Kevin followed Marko at a distance.
He hurried his step when Marko got too far ahead. Kevin’s heart felt like a large bird in his chest, trying to escape. His eyes narrowed. His mouth was dry. He felt nothing but hatred.
“Twister! No!” came a soft, haunting voice.
Kevin spun around, looking all around him. Had Carissa followed him? How would she know he was following Marko today? How would she know what he had in mind? Kevin saw nothing but the lacy branches of the old pepper trees.
“Twister! No!” The voice came again, numbing him. He turned and saw no one. It had to be Carissa. She was the only girl around Tubman who called him Twister.
Then the feeling left Kevin’s legs. He dropped to his knees. He felt sick. He was shaking, and the perspiration leaked into his clothing and made a glossy film on his face. He felt as if a great, roaring fever had overtaken him, and suddenly it broke. He knelt there until he had strength enough to get up.
And then, slowly, Kevin recognized the voice. He reached into his wallet with trembling hands. He drew out her picture. Somehow she had managed to reach him. She was always in his heart and on his mind, and somehow, before he made a terrible mistake, she had gotten through to him.
“Mom!” Kevin whispered, tears running down his face.
Kevin scarcely slept that night. Nor did he sleep the nights that followed until it was Friday night, and he dreaded going to Pastor Bromley’s church and meeting up with some kid who needed guidance. Kevin didn’t feel qualified to guide anybody. But he had promised to go and he would. Some little eleven-year-old boy was hoping for a fun day to interrupt his bleak existence. He depended on Kevin to make it happen, even though he didn’t know Kevin at all.
The next Saturday, Kevin arrived early at the church. He saw most of his friends there. He didn’t see Carissa and that saddened him. The girls were setting up the tables for the pancake breakfast. The boys were waiting for the bus that would bring the little boys.
Kevin stood there for a moment and watched all his friends, hurrying around, giving up their Saturday for a bunch of strange kids. They were good people. Kevin was glad to have friends like that. But he wondered—would they all still want to be his friend when they found out the truth about him?
Kevin was paired with an eleven-year-old boy named Shawne. He lived at a foster home since his mother, his sole parent, was killed in a car accident. He was a shy boy who reminded Kevin of himself when he was that age.
On their way to the zoo, Kevin asked Shawne if he liked animals.
“Yeah, I like wild animals,” Shawne replied.
“When I lived in Texas my mom and I used to camp out, and there were coyotes in the mountains. They’d howl at the moon,” Kevin told him.
“Whoa! I’d like that. I never heard no coyote,” Shawne exclaimed.
“We got coyotes in the hills around here. About ten miles away,” Kevin said.
“I’d like to sleep in a sleeping bag and listen to the coyotes and cook by the fire and stuff. I never done that,” Shawne said. “And maybe somebody would tell ghost stories and that’d be more fun.”
Kevin thought that, if today worked out well, maybe they could plan a camping trip for these kids.
At the zoo they saw elephants and tigers and even the pandas, which were the pride of the zoo. “This is a cool zoo,” Shawne commented. “I hate where the animals are in little cages and stuff. Here most of them are like in the wild.”
“I feel the same way,” Kevin agreed. “One time when I was small, somebody gave me a little canary and a cage to keep him in. He looked so sad, I just let him fly away. Maybe he didn’t make it out in the wild, but at least he got to be free for a while.”
On the way back to the church they stopped at a restaurant, and Shawne ordered the biggest hamburger on the menu. He was a skinny little guy and Kevin figured he could use the calories.
“I had fun today,” Shawne said.
“Me too. Do you like the place where you live, Shawne?” Kevin asked.
“It’s okay. They don’t have no other kids. But I got friends at school. At first I didn’t. I felt funny with other kids. I’m kinda scrawny and sometimes I say dumb things. Sometimes my stomach acts up, and I make a bad smell, you know? So you know what I did? I told these guys at school that I’m kinda shy and skinny and I’m not really smart, and sometimes I fart and my sneakers stink, but I’d still like to be their friend,” Shawne explained.
“What did your friends say to that?” Kevin asked.
Shawne grinned. “They liked me anyway,” he replied.
When the Tubman students said good-bye to the younger boys and put them on the bus, Kevin and the others joined in the cleanup. He told Jaris about planning a camping trip. “Yeah, good idea!” Jaris exclaimed. “My little guy would love that too.”
