When life weighs on you, even the blankets become too heavy to move.

My alarm goes off ten minutes before Moms comes through to wake me up. Every morning, I hit the snooze bar before sparing a glance at the wrought-iron-framed picture of me and my dad. He left nine years ago. Moms gave the photo to me one year for Christmas. I can’t remember the occasion that was worth us trying to preserve the memory. A candid shot of me smiling too hard and my dad with a soft frown (because he doesn’t take pictures well, Moms says). The image has no memory in my heart, but it seems important to Moms for me to have it.

Maybe I need that fresh pinprick of pain to start my day. I plunge my head under the pillow to shield me from the inevitable. Moms flips on the light and bellows in her full singsong voice.

“Time to wakey, wakey, wakey!” She emphasizes each syllable of the last “wakey.” She’s been singing my wake-up call since the first day of kindergarten. It’s old, annoying, and comforting all at the same time. “Do me a favor and make sure your sister is ready. It’s almost time for breakfast.”

I slip into my school uniform while still half asleep. I lay my clothes out every night before I go to bed so that I don’t have to think first thing in the morning. Everything in my room is in its proper place—my trading cards in binders on my bookshelf, my Peyton Manning, Andrew Luck, and Russell Westbrook posters framed and on the wall with a carefully maintained layer of dust on the shelves and posters—so that I can tell if someone (either Moms when she’s in trust-but-verify mode or, more likely, Ahrion) has been snooping in my room. (It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you.)

Ahrion’s room next door is a complete disaster area. Toys scattered all over the floor. Whenever she wants a particular toy, she tosses every other one out of her way until she finds it. Clothes thrown around the room in the same way. If you pay attention, you can see bits of order in the chaos. Her Matchbox cars organized by type and color. Her crayons and art pencils lined up by color, all sharpened to the same length. Her curtains flutter. A mismatched pair of shoes poke out from underneath them.

“I wonder where Ahrion is?” I sing out while circling the room.

“Here I am!” She flings open the curtains. Though eight years old, she likes her hair cut short, which makes her head appear too big for her body. She’s darker than me, like Moms. Her eyes dominate her face. When she looks at you, you hold her full interest. Nothing distracts her from paying attention to just you. It’s a little intense, but kind of cool, too.

“You’re not very good at hide-’n’-seek,” I say.

“You sounded worried. I didn’t want you to be.” She runs to me and wraps her thin arms around me. She radiates such joy it’s infectious.

“I will always worry about you. It’s okay.”

Some people treat her like she’s broken. Moms explained what she has, something about being on the autism spectrum. I hear so many labels placed on me and my friends, I tune them out. All I know is that she’s my sister. So she gets a little hyper sometimes. She doesn’t always understand people. On the flip side, she doesn’t grasp the idea of strangers. As far as she’s concerned, everyone just needs a hug. If she’s broken, I wish more people were broken like her.

I stand next to her loft bed. Before I can protest, rather than use her ladder, she scrambles up me. Two Matchbox cars rev to life—as she does a pitch-perfect imitation—and immediately crash into each other.

“Cars?” She invites me to play.

“No, Ahrion. We can’t. Breakfast is almost ready.”

She crosses her arms and lowers her head, but she can’t maintain being pouty for more than a few seconds. “Only if you carry me.”

“Fine.” Before the word is fully out of my mouth, she climbs on my shoulders and I stagger down to the kitchen, weaving back and forth as I walk, the way she likes it. When we arrive in the kitchen, I freeze in the doorway. The sight horrifies me.

The electronic whine and drum snares burble along as a voice chimes, “‘It’s time for the percolator.’” Sliding along the linoleum, Moms lip-synchs the words into a spatula.

“No, no, no.” I lower Ahrion to the ground and cover her eyes. No one should have to see this. My sister can’t stop giggling.

“It’s too late, son.” Moms drops to the floor, one arm tucked behind her head, flapping, the spatula holding arm extended like she’s a coffeepot about to take off.

“Oh. My. God. Mom, stop it!”

“What? Some people do yoga . . .” She bounces in place, still low. If she jumps up and says “drop it like it’s hot,” my day is done and I’m going back to bed. Thing is, this wasn’t the worst I’d seen. If I’d heard Boyz II Men or Jodeci playing, I wouldn’t have even dared enter the kitchen. I can’t deal with her doing full body rolls first thing in the morning. I shudder at the memory.

Moms has plates of food waiting on us. She enjoys the ritual of fixing breakfast. I scarf down the eggs (two eggs, always scrambled), toast (two pieces, always buttered, one with strawberry jam), and bacon (always overcooked because Moms is paranoid about giving her babies undercooked pork). She turns off the music and flips over to the Today show. “Homework check.”

