I take my letter to the living room, where Miz Rita is sitting with Charlie.
“Miz Rita, am I allowed to send Mama a letter?” I ask.
“Of course, baby,” Miz Rita says. “You can write her whenever you want.”
“Can I write her, too?” Charlie asks. “I wanna send her a picture!”
“Yes, baby, I’m sure your mama would love a picture from you.”
While Charlie gets her crayons and paper, I put a PS on Mama’s letter and tell her about the reading program at the library, and how I’m gonna get the biggest prize for reading so many books.
In a few minutes, Charlie bounces into the room and shows me her picture.
“You like it?”
“Uh, it’s cool,” I tell her. She drew a picture of me, her, Mama, and Daddy. I stare at the picture of Daddy and wonder if Charlie still doesn’t get it.
“Oh, I forgot something!” Charlie grabs the picture and draws something else. When she hands it back to me, there’s two more smiling stick figures.
“It’s Miz Rita and Shayna!” Charlie says, grinning big. “Will Mama like it?”
Miz Rita tells her Mama will love it, but Charlie looks at me and asks the exact same question. I don’t need a bowl of magic beans and rice to tell me how to answer.
“Yeah, Charlie, she will,” I say. “Probably more than my letter.”
June 9
“YO, IT’S SOCK man!”
I hear the voice as soon as I walk into the children’s section at the library, and when I turn around, a group of guys bust up laughing. All of them except for Sneaky. I glare at him, and he stares at the table. Why’s he still hangin’ with them?
“You got any more socks in that bag?”
I recognize one guy from school but don’t know his name. I also see Angel’s cousin Alex. His friend nudges him, and they all laugh some more.
My chest is getting tight, but my feet take me right over to the table.
“What you say?” I ask.
“Nothin’.”
“I know y’all stole my stuff!” My voice is pretty loud, and I hear the “shhhs!” right away.
“What’s wrong with you?” says Alex.
“Yeah, shhh! It’s the library!” says the guy from my school. He smirks.
Everybody’s laughing, pretending that they don’t know what I’m talking about. But I know they did it. Sneaky does, too, but he doesn’t say anything.
“What you gonna do, candy boy?”
I decide in a second to do what Angel would do. I ball my fist up and swing as hard as I can. Everything feels like it’s in slo-mo. I see Sneaky’s eyes get big, and the guy from my school isn’t expecting my fist to meet his face.
But then somebody grabs my arm.
“Whoa, whoa! Isaiah, what’s going on?”
“They stole money from me!” I yell, snatching away from Mr. Shephard.
“You lyin’!” says one of the guys, standing up.
“Hey, you need to sit down,” Mr. Shephard says, pointing at the guy.
“They took the money from my backpack,” I tell Mr. Shephard, ignoring the mean mugs they’re giving me.
Mr. Shephard waves the security guard over and tells the guys he’s glad the library has cameras they can go back and look at.
“Aww, man,” says the guy from my school, making a face.
While the guard deals with the thieves, Mr. Shephard walks me to a small room and unlocks the door.
“Look, Isaiah, why don’t you calm down in here. I’ll be right back, okay?”
I throw my backpack on the floor and kick one of the boxes in the room. That makes me feel pretty good, so I kick another box. And another. Pretty soon, there are boxes everywhere.
“Well, at least you’re taking it out on the box and not that guy’s face,” Mr. Shephard says when he comes into the room.
“Sorry,” I say.
“It’s all good,” Mr. Shephard says. He sits on one of the boxes, so I do, too. “Why didn’t you tell me you had something stolen here at the library?”
I shrug. Mr. Shephard probably doesn’t know the rules when it comes to snitching. Mr. Shephard asks me how much money was stolen, and he whistles when I tell him.
“That’s not chump change, Isaiah,” he says.
“I was saving up.”
Mr. Shephard sighs. “It’s gonna be all right; we’ll get it all figured out.”
“Do you guys really have cameras in the library?” I ask. I’m pretty sure I picked my nose a few times at my table by the window.
