CHAPTER

30

Cadet E-Grace Starfleet to Captain Fleet: Do you copy?

Cadet E-Grace Starfleet to Captain Fleet . . .

I’ve been compromised, Captain Fleet. The Uhura is unmanned and I’ve been teleported by the force field Sonic Boom and I cannot escape!

Location: Planet Boom Box.

Captor: The Sonic King.

Do you copy, Captain Fleet?

King Sirius Julius and Planet No Joke City were carbon copies of the Sonic King and Planet Boom Box. There’s been a malfunction with the transporter caused by an ionic storm. This is a mirror universe, Captain. No Joke City is Planet Boom Box! King Sirius Julius is the Sonic King!

The Sonic Boom is all around me, Captain Fleet. It hovers over the planet like a gigantic bubble floating over Momma’s Calgon bath. And yes, it is the Atomic Sonic Boom—louder and prouder than James Brown at a Black Panther rally. That’s what you would say, Granddaddy. As loud as a Hendrix guitar solo, yessir! As proud as Aretha’s big, bellowing voice singing R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Sure is! Bass so low you can’t get under it. Lemme say it again. So low you can’t get under it! And volume so high you can’t get over it. Say what now? So high you can’t get over it!

Tiny sound bubbles float out of the Sonic King’s mega speakers and explode like fireworks all over the block. You should see it, Captain Fleet. The boom, the bip, the bap, the ratatat combined with the crack-crack-pop-pop and you don’t stop, body-rock shock waves all over the ground making everybody get down. So I tap my feet and bop my head even though I don’t want to, really.

I can’t lose control. I can’t lose my soul.

The Sonic King shouts into a mic and everybody calls him DJ Jule Thief. He says my name over the music for the whole block to hear. “Shout out to my baby girl, Ebony-Grace!”

Then, he scratches the record and the boom-bip-bap-ratatat sounds go backward, sideways, and inside out. And out comes the “Planet Rock” and Soul Sonic Force and “Jam On It” like shooting stars, meteors, and asteroids landing on the buildings and sidewalks and right on the people’s heads. They all lose control—swinging their arms and kicking their legs and moving their hips—dippin’ and trippin’.

They gather around the Sonic King like moths to the lantern that sits out on our porch at night down in Huntsville. They cheer him on, pumping their fists in the air like Muhammad Ali fighting the Sonic Boom itself. They call out names like Fab 5 Freddy, Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash, Whodini, the Sugar Hill Gang, Warp 9, and Run-DMC.

“DJ Jule Thief, can you play ‘Planet Rock’ one mo’ time?” Diva Diane yells out from behind the food table across the street.

I don’t leave Daddy’s front gate. Even though it’s not locked, I still feel like I’m stuck here, that if I try to step out, there’d be a greater, more powerful force to keep me even more trapped, more imprisoned, more frozen in this ice-cold place. Still, a little drop of the Sonic Boom gets to my foot and I tap it against the ground. Tap, boom-boom, tap. A little of it lands on my head and I bop. I snap my fingers once until I spot Pablo Jupiter. He’s waving at me to come over. I don’t dare move because directly across from him, in front of another building, is Bianca Pluto staring at him, then she turns to me. She starts to walk over. A few of the ice cream flavors follow her. But it’s Mint Chocolate Chip Monique who opens up her big mouth first.

“Your daddy is deejaying, so you should come out here and dance. He just gave you a shout-out over the mic, so the least you could do is show him some of your moves, Outta Space Ebony-Grace.” She says this with her arms crossed as if this invitation were a threat.

“I can’t. I’m a prisoner,” I say.

“You’re a what?” Rum Raisin Rhonda asks.

“She said she’s a prisoner,” Monique answers for me. “You don’t know nothing about prison. I gotta cousin in prison. Ain’t nobody stopping you from coming out that gate except your own doggone self.”

Bianca is about to say something but a louder and newer sound makes everybody freeze and turn toward the Sonic King—that scratching sound that makes everything go backward, sideways, and inside out again.

“Come on, party people, crowd around!” Daddy says into the microphone with a deeper voice I’ve never heard him use before. “Crowd around, party people, come on!”

Then everybody starts clapping to a beat and Daddy repeats his rap again. “Come on, party people, crowd around. Crowd around, party people, come on!”