I open my planner for her to sign off on my homework.

“My turn,” Ahrion says, so I hand her my binder. She draws a smiley face with extra bushy hair. “That’s you.”

“Thanks.”

Moms hands me a book. Langston Hughes: An Illustrated Edition. “You have a week.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Moms “assigns” me books to read every so often. It’s how I earn video game privileges. Her library is full of books like this. With all the posters and paintings of Malcolm X; the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.; Sojourner Truth; Harriet Tubman; and Marcus Garvey hanging around the house, sometimes it feels like I’m living in a black history museum.

“All right, let’s go.” Moms grabs her keys and shoos us out the door. Moms doesn’t want to leave me waiting at the bus stop without her hypervigilant supervision; she thinks it’s better for me to get to school a half hour early. I want the independence of catching the bus. We split the difference: Moms drops me and Ahrion off at our respective schools on her way to work and I catch the bus home.

As we drive to school, I can’t help but think that I really love Indianapolis. Sure, it’s the only place I’ve ever lived, but this city is just so . . . me. Not so big that it doesn’t still feel like a small town (we only have to drive ten minutes to find llamas, horses, and cows). Not so small that we escape big city problems. And the city operates like a gangster: it rolled up on all the towns surrounding it and straight took over. Take Persons, for example.

I read that Persons was a small farm town tucked into the northwest side of the city. When farmers drove their animals to the Indianapolis stockyards, they stopped in Persons. A railroad depot in the heart of the area gave it the “Crossing” part of its name. That was one story of how this area of town earned its name. Another version was that there was an important family named Persons who helped found the area. I really don’t want to think that folks were so simple that just because people’s paths crossed there, people literally decided to call the place “Persons Crossing.” But that’s the thing about Indianapolis, stuff like that just happens.

“You all right, baby?” Moms asks, interrupting my thoughts.

“Yeah. You know, school stuff.”

“Remember, you can’t count on others to protect your name. Only you can do that. You got this.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“You got this,” Ahrion echoes.

“Thanks, Ahrion.”

The Persons Crossing Public Academy building mirrors all the schools in the district. A massive redbrick building broken up by tan concrete lines, its long drive in front forces parents to travel the length of the building to drop their kids off. I’m pretty sure they designed the walls to be so tall in order to intimidate the students, though it gave the building that much more of a prison look.

I close the car door behind me and take a couple steps toward school. I turn to wave bye to Ahrion, who enjoys calling my name until the car moves out of sight like I’m some gladiator heading into an arena. Rather than enter the school through the car drop-off door, I walk around to the side entrance. Key-card entry is required for all the entrances except during the morning arrival. Otherwise, people have to be buzzed in to report to the office. The way Persons Crossing is laid out, only one side has bushes. It has the added advantage of having little traffic over there since it isn’t by the main, playground, or parking lot entrances, so there aren’t any security cameras. But it does face Northwestway Park. If someone was going to stash a gun in the park, they’d need to be able to retrieve it with as little notice as possible. The bushes create a natural barricade to hide shenanigans. I made a mental note of that for future reference.

Though the police are going to take any found gun seriously, it’s not like they are going to go full-on crime scene investigation over it. Moms had her car broken into once and called the police. When they came to take the report, she showed them the broken window and told them she didn’t disturb the crime scene in case they needed to dust for prints or run all kinds of tests we can’t pronounce (Moms really loves those shows). The cops were like “ma’am, we don’t do all that unless there’s a body involved.”

I’m not sure what I even hope to find. Maybe start here and trace my way back to the park along a likely route, see if I turn up anything. Perhaps scrounge around to see if anything is out of place. Lots of footprints have tromped back here. The early-morning light glints from something half buried in the dirt. A twisted bit of metal. I brush it off.

“What do you have there?” Marcel’s voice scrapes my ears like manicured fingernails clawing my brain.

“Nothing. Just tying my shoe.” I palm the twisted piece of metal, pocketing it when I stand up. On my tiptoes I can barely see over the row of hedges.

“Behind the bushes?” She saunters closer, just enough to not be overheard but still far enough away to not be associated with me.

“I’m a man who likes privacy.”

“You a man now, huh?” She smirks. “You look like you’re trying to pee back there.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Thought I’d inspect the bushes, see if I can find some new friends.”

“You all about making friends, huh?”

