it isn’t locked, so I don’t have a key. None of us do.
I sit down on the top step to wait for someone who lives in the building to either go in or come out, but then I think about Mentayer. She’d never sit and wait like this. If she was here she’d be telling me, Don’t be such a lump on a log, Markus. Get off your butt and go get the super to unlock the door for you. I always try to listen to my sister, but especially today to make up for all my lying, so I stand up, walk down the steps, and go outside to the sidewalk.
The super’s apartment is around the back of the building. The path between our building and the one next door is almost wide enough for two people to walk next to each other, but not quite. I’m almost to the back of the building when the toe of my shoe hits something. I lean against the side of the building to keep myself from tripping and falling. I hear breathing. It must be me. But then the breathing turns into a raspy, angry voice.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
I can’t see anything, but I know who it is. Inside my head Mentayer starts shouting. Run, Markus, run! Run for your life, Markus. I turn, hit my shoulder against the building, and force my feet to move, one after the other.
There’s a stomping sound behind me. Move, Markus! Faster!
I turn and look over my shoulder and see a shadow, a flash of something, a hand or an arm or something bigger. I try to run but I can’t. I can’t move. I can’t even breathe. I look up and see something coming down on me from behind. I duck but it comes anyway. I’m on my knees and they hurt. The cement’s hard. Everything’s black and I’m floating. Floating away.
ONE
February 2006
Monrow City Hall Park is abuzz with the clatter of dog walkers and joggers releasing puffs of cold air from their mouths, all sturdy Midwesterners with no qualms about leaving their overheated homes to brave the below-zero temperatures. A ray of sunshine filters through the bare tree branches, the sky clear and blue. A woman with pitted skin sits on a tattered sleeping bag on the ground, her crooked fingers clutching several layers of filthy wool blankets around her shoulders. I drop a ten-dollar bill in her plastic cup.
“God bless you,” she says with a toothy smile.
“God bless you,” I say, pulling my warm wool jacket tighter around me.
At the main entrance to City Hall, a small, makeshift stage has been set up on the steps for our rally this morning. A grade-school class runs past, giggling, as if to remind me why I’m here. Several hundred people are already gathered, a good sign. At the back of the crowd I spot J. B. Harrell’s salon hairstyle and black designer topcoat. He looks a bit slimmer than when I last saw him—six months ago, shortly after he and I solved the mystery of how an American Indian boy died in a foster home. From behind he still looks more like a corporate business executive than an investigative reporter. He turns and spots me.
“Sylvia!” He walks toward me with that familiar grin of his that tells me he’s as happy to see me as I am to see him. “So you’re here to support the mayor,” he says, with a glance at the Save Our Public Schools button on my consignment-store wool jacket and the homemade Stop Corporate Greed sign in my hand.
“It’s good to see you, too,” I say, laughing at his dry joke.
“There’s Peter.” He points to a man with a gray ponytail standing in a cluster of American Indian, African American, and Latino parents near the stage. They’re holding up professionally printed signs in support of the mayor’s plan to place our public schools under the management of the CSCH Corporation.
Peter Minter is the Indian Child Welfare Compliance officer with whom I worked when I was a foster care supervisor. We’ve been friends and allies for years, advocating for improvements in the child welfare system, serving together even now on a statewide reform task force. This is the first time we’ve been on opposite sides about anything. He heads our way, waving. I wave back with a pained smile.
“Here to cover the mayor’s press conference this morning?” Peter says to J. B., shaking hands with him like they’re old friends.
“I’m working on a series about charter schools,” J. B. says.
Peter nods. “Well, if it’s anywhere near as good as the one you did about foster care last year, maybe it’ll help.” He turns to me with a sadness in his eyes that I’ve seen many times before. “One Indian kid is graduating high school this year, Sylvia. That’s it. One.”
“I heard,” I say with a shake of my head. “It’s awful.”
There’s a gleam in J. B.’s brown eyes, the one he gets whenever he thinks he’s stumbled onto a lead or an angle for a story, a way to articulate the issue through someone’s personal experience. “Do you support the mayor’s plan?” he asks Peter. “Do you think charter schools are the answer?”
Peter places his hand over his breast, a signal that he’s going to tell a story. J. B. reaches in his pocket and pulls out a small notepad and pen.
“A better education is the way out of poverty for us,” Peter begins. “We get our inspiration from the stories about the Red School House in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Have you heard of it?” He doesn’t wait for J. B.’s answer. “Well, it was founded in 1972 by Indian parents who were concerned about their kids’ low achievement and high dropout rates. It was about more than one school, though. It was about the American Indian movement and community organizing, and it was the roots of the first official charter school in the country, in Minnesota in 1992. The long-term effect on Indian people there shows us that change is possible.”
J. B. looks at me with his eyebrows raised, but I don’t say anything. Peter already knows what I think. I sweat under my arms in spite of the cold weather and unzip my jacket a few inches.
“How can we deny our kids this opportunity, Sylvia? This possible shot at life?”
“I understand,” I say. “But desperate people can be vulnerable to exploitation.”
Peter pushes his glasses up on his nose, looks over the rims at me. “My people know the difference between hope and trust, Sylvia.”
His rebuke is, as always, gentle, but it still stings. I place my hand on my cheek and nod. “Hope is good,” I say. “I understand.” He smiles, and we part. Still friends, I hope.
J. B. turns to me. “Some charter schools involve people with good intentions who want to address the identified racial inequities,” he says.
“And some involve people who are more than willing to exploit the situation,” I shoot back at him.
J. B. smiles like he does when he’s amused by my passion. “It’s complicated,” he says. The divisiveness of the gathered crowd reinforces his words. The majority of people protesting are white. They hold homemade signs saying Protect Our Schools from Corporate Greed, Stop the CSCH Scam, and Keep Our Public Schools Public, while the cluster of nonwhite people standing with Peter Minter near the front hold signs saying the opposite: We Support Charter Schools. CSCH: Our Hope for the Future.
Two women—a diminutive white woman wearing a long, quilted coat that makes her look like a square box and an ample-sized, six-foot-tall black woman in a plain brown coat with a red scarf at the neck—approach the microphone. The crowd cheers and whistles.
The