Bianca and the rest of the ice cream flavors leave me behind as they follow the king’s orders. Everyone is hypnotized by his Sonic Boom voice and that rap and that clap. Then he stops. It’s suddenly quieter than it’s ever been on this block.

“Are y’all havin’ a good time?” the Sonic King asks, his voice echoes over the buildings.

Everyone cheers, breaking the silence.

“All right now. So we’re gettin’ ready for this contest. There’s a new and improved grand prize: two hundred and fifty bucks and a chance to compete at the world-famous Apollo Theater along with the Rock Steady Crew, and a new kid on the scene, Harlem’s own Doug E. Fresh, the human beatbox.”

Everyone loses their minds. This isn’t like with the Sonic Boom music. They cheer and jump up and down as if every single person on this block had just won the jackpot after playing the numbers.

“So One-Two-Six got two crews competing,” Daddy continues.

I step outside of the gate because this is the battle the 9 Flavas were talking about. This is the moment they’ve been practicing for and I’ve been messing it up for them all this time.

“Y’all gotta come correct if y’all gonna represent my block. Born and raised in this hood so don’t make us look bad now,” the Sonic King adds. “Okay, who we got here today?”

Some people in the crowd surrounding Daddy start shouting, “Genesis Ten!”

I watch as Pablo Jupiter rushes to find the rest of the nefarious minions. He gathers about five of them, but Calvin is nowhere in sight.

“We got the Nine Flavas Crew over here, DJ Jule Thief!” Diane shouts as I watch Monique round up her team. “They’re going up against Genesis Ten!”

But Daddy ignores Diane and starts calling over Pablo Jupiter and them as the crowd parts to make way for their cardboards. They all pose with their arms folded across their chests, and some crouch down on the ground as if they’re ready to do karate with Bruce Lee.

“All right now,” the Sonic King says. “It’s Genesis Five over here. Ladies, lemme hear you scream!”

“Five?” some of the 9 Flavas say out loud, rolling their necks and looking over at Pablo Jupiter.

All the girls in the crowd scream just like the Sonic King ordered. Everybody looks around. They’re Genesis Ten. There are ten of them, not five.

But the crowd parts in the other direction and in comes Calvin and four of the other nefarious minions. Everybody claps and cheers them on as they drag an even bigger cardboard in front of the Sonic King’s control boards. Calvin walks over to the Sonic King and whispers something in his ear.

“All right now,” Daddy says again. “We got Cold-Crush Calvin . . . ”

The crowd claps and cheers some more.

“And the Fresh Four! That’s Cold-Crush Calvin and the Fresh Four! A new team on the scene!”

Pablo Jupiter and his crew don’t make a move. But Bianca, Monique, Rhonda, and Diane are trying to get Daddy’s attention.

“Mr. Freeman, they were supposed to be the other team! All of them!” Diane yells out pointing toward Monique and Bianca. But people only glance at her until she walks up to Daddy and tries to grab the microphone from him. Bianca and Monique are right behind her.

The microphone screeches, and everyone covers their ears until it stops. I keep my hands over mine because if the loud music is the Atomic Sonic Boom, then this screaming sound is the Mega Atomic Sonic Boom. I’m sure it’s done something to my brain at this point, as loud as it was.

Daddy puts the microphone behind him so no one could hear his conversation with Diane and them. And that’s when I decide to step out of the gate and get closer to the very top of the radio tower on Planet Boom Box—the source of the Sonic Boom. I ease my way through the crowd until I get to the Sonic King, and I can’t help but stare at his control boards with its spinning records and knobs and buttons and blinking lights.

“But, Mr. Freeman, they purposely split up just so they could compete against one another and whoever ends up winning, they’ll still get the prize. That’s not fair!” Diane says.

“Y’all just gonna have to wait for the double-Dutch contest. We’ll have it right after the boys finish,” the Sonic King says.

“But we didn’t sign up for no double-Dutch contest. We wanna break-dance like Calvin and ’em. And we wanna get on the mic, too!” Monique adds.

“Mr. Freeman, I could rhyme better than all of ’em,” Bianca says.

Daddy puts his hand up while shaking his head. “The contest is for only two crews. They got their two crews. Now, wait for the double-Dutch teams. The girls from 127th are headed over here. There’s even a bunch coming down from the Bronx and the East Side. No need to compete with the boys.”