She doesn’t fool me. She wants to throw me off my game. Either she wants to know what I know or she had the same idea I had about seeing what evidence was left. Her eyes don’t flinch, and she studies me like a hawk about to swoop in. “Unlike you. I hear RaShawn’s sister can get heated quick.”

“Nothing but a thing.” I shrug my shoulders.

“You have a good day. Be careful, though. I hear there might be some unsavory characters looking to bring in weapons.”

Protected behind a glass case, trophies and awards and faded pictures of the school from back in the day hang next to a yellowed newspaper article detailing the opening of the school. I read it for the millionth time. Persons Crossings Academy has been around in one way or another since the early 1900s. From 1913 to 1938, Persons Crossings Elementary School began as a rural school that held grades one through six. I can’t imagine what classes were like back then. A bunch of corn-fed farmer boys all in one room, smelling of sweat and cow manure, sitting around trying to stay awake after getting up at 4:00 a.m. to do their chores. They probably stared out a window daydreaming like I did when I was on the computer, except they didn’t have the internet.

They also didn’t need school. Their lives had already been scripted for them. They were going to be farmers like their daddies before them and their sons after them. They had little say in what they were going to be or what they were going to do. Their world decided that for them and expected certain things of them. Maybe that’s why the school closed down when it did.

The article goes on to describe how the school switched to being a rooming house. Then a lawn mower repair shop. Then a grocery store. Then an auction house. Soon after, it was like people discovered the northwest side of town and the area suddenly boomed again and the district decided to build a new building. So in 2003, with a forgotten history and a name based on a forgotten area of town and a forgotten railroad, Persons Crossing Public Academy opened, this time housing kindergarten through eighth-grade students.

I lean against the glass cabinet and wait for the inevitable passing teacher to tell me to stand up straight and tuck in my shirt. Like I says, students and teachers all have their roles to play. Wrapping my hand around the bent metal in my pocket, like I’m afraid I’ll lose it, I cut to the head of the parade of kids lined up outside the cafeteria waiting for the eight o’clock bell to signal us to go to class.

When the bell rings, the other kids will run down the hallway, in a hurry for no reason. Rushing is its own point, I guess, one last release of energy and chatter before they have to be quiet and sit in their seats for the next six hours. But there’s no rush for me. Only the slow walk down the long corridor few kids go down, to get to the room at the end of the hall that no kids want to enter.

There’s no guilt or shame, though. It’s my class. I am where I belong.

Going through the motions of being hungry, I grab a strawberry yogurt, a package of Teddy Grahams, and a container of apple juice from the cooler outside our classroom. Part of the free breakfast program—the district makes sure every kid has a balanced breakfast to start the day. No kid left behind or something like that.

On the second floor are the seventh-grade lockers. I spin my lock and open mine. A mirror greets me and I check my hair. Beneath it is a cup containing pens and highlighters. On the top shelf, what few books I need—since they have me mostly on computers—are stacked in a neat pile. Three rows of hanging shelves organize my folders. Taking the bare minimum I need for class, one folder and tucking a pen behind my ear, I close my locker and lean against it. I just manage to fit the straw into my apple juice when Nehemiah storms down the hall with a mean mug on, like he’s mad at the air.

Nehemiah bounces his Teddy Grahams package off my chest. He hates them because he “never trusts anything that smiles all the time.”

“Hey, T. What you no good?” We clap our hands, fire our guns, and snap our fingers as usual. From the jump, I liked Nehemiah. His confidence, his strut, his energy. Nehemiah knows who he is: one note, full volume, always. He has no pretenses about it. Sometimes I envy him that. Nehemiah glances from the unopened yogurt to my face. Twice.

I toss him my yogurt and open the second package of Teddy Grahams.

When he gets to his locker, he tugs the handle and it opens. He presets his locker so he can just open it when he’s ready. It doesn’t save him any time since he has to set the combination when he’s done and he still manages to arrive to class late. Books and folders tumble out of his locker like they’re doing a prison break. A tattered picture of Kevin Durant is glued to the inside of the door.

I check for any prying eyes before I reach for the metal bit and hand it to him. “I think I found something.”

“Where’d you get this?” Nehemiah examines it in his palm.

“In the bushes. By where they say they found the gun. What do you think it is?”

“A tie clip, I think,” Nehemiah says.

“Let me see.” I snatch it back. Now that he said that, I can see it. A cheap tie clip.

“Ain’t but one dude round here that’d wear something that corny.”

“I’m just wondering what our next move should be,” I say.

“Doesn’t matter why. Like you say, they just going to blame us anyway.”

“Yeah, well, just ’cause it’s so don’t mean it’s got to sit right with me.” I say, biting the head off another bear.

