The Long Ride Read online

  * * *

  * * *

  When the bell rings, I go down the wrong stairwell. I try to shove my way back up, but I’m pushed back by the wave of kids running down. I want to crawl into the corner and bawl my eyes out.

  Then I hear someone call and see them elbow toward me. “Yo.” John stops, sneakers squeaking.

  I feel my mouth break into a smile. “Hi.”

  Today he’s wearing belted pants that are a little too short. “You lost again?”

  “Yes.” I try to hide how embarrassed I am. “I’m trying to get outside. I’ve got to make the bus.”

  “You want me to take you?”

  I pull my shoulders up. “I can do it.”

  “Come on. It’s just this way.” He leads me down a flight of stairs and then another.

  “That bus ride long?” he asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “Too bad. I live three blocks away.”

  I want to ask him a million things. Like, does he live in an apartment or a house? Does he have a brother or sister?

  We step through a door into the warm sunshine where everyone’s milling outside. Two girls who are nearby call, “Hey, John! Who you talking to?”

  “No one.”

  I give him a glare. I’m no one? I start to push past him toward the bus line.

  “Come on, John,” a girl says. “We gotta go.” She puts her hand around his arm. She’s got long shiny fingernails. Before she leaves, the girl does a swivel and says to me, “You stop following him, you got that?”

  John gently shakes her off. “None of that, Tanisha.” He turns to me. “See you.” Then he melts into a group of kids who scatter down the block. I can’t move. Part of my body is walking down the street with them.

  “Who was that?” Lucy Nelson asks as I join the line that’s snaking toward the bus.

  My neck feels warm. “Nobody.”

  She peers at me, skeptical. “Is that the boy who helped you?” Lucy is a lot bigger than me, with a round face and stubborn eyes. In a weird way, I’m impressed with her bluntness. The other girls glance at each other as we troop down the aisle and take our seats.

  I can’t believe I kept my mouth shut. One of my old teachers used to laughingly call me Miss But, for all the times my hand would jab the air, objecting in class. As I take my seat, I feel like a little worm. Not someone who can sashay across this school. How did I get so small, with no voice? When am I ever going to speak up again?

  On Saturday I wake up in a better mood. Finally we can catch up with Francesca. I’m stuffed with stories and questions. What happened with that boy Evan? And maybe I can tell her about John. And maybe—just maybe—Josie will talk about her classes and we can put our heads together to get her back in SP. I already told Francesca about the situation the other night on the phone and she’s mad too.

  On Saturdays me and Francesca and Josie usually go to Patty’s, the luncheonette. We sit on the vinyl stools, legs dangling, and eat scrambled eggs and triangle toast soaked in butter. The whole time we page through the Betty and Veronica comics from the rotating stand.

  When Francesca’s mother opens the door, her hair is mussed to one side, and I can see her lingerie top peeking out beneath her robe. Her cigarette ash is quivering and long. Then I notice that Mr. George’s car is not in the driveway. Francesca comes pounding down the stairs, pushing past her mother, who wavers in the background like a bowling pin that got knocked. “Can you get some milk?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Francesca does an eye-roll to us and then stomps down the path, bending once to fling the newspaper onto their stoop. One week of seventh grade and Francesca has already become a teenager. She’s dressed in cutoffs and a shirt that she’s knotted at her belly button.

  “Okay, spill,” she declares, once we’ve settled on our stools and ordered our eggs.

  I smile, testing my little straw with my teeth. I’m going to wait on John.

  Josie shrugs. “Nothing much.”

  “My math teacher played the guitar while we did our equations,” I tell Francesca.

  “That’s great!” Francesca says. “So I’m just hanging and trying to do my biology homework, when Evan plops down on the beanbag right next to me and asks if I play tennis.”

  “You don’t,” I say.

  Now Francesca tilts close. “Just before he leaves, he says he hopes I’ll come watch.”

  “Were his friends there too?” Josie suddenly asks.

  I whirl around on my stool. I almost forgot she was there. Her face has gone still, the way it does sometimes.

  “Yeah, I guess.” Francesca sounds flustered. “Standing by the door, like always. He knows a lot of people. Why do you ask?”

  Josie shrugs. “No reason.”

  I’m dying to ask Josie more. Just then our eggs and toast arrive. I’m ravenous, and after stuffing myself, I blurt out, “I like someone too.” Before I know it, I’ve told her about John, not that there’s that much. “He has a friend,” I add. “Darren. He likes Josie.”

  “Ooh!” Francesca squeals. “Doubles!”

  Josie hunches over her Coke, mouth tight. She’s furious at me. Sliding off the stool, she mumbles, “I gotta go. I told my mom I’d help her today.” Then she throws down her money and is out the door.

  Me and Francesca look at each other. “I want to help her,” I say. “The whole SP thing. But I don’t know what to do.”

  “You’ve got to find out who can help,” Francesca declares. “That’s what my dad did. When he was little, his mom worked for some rich people. And he would go over there and ask a million questions about all their paintings and furniture.”