Mr. Shephard grins.
“We do have cameras,” he says, “but I’m not sure we’d still have the footage from mid-May.”
“Aww, man, then we have no proof!” I say, wondering why Mr. Shephard is still smiling.
“Are you kidding me? They’re out there confessing right now. It’s a secret librarian trick to mention cameras,” he says, holding up his fist for dap. I think about something else.
“Sneaky wasn’t one of the dudes who took my money,” I tell Mr. Shephard.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, he wasn’t here that day.”
Mr. Shephard nods and stands up. “Give me one sec.”
When he comes back, Sneaky’s with him. I’m both happy and mad to see him, so I just stare at him hard.
“I’ll let you two have some space,” Mr. Shephard says, patting Sneaky’s shoulder before leaving the doorway.
“Dang, why you look like that?” Sneaky asks.
“You still hangin’ with them? You sure you didn’t help them take my money?”
“What?” Sneaky frowns. “Why you think that? I already told you I didn’t know.”
“Then why you—” I stop talking when Sneaky reaches in his bag and pulls out a video game case. He glances around before showing me.
“I told you to watch and see what happens, bro,” Sneaky says with a grin. “I don’t know how much you’ll get, but you can take it to GameStop or put it on eBay or something.”
“How you get this?” I ask, also wondering how Sneaky knew Alex bought a game with my money. Guess Alex runs his mouth to everybody.
“Hey, the master can’t tell his secrets,” Sneaky says. He holds his fist out, and before I know it, we’re doing the candy boy shake.
“Looks like you two are having way too much fun,” Mr. Shephard says, clapping his hands when he comes into the room. “Can you dance and work? I mean, looks like you caused another fight in here, so the least you can do is restack the boxes, right?”
“Yeah,” I say. Sneaky groans, but he says yeah, too.
“What is this room for, anyway?” Sneaky asks.
“Storage for now,” Mr. Shephard says. “My guess is they’ll use it for a meeting room.”
Mr. Shephard tells us he’ll be back in a few, and me and Sneaky get to work rearranging the boxes.
“Think he’s gonna pay us for this?” Sneaky asks. He definitely doesn’t like working if no money is involved.
“Nah,” I say.
“Yo, were you really gonna hit Dontrel if library dude didn’t grab you?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I tell him. Sneaky looks proud.
“I woulda had your back,” Sneaky says. “You know that, right?”
I didn’t know it for sure, but it feels good to hear Sneaky say it.
* * *
—
I don’t get The Idea about the library room until I’m at Miz Rita’s, reading Charlie one of the Isaiah Dunn stories. It’s about how Isaiah gets locked out of the Beans and Rice Room, where he goes for his superhero meal. The Idea hits me so hard, I stop reading, and Charlie elbows me.
“ ’Saiah, keep reading!”
“Sorry, Charlie,” I say, closing Daddy’s n
otebook and jumping up to get mine. “I gotta do something else right now! I’ll finish the story soon!”
“Promise?”
“Promise!”
Charlie runs off to bother Miz Rita, and I open my notebook to a blank page and write in huge letters: The Gary Dunn Writing Room. The letters aren’t perfect and bubbly like Angel’s, but it’s enough to get started.
June 10
IT’S SATURDAY, BUT I’m at the library before it even opens. As soon as I see Mr. Shephard, I tell him exactly what we should do with the storage room.
“Hmmm,” Mr. Shephard says, his thinking face on. “It’s actually a great idea, Isaiah; something the library would be proud to do.”
Mr. Shephard says they had a big library meeting a few days ago and they talked about what to do with the room.
“Like I said before, there was the idea of turning it into a small meeting space that people could rent,” Mr. Shephard says. “But someone also suggested a study room. I think your idea fits perfectly with that. Let me make a few calls while you hang out, okay?” he says.
I nod, and wander around looking at books while he’s gone. I grab the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book and head to my table to start reading it. A few minutes later, Mr. Shephard comes over with a big grin.
