Mattie Archer drove her daughter, Lark Lennox, and Chelsea Spain to the Ice House for frozen yogurt. Maya Archer was a year younger than Chelsea. She was going to be at Marian Anderson Middle School another year.
Mattie Archer saw a friend and went to talk with her, leaving the girls alone.
“I wish you guys were coming to Tubman right away,” Chelsea told Maya and Lark.
“I got two more years of middle school,” Lark groaned. “It’s gonna be even more awful with you gone, Chel.”
Suddenly two more girls appeared. They’d been in eighth grade at Anderson, but they weren’t Chelsea’s friends. Kanika Brewster and Hana Ray came over with sneers on their faces. “I heard you were gonna work with that weirdo who takes care of dirty opossums, Chelsea,” Kanika said.
“So what?” Chelsea snapped.
“That Shadrach guy, I bet he got hurt in a gang fight up in LA,” Hana remarked.
“I don’t believe that,” Chelsea told the girl. “I think he’s a war veteran, and he got hurt over there in Iraq or Afghanistan.”
Kanika and Hana both laughed. Kanika crowed, “You’re so brainless, girl. You think this weirdo woulda been taken in the army? They only take smart guys like my father. He was in the army, and he’s got tons of medals. It’s a volunteer army, and only the best guys can come in a volunteer army. They never woulda wanted that old Shadrach.”
“The army recruiter woulda chased Shadrach away,” Hana chimed in. Hana tried to copy everything Kanika did. Chelsea felt sorry for Hana having a role model as creepy as Kanika. “He’s a weirdo who’s got nothing better to do than pick up old dead opossums. That is really dangerous ’cause they all got rabies.”
“Shows how much you know,” Chelsea countered. “Opossums can’t get rabies ’cause their body temperatures are too low.”
“Liar!” Kanika yelled shrilly. “You just made that up.”
“Everybody knows opossums have rabies,” Hana said loyally.
“You girls are kinda mean,” Maya Archer commented.
“I don’t like you,” Lark Lennox agreed. “Go away.”
“Chelsea Spain, why you hanging with these little babies?” Kanika demanded, looking scornfully at Maya and Lark. “And, anyway, you’re so stupid you woulda flunked science at Anderson if Heston Crawford didn’t help you!”
Suddenly Mattie Archer was standing there, her hands on her ample hips. “Kanika Brewster, what’re you hollerin’ about?” she demanded. “You’re a troublemaker Kanika, and so are you, Hana. You goin’ to Tubman now, and they make short work of troublemakers there. Y’hear what I’m sayin’? You may be queen of the meanies at Anderson Middle School, but you playin’ in a bigger pool now, girl. Tubman freshman, they got no time for fools like you, Kanika. And Hana, you best get a mind of your own before you turn out as bad as Kanika! Next time I see your ma in the supermarket, Hana, I’m gonna ask her. I’m gonna find out why you hangin’ with Kanika and doin’ everythin’ she tell you to do. You need to be your own self.”
Kanika and Hana grabbed their frozen yogurt cones and marched out of the Ice House.
On Saturday morning, Jaris dropped Chelsea off at Tubman High. Pop was riding with them this morning, and Jaris was dropping him at work. His pickup needed a new battery. Ms. Colbert was already at school, loading up her van.
“Have fun with the opossums, little girl,” Pop sang. “I’d rather you made friends with the opossums than most kids your age, if you get my meaning.”
Chelsea saw Athena and Heston standing by Ms. Colbert’s van. Chelsea rushed over. “Athena! You said you weren’t interested in working with the opossums!” she said.
“I changed my mind,” Athena answered. “Summer’s barely going, and I’m already bored outta my mind. Mom is after me to start reading all these ghastly books, like about some dude named Ivanhoe. I mean, it’s summer! I’m supposed to be having fun. All of a sudden the opossums sounded good.”
“I’m glad you came,” Chelsea responded happily.
Maurice Moore came biking up. When he saw Chelsea, he said, “Hey Chel, how’s that freakin’ lunatic brother of yours? He still terrorizing kids in the ’hood?”
Chelsea laughed. Jaris had run Maurice off their property when he was wrestling with Athena in the front yard. “Jaris is okay,” she assured him. “He just wants a little respect.”
“That dude is crazeee,” Maurice whistled.
“Yeah,” Heston admitted, “he scares me too.”
“I didn’t think you’d be here, Maurice,” Chelsea remarked. Maurice was a tough, trash-talking, soon-to-be freshman. He once bragged to some friends that he went tagging one time with the Nite Ryders just to see what it was like. He even helped them boost some beer from the supermarket parking lot.
“I like that dude, Shadrach,” Maurice replied. “He’s pretty cool. Anyway, this work sounds weird enough to be interesting. My old man had me doing chores around the house, and that’s the pits, man. My father’s a tyrant. ‘Go there, do this,’ twenty-four-seven. Weed the stinkin’ yard. Paint the stinkin’ fence. I told him I could do this and get credit for science in school, and he let me go. He really wants me to do good at Tubman. I got mostly Ds at Anderson.”