Kevin glanced around at his friends, and the old nervousness came over him. Did they all know? Did some of them know bits and pieces of his secret?
And then Kevin remembered what Shawne had said: “They liked me anyway.” Maybe telling everybody the truth was the best way. Maybe the right thing to do was just to be up front and let the chips fall where they may. And your friends might surprise you by liking you anyway.
When the cleanup was finished, Kevin looked at his friends and asked, “Would you guys all sort of gather around? There’s something I need to tell you.”
They all stood around him, some looking puzzled and others not so much. Alonee smiled as if she knew and wanted to give Kevin encouragement.
“You guys, you’re all my friends and I want you to know something. I haven’t been up front about everything since I came to Tubman. Well, I didn’t know how you’d feel about things. I guess I was scared. And then some of the story leaked out and I want you to know the truth.”
“That fool Marko Lane been saying your whole family is bad,” Sami said scornfully. “He was talkin’ trash—that you’re just like your daddy, like those crazy Roman emperors where bad blood ran in the family. I told him to shove it, that’s what I told him.”
Sami’s comment broke the ice, but it still wasn’t easy. Kevin looked at the faces of his friends and started to say what he had to say. “When I was three years old, my father killed a man in a fight. My father wasn’t a bad man. But he had a bad temper. He went to prison for second-degree murder. I was too young to know him well, but I remember him taking me to the park, carrying me on his shoulders. He never got mad around the house. He was nice to Mom and me. He loved us. But if somebody was treating him unfairly, he exploded like a firecracker. When he was fighting this man, the man hit his head and died. When I was six, there was a riot at the prison and my father was killed. I didn’t want to share any of this for fear of how some people would look at me, I guess. I think . . . I was scared and maybe ashamed. So that’s it. That’s the truth. Marko Lane found out about it, and he’s been using it to try to hurt me.”
There was a brief silence when Kevin finished talking. Then Sami came up to Kevin and gave him a big hug. Alonee followed.
One by one, they came up to Kevin. Some hugged him. Some shook his hand. Nobody said much. They just hugged him, shook his hand, patted him on the back, or high-fived him. The gestures were so heartfelt that there was no need for words.
Then, slowly, the group broke up and did the final chores to restore the church parking lot to how it was when they arrived in the morning.
Kevin smiled to himself and thought about little Shawne. He had told his would-be friends everything, and, as he said, “They liked me anyway.” Shawne was right.
Kevin’s only regret was that Carissa had not come. He wished she had been here to see with her own eyes that she had not hurt Kevin by revealing his secret. She wouldn’t have had to feel guilty anymore. She would have seen that Kevin’s friends did not care about what his father had done many years ago.
Kevin walked over to Carissa’s apartment in the early evening. He went up the stairs and rang the bell. This time Carissa’s mother was not home, and Carissa was alone because her father was working late.
When Carissa did not open the door immediately, Kevin called out, “Carissa, please open up. I have good news.”
Finally, she opened the door.
“Kevin,” Carissa said sadly.
“May I come in?” he asked.
Carissa stepped back and let him in. “I didn’t even want to go to school,” she said. “A couple kids called me and said there was terrible rumors all over the school and it was awful. I felt so bad I wanted to crawl in a hole and never come out.”
“Carissa, everything is okay. I told all my friends the whole truth about my father. They were wonderful. They gave me hugs and high fives, and it was beautiful. You don’t have to feel bad anymore, Carissa,” Kevin consoled her. “You know something? For all these years I’ve been hiding what happened to my father. My family thought that was a good idea because they were sad and ashamed about his prison record. It was like a big dark secret, a burden on my shoulders. It made me feel like I wasn’t quite as good as anybody else. But now everything is okay. I feel free of a big burden.”
“Oh Kevin . . . are you sure?” Carissa asked. “You were so popular at Tubman. You were like the biggest thing that ever happened at Tubman. I was so afraid all that would be different if people knew. I mean, I thought things would never be the same and it was my fault.”
“Carissa, come back to school. I’m telling you, it’s okay. It’s better than okay. Everything is cool,” Kevin said. He reached out and pulled Carissa against himself, gently stroking her back.
