to the computers and log in to my email, IMDunn@woodsonrockets.org. Even though it’s my school account, I’m still surprised to see Daddy’s name.

  Dear Gary Dunn,

  Congratulations! Your short story was selected as the second-place winner in our 17th annual Short Stack Contest!

  My eyes dance across the page as I read the rest of the email from Friends of the Hamilton Plaza Library. Daddy won second place! I look over at Mr. S, and this time, my grin is as big as his.

  “Can I print this?” I ask. I can’t wait to show Mama! I know that even if she had another not-good day, this will make it all better.

  “Of course!” Mr. S says. “Your pops is library famous!”

  Once the email’s printed, I read the whole thing again.

  “What’s a reception?” I ask Mr. Shephard, reading that there’s gonna be one on May 2.

 
“Oh, that’s just a special dinner where they officially give your dad the award.” Mr. Shephard pats me on the back. “You guys’ll have to break out the fancy tuxedos!”

  I swallow hard. Mr. Shephard doesn’t know about Daddy; nobody at the library does. I’m thinking maybe if they found out, they’d take back the award.

  “But, um, what if my dad can’t, um, make it?” I ask Mr. Shephard.

  “To the reception?” Mr. Shephard raises an eyebrow. “I’m sure he’ll want to be there. Your whole family can come.”

  When I don’t say anything, Mr. Shephard asks, “Everything okay? Does your dad know you entered his story?”

  “No,” I say. I stare at the piece of paper in my hand. “My dad, he, um, he passed away. On Thanksgiving.”

  That’s the first time I’ve ever said it out loud. I’ve never even said it to Sneaky.

  “I’m so sorry to hear that,” Mr. Shephard says with a sigh, and when I finally look up at him, I can tell he means it. Not like some other people who just say the words because they’re supposed to.

  Mr. Shephard sits down beside me, and I tell him how one minute we were walking around downtown, huddled close and enjoying the Thanksgiving Day parade in the freezing cold. The next minute, Daddy was falling, and Mama was screaming, and Charlie was crying, and I couldn’t move. People standing close to us were watching, their faces shocked. But other people, further ahead, had no clue what had happened, and their faces were still smiling and happy. I remember looking up and seeing one lady with a purple scarf, laughing so hard she had to hold on to the guy standing next to her. She couldn’t see us; couldn’t see Daddy on the ground. And I stayed mad at purple-scarf lady for a long time.

  “The ambulance came, and so did Miz Rita,” I tell Mr. Shephard. “We stayed at her place that night, but I didn’t go to sleep.”

  Mr. Shephard nods, just letting me talk.

  “Mama came the next afternoon, and I knew.”

  I tell Mr. Shephard it was a heart attack, which is a weird thing to call it, cuz what is it that attacks your heart anyway? Daddy not being here is what attacks my heart; Mama and Charlie’s too. All three of us are having heart attacks.

  I tell Mr. Shephard about how I found Daddy’s notebook and typed up one of his stories for the contest, but I don’t say anything about us staying at the Smoky Inn and how the money can help us get our place back. Mr. Shephard listens until I’m done, and then he sits down right beside me.

  “Isaiah, what you did was amazing,” he tells me. “You are very strong, and I know your dad would be very proud of you.”

  I wait for the “but,” the part when he tells me that Daddy’s story can’t be the winner anymore. But Mr. Shephard doesn’t say that at all.

  “I lost my pops when I was thirteen,” he says. “And you know what I did?”

  “What?”

  “I stopped talking.”

  I give Mr. Shephard a “Huh?” look, and he nods.

  “Yeah, man, I just stopped talking altogether. Quiet as a church mouse.”

  “Why’d you do that?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” Mr. Shephard says. “Nothing I could say—nothing anybody could say—would bring him back. So I thought, why say anything?”

  I nod slowly, thinking about how my words stopped coming to me after Daddy died.

  “How long did you not talk?”

  “A month, maybe,” Mr. Shephard says. “Wanna know what my first words were?”

  “What?” I ask. Mr. Shephard smiles.

  “ ‘This real good.’ ”

  “That’s what you said?”

  “That’s what I said. The lady who used to watch my siblings and me after school made this peach cobbler one day, and after I took that first bite, I couldn’t stay quiet anymore!”

  Mr. Shephard stands up to get back to work.

  “I gotta say, you’re doing much better at honoring your pops than I did, Isaiah. Congrats again.”

  “Thanks,” I say, reading the email one more time.

  When Mama picks me up, it’s the first thing I show her. Her eyes get huge and she gasps, all surprised.

  “He won, Isaiah? Daddy won?” she asks, sounding as excited as me.

  “Well, it’s second place, but yeah, he won!” I say. “I told you he was good!”

  “I can’t believe it!”

  “What happened?” asks Charlie, mad cuz she can’t read all the words in the email.