“Okay!” Ms. Colbert announced as she looked up from her clipboard. “We got everybody who signed up. Chelsea, Athena, Maurice, and Heston. You’ll all be in my science class at Tubman when school starts. That’s my Intro to Science for ninth grade. If you keep a good journal about your experiences here with the opossum rescue program, you’ll get credit.”
They all piled into the teacher’s van. Chelsea was happy and excited. She was with her friends, and they were going to do something both good and exciting.
“I never met Shadrach,” Athena commented. “Is it true that he’s a one-eyed pirate?”
Ms. Colbert heard the comment and laughed. “Don’t worry, Athena,” she assured the girl, “we’ve checked Shadrach out quite thoroughly. We found no convictions for piracy on the high seas.”
“He looks like a pirate though, huh, Chelsea?” Heston asked. “You’ve seen him.”
“You guys,” Ms. Colbert cautioned, “don’t be asking Shadrach a lot of silly questions about his injuries, okay? I imagine he gets enough of that. When you get to know him better, he may share his story with you. Let him do it in his own time.”
Chelsea liked Ms. Colbert. She seemed really cool. It was reassuring to Chelsea that she already had good rapport with one of the teachers she would have at Tubman. It made thinking about the first day of school less scary.
As they turned onto Indigo Street, Ms. Colbert forewarned the students. “I know you’ve been here already, Chelsea. But for the rest of you, be prepared for a very simple, no-frills place. Shadrach keeps it clean and orderly for the rescued opossums. But you’re not going to see gleaming facilities like at a modern zoo. The zoo has tax money. Shadrach relies on his own income and donations.”
“Why does he do this stuff?” Maurice asked. “My dad says nothin’ is worth doin’ if you don’t get paid.”
Ms. Colbert glanced back at Maurice. “Maurice, we do a lot in life we don’t get paid for. There are other forms of compensation, like satisfaction. Shadrach cares about the animals he rescues. It makes him happy to get them well and release them back into the wild. I went with him and some kids for a night release of an opossum. I’m telling you guys, it was a very emotional experience.”
Maurice didn’t say anything, but he still thought this Shadrach had to be crazy. “The place looks like a dump,” Maurice remarked as they pulled into the driveway.
“Maurice,” Ms. Colbert scolded, “you’ll be representing Tubman. Be careful what you say. We don’t want to make our school look bad. We don’t want Shadrach to think our kids have no manners. Okay?”
“Sorry,” Maurice assented. “I’m cool.”
All five of them went to the door, and Shadrach swung it wide. “Hi there!” Shadrach greeted them. “Come on in.”
Ms. Colbert introduced the four Tubman students. Then she announced, “I’ll be back around noon to pick you guys up if that works for you, Shadrach.”
“Fine,” he agreed, “two hours is perfect for the tour and for beginning training.”
When Ms. Colbert left, Shadrach said, “Okay. I’ll show you the cages where we keep the adult opossums and the plastic containers for the babies.”
“Do you really like doing this stuff, Mr. Shadrach?” Maurice asked.
“Shadrach is fine. No ‘mister’ necessary,” Shadrach told the boy. “And, yeah, I love it.”
“When Chelsea told me about this place,” Athena remarked, “I went on the Internet, and I found out some interesting stuff about opossums. They’ve been in North America for like a hundred and twenty million years. I thought that was amazing. I mean, a lot of nerve we humans have pushing them out of their habitat, huh?”
Shadrach smiled at Athena. “I like the way this girl thinks,” he announced to the small group. “We humans are pretty arrogant when it comes to pushing other species out of the way. Opossums are quite smart. They’re smarter than dogs. They’ve been given tests to prove that. In their natural habitat, they’ve got plenty of food, plants, insects, but in our ‘hood,’ they gotta be resourceful. They eke out a living between houses, behind fences. They depend on stuff like cat food, cockroaches, and rats. In spite of big, nasty dogs, automobiles, and bigger, nastier people, they thrive.”
“What good are they?” Heston asked.
Shadrach paused. He turned and looked at Heston. “What good is anybody? That’s not for us to figure out. They are. Opossums are. There’s a reason for any of us to survive. We just don’t always know the reason.”
The four teenagers looked into the cages and seemed especially fascinated by Magic. “Who wants to hold him?” Shadrach asked.
Athena jumped back. “Not me,” she protested.
“Chelsea held him the other day,” Shadrach urged. “He liked her.”
“He’s so cute and lovable,” Chelsea remarked. “He feels like a kitten.”
“Maybe I’ll hold him next time,” Heston responded.
Maurice stepped closer to the cage. He peered in at the little animal with the bright, beady eyes. “I’d like to take a shot at holding him,” Maurice declared.