“You’re for sure not mad at me, Kevin?” Carissa asked in a wavering voice.
“No. I’m not mad at you. I could never be mad at you,” Kevin responded, tilting her head and kissing the tip of her nose. “Marko tried to make a big thing of my secret, but it ended up just proving what a creep he is. For a while there, I was really mad at him. I almost had it out with him, but. . . something stopped me. So it’s really okay babe. I promise you.”
The next day a few students who didn’t know Kevin well asked him if it was true that his father had killed someone. Or was that story just a lie that Marko was spreading to undermine Kevin? Kevin patiently explained the truth, and his answers seemed to satisfy everyone. The rumors died out as quickly as they had begun, and in days everybody was talking about the upcoming track meet, which was to be held on the Tubman High campus.
Coach Curry announced the lineup for the meet against Garfield. Given Kevin’s bad showing in the last 100-meter dash, Kevin wondered if Curry would ask him to skip the event. But Coach Curry told Kevin he was in the event, as well as in the relay race.
Kevin was determined to make this track meet his best ever. Marko’s lame jibes no longer even annoyed him. The air had gone out of Marko’s attacks. He was now a clown, dancing around the edges of Kevin’s world, powerless to have any effect on Kevin.
Tubman High was wild with excitement as the buses brought the Garfield Giants track team and as cars and vans carrying Garfield fans arrived. It was the biggest meet of the season, and, if Tubman won, it would put them in line for the championship regional games.
Kevin stood there looking at all his friends in the stands, grinning and waving. They had handmade signs saying, “Go Twister!” Carissa had the biggest, most impressive sign, and she and Alonee were holding it. “We love you, Twister! Go Titans!” it read in gold letters.
As Kevin was scanning the crowd, he caught his breath. Slowly making their way into the stands were his grandparents. They had never seen him run at Tubman or in any of the other schools. Grandma was helping Grandpa to their places in the stadium. Once seated, they got out their binoculars and grinned when they spotted Kevin. Both of them waved, and Kevin waved back wildly.
At the start of the 100-meter dash, Kevin crouched and waited for the signal to go. At the starting gun, he felt strong as he took off, springing from the blocks. He had never started this fast. Usually he lagged at the start and overtook the competition. Today he was flying for the whole 100 meters. He could hear the screams and the chants of the crowd as he broke a record, making the dash in 10.3 seconds.
When the relay team got ready to run, Kevin was again the anchor. Marko Lane started and Trevor was second, with Matson third. Kevin was glad he would not be taking the baton from Marko. Kevin ran the anchor lap the fastest he had ever run, giving the victory to the Tubman Titans in an amazing 55 seconds.
Coach Curry said that the winner of the Arthur Ashe Athletic and Leadership Trophy would be announced at the end of school on Friday. Curry pointed out that the trophy was named for Ashe not only because he was a great athlete but also “because he was a great human being. He helped the less fortunate. When faced with a devastating disease, he continued to reach out to others with courage and compassion.”
Marko Lane’s father made a substantial donation to the athletic department early in the week. Marko began to smile again with confidence. He thought that the donation would make a difference when the award was made.
Kevin was in his English class when the announcement came across the loudspeaker.
“Silence,” Mr. Pippin said. “Here comes the very important announcement.” This time the whole class obeyed. Marko reached over and grasped his girlfriend Jasmine’s hand. He winked at her. All that new sports equipment in the gym courtesy of the Lane family would surely count for something.
Coach Curry came on the PA system. “I wish to thank all the fine Tubman High School athletes who have contributed to our season. I wish especially to thank the track team, our marvelous Titans, who have given the school our first regional championship. It gives me great joy to single out one special athlete who not only excelled on the playing field, but who has given of himself in many school activities and projects. The Arthur Ashe Athletic and Leadership trophy goes to a young man who, like Ashe, has a heart as great as his talent: Kevin Walker.”
As the words sank in, Kevin looked around at the other kids in the class, who were cheering and clapping. Kevin could hear cheers and applause from other classrooms nearby. He knew his grandparents would jump for joy when he told them the great news. And he knew Mom knew already because she was always with him. And he knew he had a school full of wonderful new friends who accepted and liked him just as he was. Finally, he had nothing to hide. He was just another kid in the class—a boy called Twister.