  These are the stories we’ve grown up with: How my dad walked five miles to school. How Mr. George had his college education paid for by that family. But we were the ones who weren’t supposed to struggle like they did. We had skating parties and our own rooms and fluffy pillows that matched our quilts. We can buy as many books as we want from the Scholastic Book Club. I never thought a story like that had anything to do with us.

  * * *

  * * *

  When Francesca and I step out of the luncheonette, something feels different. The air turns electric. Then we see them: a group of boys hanging on the corner, their eyes on our legs, our arms. I suddenly wish Francesca wasn’t wearing cutoffs.

  “Whoo, baby,” one boy calls.

  “Caramel,” says another, and they elbow each other.

  I want to disappear. But Francesca thrusts back her shoulders, flounces her hair.

  The boys’ eyes flash. This is better than they expected. One of them inches a little closer. “You from around here?”

  “Could be.”

  I yank her by the elbow, steering her away and up the block. “Stay away from those boys.”

  She shakes me off. “They were just joking, Jamila.”

  “It wasn’t funny.”

  Our Saturday reunion was nothing like I expected. No giggling or talking so much that you go from breakfast to Francesca’s room. Or to the playground swings, pushing our knees deep into the warm air.

  Now I remind her, “The milk? For your mom?”

  As I watch her march off to Key Food, what makes me so mad is Francesca can be so right and wrong at the same time.

  It’s the second week, and I still haven’t talked to Josie about SP. She’s on strike. She won’t sit on our bench in the yard. She doesn’t talk to me on the bus. After school, she usually says she has to help her mother, though she never says what that is. The only thing I have to look forward to is seeing John—either at lunchtime when we give each other shy looks in the yard, or after school when I dawdle by the steps, hoping to spot him.

  Finally it’s Thursday, my first chance to be with Josie for Community Circle. But Josie is nowhere to be found amo
ng the kids chucking off their shoes on the new shiny floor.

  “Come on in!” Miss Griffith greets me. She’s the one who got up on the stage the first day of school. Her hair is a frizzy black cloud. Her eyes sparkle and she’s again wearing silver bangles that slide up and down as she waves her arms. “Go on, take your shoes off, and take a seat in the circle. Everyone make room!”

  When I sit down I spread my hand on the floor to my side to show the place is saved for Josie, but Lucy plunks down right next to me. Then I see Darren and Tanisha and another girl. They are right opposite me, Tanisha giving me cutting eyes. Cheeks burning, I stare at my crossed feet.

  “Hey, Teach,” Darren calls, grinning.

  “Hey.”

  I flush, knowing he’s John’s friend.

  Miss Griffith steps into the center of the circle and smiles. “Do you guys remember the strike when schools were closed?”

  “Oh yeah!”

  “I watched a lot of TV.”

  “I had to babysit my little brother!”

  Miss Griffith laughs. “Well, I helped run a special school. We had something called open classrooms.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You could sit anywhere, really. In the hall if you liked.”

  Darren half-jumps up in a jaunty crouch. “See ya!”

  We all look to see if Miss Griffith is going to get mad. But she smiles, with those twinkling eyes. “If it were up to me, I’d say fine. Children shouldn’t be hemmed in. Learning is about roaming free with your mind and body.”

  Some kids nod, confused. She talks to us as if we’re grown-ups. “So you know that our bodies and minds are connected, right?” She explains that this is the one time when we can all feel ourselves as a community. Darren’s mouth curls. He nudges Tanisha. I stop smiling. I like Miss Griffith, but I don’t want to seem like a teacher’s pet. Not in this school.

  “Okay, enough with this boring talk! It’s time to move! We’re doing the Trust Game!”

  Miss Griffith tells us to make a circle around her. We giggle and shove but manage to do it. “Now we need two people to stand in the middle. One of you shuts their eyes and leans backward until they’re caught by the other person.” She shuts her eyes and starts to tilt backward. “It means you have to be both trustworthy and trustful.”

  But nobody wants to be the person who trusts. So Miss Griffith breaks us up for our first try into girls and boys. I wind up in a circle with Tanisha.

  “Go on, Jamila,” she says. “You lean back.”

  “That’s okay. You can go.”

  “No, you do it.” She steps into the middle. “You so skinny. Not hard to catch you.” Her voice has a funny edge.

  I don’t want to, but I take a step forward. I shut my eyes. I can hear Miss Griffith’s voice, soft and nice. “Turn your shoulders, your arms to putty.”

  It takes a few tries. I keep not letting go and stumble back on my heels. “Come on!” the others cry. “Just trust!”

  I let my spine soften. My head lolls back. Their breaths tickle my hair and I’m sinking into the warm cups of their hands. Then there’s a scrape of fingernails and nothing. I try to jerk up—too late. I’m sprawled on the polished wood floor, my elbow throbbing.

  “Hon, are you okay?” Miss Griffith is crouched right next to me. She smells of some kind of spicy-sweet perfume. She called me hon. I almost cry.

  “I’m fine.” I rub the bone.

  “What happened?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

  Miss Griffith stands and twirls. “Anyone know?”

  “Lost her balance,” Tanisha says.

  Miss Griffith looks puzzled. “Must be the new floors. Be careful, kids.”

  But I know Tanisha let me go on purpose.