Shadrach opened the cage and put Magic in Maurice’s arms. Magic looked intently up at the boy. Maurice had a strange look on his face. “He’s lookin’ at me like he’s tryin’ to figure me out,” Maurice commented.
“Probably that’s what he’s doing,” Shadrach said.
“But animals can’t figure things out like we do, can they?” Athena asked.
“How do you know?” Shadrach asked with a quizzical smile.
Athena shrugged. “Yeah,” she agreed with a nod of her head.
“That guy there—Magic,” Shadrach told them, “he’s getting stronger every day. I go special places when I release them at night. He’s getting ready to go. I’ll miss him, but he wants to go. They all do. A cage is no better for an animal than it is for a person. Any of you kids still with the program, you can come with me and watch the release. You’ll never forget it.”
“Ms. Colbert told us she was with you when you released an opossum. She said it was wonderful,” Chelsea remarked. “I’d love to see that.”
Shadrach put Magic back into his cage. Then he put the four teenagers to work replacing the old wet newspaper in the cages with fresh newspaper. At first Athena and Heston were saying “Yuck” and grimacing, but then they got in the swing of things. They became very efficient. Chelsea and Maurice put fresh newspapers in the plastic bin for the baby opossums. “Look at them,” Maurice gasped with a kind of awe in his voice. “They’re so tiny, like little worms or something, but they got big ears!”
Chelsea smiled at Maurice. She knew Maurice since they both started at Marian Anderson Middle School. Maurice disrupted class a lot. He was a wild kid. He was usually bored, and when he was bored, he made trouble. He got poor grades, and he talked trash. When he was mad, every other word from his mouth was something they wouldn’t allow on TV. Chelsea had seen him get into fights too, but always off school grounds so he wasn’t busted. It seemed strange to see him now so fascinated with these little animals.
Twelve o’clock came too quickly. Shadrach made sure everybody washed their hands thoroughly a few minutes before Ms. Colbert’s van appeared.
“Well, for those of you not too grossed out, see you next Saturday. Thanks for coming over and helping out today. You were all great,” Shadrach complimented them.
Chelsea looked more closely at the man than she had before. His one eye was deep, dark blue. His features were nice. He had a rather broad nose and full expressive lips. For a second, she tried to imagine what he looked like before the accident. He probably was handsome. He would have looked like Will Smith as a young man. Chelsea thought maybe Shadrach was from Louisiana because she knew some other black people with blue eyes from there.
“Thanks for having us, Shadrach,” Chelsea responded.
When the four of them were in the van, Ms. Colbert asked, “How’d it go?”
“It’s dirty work,” Athena answered. “I hated it at first, but then I got used to it. I really like Shadrach. I got to sorta like the little opossums too.”
“It was good,” Heston added. “I got a lot of stuff to put in my journal. I learned a lot.”
“I loved it,” Chelsea said. “I knew I would, but it was even better than I thought. The opossums are so cute. And Shadrach is way cool.”
“I guess I’ll come back next week,” Maurice concluded. “I want to see what happens to that guy—Magic. He looked at me real funny, like he knew stuff about me. I don’t know, but I think he’s probably an outsider in the opossum community too. He’s kinda, you know, like me.”
“Well, it sounds like everybody is coming back next Saturday?” Ms. Colbert asked. “And more kids may be joining. Be sure to write in your journals today while everything is fresh in your minds. By the time school begins, you’ll already have a project under your belt in my class.”
Jaris came to pick Chelsea up at Tubman at twelve fifteen. He was always good about picking her up and taking her places since she was grounded. Chelsea missed not being able to take the bus or ride her bike places. She hoped that when she became a freshman at Tubman, her parents would give her another chance. She missed her freedom. And she felt sorry for Jaris. He was generally good-natured but was a burden for him. But Chelsea felt bad that he was paying the price for her stupidity.
“Hi, Jaris,” Chelsea greeted. “Thanks for picking me up.”
“No problem, chili pepper,” he responded.
“Jaris, you look kinda sad,” Chelsea observed. “Wassup?”
“Just between us, Chelsea,” Jaris confided, “Sereeta’s mom had too much to drink last night. Me and Sereeta had to go downtown and pick her up.”
“Ohhh,” Chelsea groaned, “poor Sereeta!”
“Yeah, and that’s not the worst part,” Jaris added. “Some stupid neighbor kid at the Manley house saw us leading her up the walk. Now she’s texting all her stupid friends about it. Everybody’s gossiping. I’m afraid it’ll get back to Sereeta and hurt her even more. Times like this, this instant communication stuff creeps me out. Before you even get home, some airhead is putting your private life out there for all to see.”
“I’m sorry, Jaris,” Chelsea sympathized. “You tell Sereeta we all love her a lot, and things are gonna get better. Tell her it doesn’t matter what stupid people say.”