“I just got off the phone with Mrs. Priest. Remember her?” he asks.
“Ummm, no?”
“The lady from the reception,” Mr. Shephard says. “She gave you the award.”
“Oh yeah!” I say. “She was sitting at our table!”
“Exactly. So I gave her a call and told her a special writer has a special idea for our room.”
“What did she say?” I feel myself getting excited, and I have a feeling Mr. S is gonna say something good.
“She liked the idea! She wants to meet with the library director on Monday to go over details, but in the meantime, you’ve got some work to do!”
Mr. Shephard says I need to write a letter to the library council to explain my idea and why it’ll be good for the library.
“That’s easy,” I say, and I head over to my table to start writing. Mr. Shephard comes over from time to time to read what I have, and when I’m done, I sit at one of the computers to type it up.
“Remind you of anything?” Mr. Shephard asks.
“Yup,” I say, remembering how I typed up Daddy’s story to enter it into the library contest.
“I think this might be your lucky computer,” Mr. Shephard says.
I hope so.
I feel really proud when I print out my letter to the library. Mr. Shephard says he’ll scan it to Mrs. Priest ASAP.
“Next thing we have to do is start sorting through the boxes in here,” says Mr. Shephard when we head into the storage room. “Books over here, office supplies over there, and junk in that corner.”
“Got it,” I tell him, and start sorting. The more I move things around, the more I see how awesome the room will be. I’m hoping it’ll be done by the time Mama comes home.
“Can’t make promises there, Isaiah,” Mr. Shephard says. “We’d have to work at superhuman speed.”
I grin. That’s just perfect! Isaiah Dunn, Superhero, and the Race Against Time.
June 13
ALL THE COMMERCIALS are sayin’, “Get Dad what he really wants this Father’s Day,” and it makes me hate TV. I turn the channel each time a commercial comes on, and finally I just toss the remote to Charlie and go to my room. Sneaky’s off visiting his grandparents for a few days, so I can’t run up to his place. I just wish I could be somewhere that has no Father’s Day. I read for a while, until Miz Rita pokes her head in and hands me the second letter from Mama. After I read it, I almost want to ball it up and shoot a Kobe jumper into the trash can.
Mama says she’s doing good and has so much to do when she comes home, blah blah blah. But all I see is one part. She’s coming on June 29. June 29 is seven days after my birthday. And Mama doesn’t even say she’s sorry that she’ll miss it!
* * *
—
Miz Rita makes us turkey sandwiches for lunch, and though it tastes really good, I don’t feel like eating.
“Well, go on and tell me,” Miz Rita says after I take only a few bites.
“Huh?”
“You been mopin’ around all morning,” Miz Rita says, “so go on and tell me what’s the matter. I’m old, so my mind-reading skills aren’t what they used to be.”
“Oh. Nothing.” I take a bigger bite out of the sandwich, and crunch on the plain potato chips like they’re the best thing ever.
“Ummm-hmmm.” I can tell Miz Rita doesn’t believe me. “I’m surprised you ain’t running off to the library today. Been going almost every day this week!”
That’s just it! I’ve been working hard at the library, clearing out the room for Mama’s surprise, and she won’t even be here for my birthday!
“I wanna go to the library!” Charlie says. She sprays my arm with potato chip crumbs. Gross!
“No talkin’ and eatin’, baby,” Miz Rita tells Charlie. Then she looks at me. “If it makes you feel any better, my friend Ida can’t stop talkin’ about the poem you wrote her. She says you real talented.”
That does make me feel better.
“Can you write a poem for me, Isaiah?” asks Charlie. This time, no food comes flying out her mouth.
“You can stand in line, little girl,” Miz Rita jokes, “cuz he gotta do one for me first!”
So that’s how we spend the afternoon: no more Father’s Day commercials or Mama-missing-my-birthday letters. Just me writing poems about Charlie’s Afro puff and Miz Rita’s yummy pound cake. And lots of laughs.