  “Your brother entered one of Daddy’s stories in a contest, and it won second place!”

  “What does he win?” Charlie asks. Then she scrunches up her face. “Wait, how can he get anything?”

  “Well, no, sweetie, Daddy can’t get anything now,” Mama says, reaching back to squeeze Charlie’s hand. “But we can get it for him.”

  And we start planning for the reception right there in the library parking lot. Mama sounds like herself again, like Daddy’s win told her it’s all gonna be okay.

  April 19

  “SO WHAT’S IN the notebook?” I ask Angel. Mrs. Fisher just told us to get into our poetry groups and work on our projects, and since Angel doesn’t roll her eyes when I scoot my chair next to her, I figure it’s cool if I ask her. Plus, Ms. Marlee said we should always ask questions instead of assuming.

  “Stuff,” Angel says.

  “Like what?”

  “Whatever I feel like writing. What do you write in yours?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “I don’t write anymore.”

  “Why not?” Angel asks. I shrug. She might be getting nicer because of Rocket ReStore, but I bet she’ll be back to her normal self after our last session, which is later today.

  “Well, I hate quitting stuff,” Angel tells me. Ouch. When I don’t say anything, she starts talking about our project. We’re gonna pick some famous poems, cut out all the words, and rearrange them into new poems. We call it Poetry Transformers.

  We get on our Chromebooks and start typing the poems, and Angel’s way faster than me. She gets through two poems while I’m still typing my first one.

  “You slow,” she says, but the grin on her face is definitely not her usual mean mug.

  “Well, how ’bout you type and print them, and I’ll cut out the words?” I suggest. Angel’s cool with my idea, and we get into a good groove with the project. She even writes some of the poems herself, cuz she’s got this neat, bubbly handwriting.

  “This one’s funny,” Angel says when she types up the poem “Snowball” by Shel Silverstein. “Who would put a snowball in their bed?”

  I cut out each word of the poem, already imagining how I would rearrange them for a new poem. When I get to “Harlem” by Langston Hughes, I think about my notebook, how my words are drying up like raisins, only it’s in my head, not the sun. I think about what Angel said about quitting. I know Daddy wouldn’t want any of that to happen.

  “Poems.”

  “Huh?”

  “I used to write poems,” I tell Angel. Something tells me it’s okay to say it. Daddy used to tell me that once you speak positive, positive things will happen. But what if he’s wrong; what if Angel laughs and teases me even more? I don’t know if I could be sunshine to her rain clouds if that happens.

  “I like poems,” Angel says. She turns and gives me a look with narrowed eyes. “Except the one you made about my hair.”

  “Sorry,” I say, and mean it.

  “Umm-hmm,” Angel says, using markers to write words on a sheet of paper. Her lips are kinda poked out like she’s got an attitude, but at least she doesn’t say anything mean. She doesn’t say she’s sorry, either, and I almost wanna take mine back.

  “Very good work, Angel and Isaiah,” Mrs. Fisher says, walking by our table. She smiles, and when she moves on, Angel rolls her eyes.

  “Can’t s
tand her,” she says under her breath. I smile a little. Guess that’s something else we have in common.

  * * *

  —

  Later, when I’m reading one of Daddy’s stories in 109, I feel words coming.

  “Don’t let ’em dry up like a raisin in the sun,” I whisper. Charlie’s in my bed, and she’s supposed to be sleeping. I’m staying up until Mama comes back from the Smoky Inn office.

  “Are you talking to yourself, ’Saiah?” Charlie asks, looking at me like I’m crazy.

  “No,” I tell her. “Words are talking to me.”

  “Nuh-uhhh!” Charlie says. “Words don’t talk!”

  “Yeah, they do.”

  I reach in my backpack for a pen, and I write my words next to Daddy’s:

  IN COMMON

  We are different, but the same,

  Sometimes sunshine, sometimes rain.

  If we see

  who we are,

  We won't be

  very far.

  April 22

  MY PRAYERS MUST be working, cuz Mama drops me off on time at Laser Zone for Sneaky’s birthday party. She even took me to the store so I could use some of my candy money to get a present for him: a basketball hoop to put on the back of his bedroom door. Hint, hint, practice needed!

  “Isaiah, I wanna come!” whines Charlie when I open the car door. I feel a little bad for leaving her, but no way do I want to chase her around Laser Zone all day.

  “I’ll get you something,” I tell her.

  “Promise?” Charlie asks.

  “Of course,” I say, popping my collar, hero-style. Charlie laughs, and I run inside.

  “Yo, what’s up, ’Saiah?” Sneaky’s the first to see me, and he’s already hyped for laser tag. We do our special handshake, and Sneaky adds some extra moves at the end, probably to impress Aliya.

  “What’s that, the candy boy shake?” asks Aliya, with a smirk.

  “Hey, no selling candy at your party,” says Gabi. “We already bought you presents!”