“Besides, what they going to do? Kick us out so we have to stay home and watch TV all day?”

“Mrs. Fitzgerald wasn’t bluffing. She’ll send us to Banesford, and that school don’t play.” I rub my eyes like I’m still sleepy. “We still got ten minutes before the bell rings. Want to chat with Pierce?”

“Man, I don’t know if I’m up for his brand of weird first thing in the morning.”

On our way to Pierce’s locker, I notice all the attention on us. Eyes too careful not to make direct contact but still keep us in view. People moving out of our way. Nehemiah puffs up as we walk through the hall, but I don’t enjoy it. Suspicion is one thing; fear of us is another.

The sixth-grade locker bays are on the first floor, as is the Special Ed room. Filled with the usual bustle and banter of, well, sixth graders. Excitement about an upcoming camping trip. Who’s going to sit by who on the bus ride. The latest YouTube videos. The desperate panic over missing homework. Some still go on about the hottest Pokémon cards. They are so sixth grade.

It is no coincidence that Pierce has the last locker in the corridor. He paces in the center of the hallway. He walks around like a cowboy waiting on a duel partner. It is best to confront him before class, mostly because one never knows how he is going to react. I hear the teachers whisper about him when they think no one is listening. I know he has some “neuro” issue, and they’ve slapped him with every label they can think of, from ADHD to spectrum to initials I can’t even guess at.

But he’s in Special Ed. One of us.

“Hey, Pierce, hold up.”

Pierce freezes in place like a statue, a knowing grin on his face. I step to his side, but he keeps staring straight ahead. His face is all hard angles and his skin ghostly pale. Up close, his lips are too pink and the edges of his eyes appear watery, like he suffers from allergies. The thing about Pierce is that he owns who he is. I am pretty convinced that he plays up his tics for effect. He’s not dumb and knows that it gives him an advantage. People see them and think one way about him; meanwhile, he’s really studying them.

I show him the tie clip. “Is this yours?”

I wait for him to pluck it from my palm. Instead, he tucks and withdraws his hand from his pocket and opens his hand, only coming up with lint.

“I think that’s Pierce talk for ‘It’s mine,’” Nehemiah says.

Frustrated, I run my other hand through my hair. Pierce mirrors the gesture. When I step back and exhale slowly, he does the same.

“One can play at that game,” Pierce says.

“Right. So were you behind the bushes?” I say.

“Let me think.” Pierce strikes a new pose and taps his lip as if in deep thought. “Yes.”

“When?”

“Last week. No, tomorrow. Sometime recent.”

“Why we talking to this fool?” Reading my face, Nehemiah opts to provoke him. “He don’t know nothing.”

With those words, Pierce glares at Nehemiah, his eyes clear and focused with laser intensity. “I know many things. I’m not stupid.”

I put up my hands like I’m surrendering. “No one said you were stupid. We just want to know when you were behind the bushes and if you saw anything.”

“Or anyone,” Nehemiah added.

“Only RaShawn,” Pierce said.

“RaShawn?” I ask. “Why there?”

“It’s where we meet. He gets me things.”

“Like what?”

“Like noneya.”

“Noneya?” Nehemiah asks before I can wave him off.

“None ya business.” Pierce cackles, amused by his own joke.

I forgot how much that joke still circulated among the sixth graders. I step between them, hoping Pierce will refocus. His attention span lasts until the earliest distraction. “How’d you lose your tie clip?”

“RaShawn got mad at me. Grabbed me by my shirt.” Pierce imitates the action. He even reenacts the moment, mean mugging and staring us down with all kinds of evil eye. Well, as evil as Pierce is capable of looking. “Said I was making him look ridiculous and wasting his time. All I wanted was a frog.”

“A . . . frog?” I ask.

“Yes. I would name him George. I’d get him a collar and a leash and take him for walks.”

“I think we’re about done here,” Nehemiah said.

“Ribbit,” Pierce says as we turn to leave.

We barely get out of earshot when Nehemiah asks, “What was that?”

“Pierce in full Pierce mode.”

Pierce trails behind us, stopping with each passing girl to shout “Ribbit.”

“I know he seems like he should be a suspect, but I don’t know. He don’t need a gun to get folks to leave him alone.”

“Did he seem agitated to you?”

“He’s always agitated.”

“Maybe I’m imagining things. Still, he did tell us one useful thing. That the bushes are RaShawn’s regular spot.”

“You believe him?”

“It’s something.”

The late bell for homeroom rings. We spare a glance at each other before dashing to class, hoping to make it to our room’s door before the echo fades.