  * * *

  * * *

  The bell sounds out and everyone scrambles to their feet, grabbing their books and bags, putting on their shoes. As I’m pushing through the door, Darren sidles up. “Hey, Teach! Wait up!”

  “Hi.” I keep walking. I’m in no mood to talk to him. Not after what Tanisha did.

  “Come on! You don’t have any time for me?”

  I turn. “My name is Jamila.”

  He smiles. “Sorry.” He asks, “Where’s your friend? I thought she was in this Community thing?”

  “I guess not.”

  “I see her at lunch but she don’t say hi to me.”

  I shrug.

  “Why don’t she say hi?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she doesn’t remember you.”

  He grins. “She remembers me.”

  Reaching into his pocket, he hands me a note. It’s been folded into a tiny square. “You give that to your friend?”

  “She has a name.”

  “I know.” He whispers, “Josie. Josefina.”

  I take the note, startled by the way he says Josie’s name: soft and quiet. His shiny brown eyes are uncertain.

  * * *

  * * *

  When I give Josie the note on the bus later, her mouth pinches tight and she twists around to read it, wedging her bag against the window.

  “What’s it say?”

  She doesn’t answer at first. “He wants to go out.”

  A slippery sensation wriggles down my chest. I don’t know if it’s because it’s Darren doing the asking or because it’s Josie who is officially being asked out by a boy. The first of us.

  The bus pauses at a light and the traffic is at a standstill. The windows are glazed hot with sun. It’s going to be a slow ride. Another thing they didn’t tell us about busing: how long and boring the rides are.

  “What are you going to say? You have to say something.”

  She keeps looking out the window at a sad-looking line of stores. Two of them are boarded up.

  “Why?”

  I’m astonished. A boy has given her a note! This is huge. “He gave it to me,” I say. “He expects an answer.” Of course, I know no such thing. But this is our chance. I can almost see the two of us sashaying down the hall, she with Darren and me with John.

  “Maybe next week.”

  She folds the note back along its creases, slides it inside a notebook. For once, Josie’s careful ways annoy me.

  “Where were you, anyway? I thought you had Community Circle.”

  “I had to go somewhere.” She fiddles with her rubber book strap. “Guidance.”

  I feel as if I’m going to explode any minute, yell at her for being so closemouthed. But with Josie you just have to stay quiet and wait. Let her find her own way.

  “They gave me a test,” she finally says. “To see about my reading.”

  “What about your reading?” I cry. “It’s fine!”

  Josie hesitates and then says, “Look, Jamila. I’m not like you and Francesca. I don’t want…” This time, when she turns back around, she gives me her full-on back.

  If anyone had told me this was what being in junior high would be like: Your best friend is silent beside you. You’re skinny and knock-kneed and you get lost easily. You aren’t at the top of the Ferris wheel.

  I’d have said: You can have it.

  * * *

  * * *

  The next Thursday in Community Circle, the door swings open and Josie comes sliding across the polished floor and drops down cross-legged, next to me. My heart leaps. We’re together again for fifty-two whole minutes! Even though the girls on the other side of the circle keep nudging each other and whispering. Today Miss Griffith teaches us how to close our eyes and meditate and watch our thoughts move past “like clouds in the sky.” Mostly, I keep sneaking glances at Josie. When we finish, those other girls cluster around.

  “Where you from?” one girl asks Josie. Her bangs are curled stiff on her forehead, like she’d put an index f
inger inside and hair-sprayed the strands down. “How come you from that other school?”

  Josie shrugs. “I live near there.”

  “Where’s your mama from?”

  “Jamaica.”

  The girl gives a firm nod. “Your daddy?”

  “PR.”

  “You speak Spanish?”

  “A little.”

  “What about you?” They swivel to stare at me. Funny that no one cared to know much about me before.

  “My dad’s—”

  But Tanisha interrupts me. “You like Darren?” she asks Josie. Tanisha is slender and sharp-boned, with a high slant to her cheeks. “He asked you to go out.”

  Nothing like getting to the point.

  Josie blushes. She’s plucking imaginary dust from the pleats of her skirt. Today she’s got on old-fashioned white socks with pink roses trailing up the sides.

  Just then the bell bleats. “Gotta go!” She grabs her shoes and rushes out the door. I’m not far behind.

  * * *

  * * *

  On the bus, it’s like the hurts that have been inside Josie come tumbling out. She tells me, “Two of those girls from Community Circle are in my homeroom. They sit on the other side of the room, but they keep staring at me.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugs. “Maybe my name. Our homeroom teacher is so dumb. She can’t get any of the names straight.”

  And then she tells me about her first weeks: How two boys broke into a fight in the back of the room. In math one day they called the security guard and pulled a kid out. Sometimes the room is so noisy she can’t hear herself think. “I just want to get out.”

  “You have to!”

  “But I can’t be with you and everyone else in SP. They think I’m dumb! Everyone, all of them, they look at me and they say, she’s with the dumb kids!”

  “No, no!” I cry. “You’re smart! You’re so smart! Didn’t your parents talk to them about SP?”

  “They said no.”

  I’m stabbed. Josie tips her head, sobbing, hard. Her shoulders are rounded and shaking.