doesn’t turn around, but his shoulders sink just for a second. I know in my heart I shouldn’t have said it, that it was the opposite of what I wanted to do. Then again, some people are hell to help.
He busts across Fall Creek, his back tire spitting up some loose dirt. I head back to Kid, who has questions written all over his face. “Don’t ask,” I say.
“Fine,” Kid says. He bounces the ball back to me. “Quit messing around and step up to take another beating.”
“Kid, I’m gonna run you off this time.”
He laughs, acting like that’s an impossibility, and we’re right back in our groove.
When I get home, Jayson’s got my parents in a fit. He’s been testing them more and more lately, like he wants to see just how much he can get away with before Dad truly goes all old school and cracks him good. Of course, Dad will never do that. But when I walk in, he’s standing over Jayson—who’s stretched out on the couch like he’s just relaxing at the beach—pointing to Jayson’s room.
“I know you have homework.”
Jayson doesn’t budge. “I can finish it later,” he says.
“Listen to your father,” Mom shouts. She’s in her chair, trying in vain to read a magazine. When she sees me she shakes her head, just tired of the static with Jayson.
The house has been more tense than ever for the last couple months. Dad lost hours again when one of the places he works security decided they could get by with one guard after hours. So now he’s trying to make up for it by working late shifts at a convenience store on Central. It cuts into his sleep. But more than that, he knows it’s beneath him to be ringing people up like some teenager. All of it makes me second-guess my decision not to transfer to Hamilton Academy—it would have been like treason to transfer to Vasco’s team, but they would’ve given my dad a full-time job. I try not to think about that. What’s done is done.
I side-step the whole scene. I walk into my room and flop on my bed, stare up at my poster of LeBron. The League seems a long way off, but I just keep focusing on it. Work, work, work. Get better, get better, get better. And someday I’ll be the poster on some other kid’s wall, and I sure won’t be dealing with an uptight girlfriend or stress from my folks.
That’s when I hear it. “Thomas?” my mom says, then again real sharp: “Thomas!” I sprint back to the living room to see my dad leaning against the wall with a confused look on his face. Mom is beside him, and even Jayson is sitting up now.
“Dad?” I say. “You okay?”
He straightens up slowly and shakes his head like a dazed fighter. He raises up his hand and motions for my mom to leave him. “F-f-fine,” he mutters. He starts to talk again, but it’s like he can’t get the words out. Then he shakes it off, says it again. “F-f-fine. I’m okay.” But it’s garbled again.
My mom’s eyebrows pinch down in concern. “You need to go to the doctor,” she says. “That’s the second time.”
Something about my mom snapping at him helps him regain the power of speech. “I don’t need a doctor, Kaylene. I just lost my balance.”
Mom spins away and storms back to the couch, gone from concerned to angry in a split second. She opens her magazine like she’s trying to rip it in two. “You just don’t want to spend the money!” she shouts at him.
“Sick people go to doctors, and I’m fine,” he says. He tries to shout it after her, but there’s not much breath behind it. Then he looks at us, tries to put that calm Dad-look on his face, but there’s a trace of worry behind his glasses. “I’m fine, boys. Don’t worry. You—” he motions at me— “go on back and relax.” Then he points at Jayson. “You go do some homework.”
This time Jayson obeys, slinking off the couch and slipping into his room. He doesn’t even look at me, like he’s ashamed of how he’s acted.
4.
A year ago, Wes would have taken the desk right next to me. He would have leaned over every time Mrs. Hulsey turned to the board, making some crack to try to get me to laugh. And he would have been bugging me all week before every test, wanting to compare notes—just to come over and blow a few hours messing around instead of studying.
Instead, I’ve got to ride out American History solo, and it’s not going well—a string of Cs and C+s so far. Wes is in the back, so close to Iesha I wouldn’t be surprised to see her crawl into his lap. I should be happy for him. In some ways I am, but it’s like my friend is just gone. Vanished into some fog of love.
Right now, Mrs. Hulsey is trying to drive home a point. “It changed everything,” she says. “It was called ‘The War to End All Wars.’ Every facet of American life—literature, politics, religion—was touched by it. That’s what happens when more than 300,000 men in a single generation are killed or wounded. In Russia, that was more like two million.”
As she says that, there’s an audible yawn somewhere in the classroom. Hulsey’s excited expression drops into one of disappointment. She’s always shocked and saddened that we’re not all as amped as she is about things that happened a century ago. Every so often Marion East gets some young, white teacher who’s seen one too many movies about going to an inner city school and saving everyone. The ones who’ve been here a while end up sneaking cigarettes behind the track between classes. Mrs. Hulsey isn’t there yet, but give her a few years.
She puts one hand on her hip and gestures to the class with the other. “Who was that? I’m sorry if one of the most important events in American history bores you. Maybe you won’t be bored when you see these things on the next exam.”
A brave soul raises his hand. It’s Martin Germain, a football player, who takes pride in how little he cares about this class. “Well, I get the American stuff,” he says, “but why should we care about the Russians? Didn’t we, like, hate them?”
Just like that, Mrs. Hulsey brightens again. Her eyes widen and her mouth pops open like she’s about to gasp. Even a jaded question is enough for her. “That’s the interesting thing, Martin,” she says. “We did end up hating them, but during World War I, we were on the same side. That’s how strange and intriguing history is.”
She floats that comment out to us like she’s fully expecting us to buy in all of a sudden. It’s no go. The only response she gets is a muffled laugh from the back of the room. I turn, see it’s from Wes, who’s leaned over to whisper something into Iesha’s ear.
For the first time, real anger flashes on Mrs. Hulsey’s face. Her cheeks redden and her lips pinch together like she’s trying to hold something back. When she does speak, her words are as measured as when Coach Bolden’s trying to hold back his rage during a timeout. “You think you know everything,” she says. “Sophomores in high school, and you think you know it all. But do you know what sophomore means?” She pauses just for a second, but she doesn’t really want us to answer. “The soph part is where we get philosophy and sophisticated. It means wise. But the other part is where we get the word moron. The word sophomore means wise fool. Next time you think you’ve got it all figured out, remember that.”
The only sound in the classroom now is the hum of the heater. Mrs. Hulsey stands there for a few seconds, like she’s surprised she got that angry. Then she tells us pages to read. She retreats behind her desk and marks up old assignments.
When
