We make it all the way to 140th Street—fourteen whole blocks and more churches than I can count—before we arrive at the Holy Redeemer Church. There’s another small crowd gathered outside—grandmas and grandpas, regular grown-ups and kids, lots of kids. And it’s not even the church grandmas who shake their heads, scrunch up their faces, or wag their fingers when they see what I’m wearing. It’s Pigeon-Chest Boy and some of his fellow nefarious minions.
“Why are they here?” I ask Bianca as we join the small crowd piling through the narrow double-doors of the church. The building looks more like one of the many stores along Lenox Avenue instead of a church.
“They come here for worship,” Bianca says. “That’s Calvin. We’re gonna be in Sunday school together.”
“Calvin,” I repeat with disgust, as if I’m saying cauliflower or cabbage or callous. “Callous Calvin. Stone-Cold Calvin.”
Stone-Cold Calvin is pointing at me. I furrow my brows and clench my fists, ready for an attack. He makes his way over to us with some of his nefarious minions.
“Oooh, you’re gonna be in trouble! How come you don’t have on church clothes?” he sings with a voice that sounds like broken concrete.
I scrunch up my face even tighter.
“You look like you wanna hit me,” Stone-Cold Calvin says, stepping closer. “Go ’head. Right in front of church. See what happens.”
I pull up my right arm in front of me with all my might and shoot out a strong “Pew!” in his direction. Before he even blinks, I do the same with my other arm. “Pew!”
Bianca touches my shoulder. “No, Ebony. Not here,” she whispers.
But it’s too late. Stone-Cold Calvin and the nefarious minions start to laugh.
“You think you’re Wonder Woman?” he says. ‘You ain’t no Wonder Woman.”
“And she has on boys’ clothes!” one of them calls out.
They keep laughing and I’m ready to pull out my secret and most powerful weapon of all, but a grown-up pulls one of the boys by the ear and they all get really quiet as if the Sonic Boom has stolen their voices. My grown-up isn’t here to pinch me or look at me sideways. Momma is all the way down in Huntsville and she won’t see me act insolent or unbecoming or discourteous.
“Shawn, what’d I tell you about acting a fool right before church?” a woman says through clenched teeth.
She glances at me and scrunches up her nose. Even as she pulls the boy into the church, she keeps looking at me. Soon, the nefarious minions are making their way into the small building without paying me any mind.
Then, I catch another church lady staring at me, too. And then another. I slowly realize that a few of them have gathered around Señora Luz and they all have their eyes on me. These church ladies and grandmas are not nefarious minions, of course. They’re grown-ups who’ve been locked out of their imagination locations. Bianca is no longer by my side, and it’s like having Momma watching me through all these ladies’ eyes.
If Momma were to secretly teleport from Huntsville to land right in front of me and see me on a Sunday, in front of a small and not-so-fancy church, wearing a Superman short set, I’d surely get a licking or two and be forbidden to have caramel cake or banana pudding for the whole summer.
I pretend to look away and kick around tiny pieces of litter from the sidewalk while activating my bionic ears. Their whispers become as loud as car horns.
“Julius ain’t minding her. How’s he just gonna dump her on you like that, Luz? You already got one of your own,” a grandma says.
“I got a prayer cloth in my bag. Could wrap it around her skinny legs twice to cover up them boys’ shorts,” another church lady adds.
“Just this Sunday, okay? Next time, she’ll be appropriate.” Señora Luz says something else, but my bionic ears stop working.
I can’t help myself, so I blurt out, “There won’t be a next time!”
The ladies and grandmas all gasp. A few kids are left standing outside, and their eyes get really wide as if I’m about to get in the worst trouble. I’m sure this will make it back to King Sirius Julius. But I’m not smiling or laughing. So there’s no reason for him to keep me as his prisoner.
“That is not the way to speak to your elders, young lady,” a grandma says with a voice almost like a man’s. She steps closer to me, and I step back. “This is a holy place, now you watch your tone.”
I keep my eyes on her, staring her down, making sure she doesn’t lay a finger on me. This isn’t Huntsville where Momma gives any and everybody permission to pop me one time if I get out of line.
“Ebony, sweetheart,” Señora Luz says with her singsong voice like molasses. “Come inside for service. You can stay with Bianca for Sunday school.”
Bianca is not looking in my direction. She’s slipping from me. I have to save her! I can’t lose this battle.
I walk over to Bianca, grab her hand, and walk right into the church with her—she in her fancy dress and me in my Superman short set.