June 19
WHEN I TELL Angel I gotta put @Dunn Poems on hold while I work on the library project, she don’t even trip, like maybe Sneaky would have. She says she’ll help. We get the room pretty much cleared out, and then there’s the yucky stuff like sweeping the floor and getting rid of the cobwebs.
“You’ll never guess what just happened!” Mr. Shephard says. He’s more hyped than I’ve ever seen him, so it’s gotta be great news.
“I just got off the phone with Mason Crew Collections, which is a furniture store,” Mr. Shephard says. “Long story short, they have a bunch of furniture they can’t use, and they want to donate to the room!”
“For real?” asks Angel. She frowns at a few cobwebs on the ceiling. “They wanna come and clean this up, too?”
Mr. Shephard laughs. “You guys have done a good job. We can have our custodians finish this tonight. The company wants to start tomorrow with putting in carpet. Things are moving fast now, my friends!”
“Superhuman fast,” I tell him.
June 22
WHEN I WAKE up, I feel exactly the same as I did yesterday, even though I’m eleven now. Last year, Daddy made me a huge breakfast in bed: ten pancakes, ten pieces of bacon, ten bananas, and ten little cups of orange juice. Of course, I couldn’t eat everything, but Mama, Daddy, and Charlie helped me.
I throw on some shorts and a T-shirt and walk to the kitchen. No fancy birthday breakfast. I pour a bowl of cereal instead and ask Miz Rita if I can go to the library since Rock says he won’t need me at the shop today. Usually she wants to know if someone is going with me or how long I’ll be or if I would rather she drive me over. Today she says yes without even asking any questions. She doesn’t even say “Happy Birthday.”
* * *
—
The room at the library is almost perfect. I help Mr. Shephard hang pictures on the walls, and some of those pictures are quotes from Daddy’s notebooks. It feels a little weird to see Daddy’s words so big, but it’s also really cool.
“The desks come in tomorrow, Isaiah,” Mr. Shephard says. “And the computers will be delivered early next week.”
Mr. Shephard
says my idea touched a lot of hearts, and companies have reached out to Mrs. Priest because they want to donate whatever they can to make the room nice. I’m counting down the days till Mama gets back and hoping she’ll be as excited about the room as I am.
Mr. Shephard and I spend some time arranging the green beanbags and putting books on the bookshelves. Just when I realize how hungry I am, somebody taps me on the shoulder.
“Yo, you at the library on your birthday?”
I whirl around and see Sneaky standing there with a smirk on his face.
“What’s up, Sneaky?” I say. We do our special handshake, and I tell him about the project. He thinks it’s cool.
“I mean, cool for people who like to be at the library,” he says. “You guys gonna put a vending machine in here? Cuz if you’re not…”
“No candy sales in the library,” Mr. Shephard says with a smile. I’ve told him about Sneaky’s hustle, but it’s not gonna fly in the library.
“Aww, man! You sure about that?” asks Sneaky, turning on his businessman swag. “I mean, you probably would get way more kids in here if you let me sell candy. Kinda like Girl Scout Cookies, but better.”
When Mr. Shephard doesn’t budge, Sneaky says, “Well anyway, Miz Rita said to tell you to come home.”
“Serious?” I make a face. “I need to finish up in the room.”
“Her rules.” Sneaky shrugs.
I tell Mr. Shephard I’ll be back, and he gives me the thumbs-up. Sneaky says his mom will take us to the movies later on, and since it’s my birthday, I get to pick the movie.
“But, dude, no more Finding Dory,” he says with a straight face. Charlie’s been watching that nonstop, and Sneaky likes to tease that I’m really the one who keeps picking it. I punch him in the arm, and he chases me to the building.
“Hopefully you’re not in trouble,” Sneaky says when we get to Miz Rita’s door. Man, I got grounded on my birthday once, and it was not fun.
When I open the door, though, I don’t see trouble at all.
Isaiah Dunn Is My Hero Page 13