Just as he says this, the crowd behind us starts to get impatient and they call out, “Genesis Five,” and “Cold-Crush Calvin.”

Before Diane, Monique, and Bianca start arguing with Daddy again, he gets back on the mic to start the contest. “First up: Genesis Five. We got a request for a song off the Breakin’ soundtrack. Let’s go!”

The Sonic King ignores the 9 Flavas Crew even as more of them come up to his control boards arguing that they should be the ones battling Genesis Ten and how Calvin and them purposely broke up their crew just to keep the girls out of the contest. But the Sonic King isn’t hearing any of it, neither are the people standing around waiting for the battle to get started.

The music comes on at full blast and I cover my ears again. We’re all pushed out of the way so the boys can do their thing. I follow Bianca and the ice cream flavors as they stomp down the block and away from the crowd. Bianca is pouting. Monique is cursing so much that if my momma could hear her now, she would wash her mouth out with Octagon soap.

“That’s not fair!” Bianca blurts out.

And at the same moment the crowd cheers even louder. I could see Calvin’s legs spinning around like a helicopter’s rotor blades.

“Why won’t he let you dance like the nefarious—” I start to ask. “I mean, like the boys?”

“Don’t you know? That’s your father,” Monique says. “He don’t want us doing what the boys do. He just thinks we’re only good at double-Dutch.”

“We’re good at double-Dutch and breakin’ and rappin’!” Rhonda says. “That’s way more than what Calvin and Pablo could do.”

“What are they gonna do with that money, anyway?” Monique continues. “They don’t need no Dapper Dan outfits. But we gotta look fly.”

“And ain’t nothing on that flyer that said an all-girl crew can’t compete at the Apollo Theater. We don’t have to mix in with boys just so they could take us seriously,” Bianca says.

Her voice cracks, as if her whole soul were about to break apart into a thousand pieces. That’s what happened to one of Granddaddy’s records when I accidentally stepped on it. She sits on the dirty curb, even with its broken glass and garbage, and puts her head down on her knees. A dark cloud hovers over her. Her soulshine—the one that lit up bright when she was break dancing and rapping against Pablo Jupiter—is now dull, dark, and almost gone.

I sit next to her.

She scoots away from me.

“Leave her alone, Ice Cream Sandwich!” Rhonda calls out.

“That’s my friend!” I call back.

“Then do something! That’s your father and he’s not being fair!” Monique says. Then, she starts counting off on her fingers and rolling her neck with each word. “You can’t jump double-Dutch. You can’t dance. You can’t rap. The least you could do is get your daddy to let us battle those stupid-head boys!”

“You can’t tell me what to do!” I yell at her. But after two seconds, I get up and stomp over to the Sonic King. I can hear the ice cream flavors walking behind me and talking over the music.

“What she think she gonna do?”

“Nothing. She’s a daddy’s girl.”

“If she sticks up for us, you think we should make her the tenth flava?”

“She gotta learn how to dance first.”

“At least learn to turn a rope.”

“And jump, too.”

“And rhyme.”

“Yep.”

“Don’t you think that’s asking too much?”

“She is country, you know.”

“Well, she’s in Harlem now.”

“I know that’s right.”

“Uh-huh.”

I stop suddenly and the 9 Flavas almost all bump into me. I turn around and look each one in the eye. “Okay,” I say. “I have a plan. If you want me to help, then we have to strategize. We have to take down the king.”

“Here we go again,” Monique says, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes.

Bianca sighs. “What king, Ebony?”

“The Sonic King. He controls all the loud boom-bip-bap-ratatat sounds in the entire galaxy! The meanest, loudest, mind-controllest sound in the whole universe. He sends out a Sonic Boom to the planets and takes over all the aliens’ minds so he could control everything!”

“Ice Cream Sandwich!” Rhonda calls out. “Stay off them drugs.”

“Now is not the time for those silly stories, Ebony,” Bianca says, low enough for the others not to hear. I see sadness in her eyes, like blurry stars behind cloudy Huntsville skies.

So I step closer to her and ask, “Do you trust me, Bianca Pluto?”

“No. Not if you’re calling me Bianca Pluto.”

“I thought that was your rapping name,” I say.

“It is. When I’m rapping. But when you call me that, I know you’re gonna wanna take me to Mars or something.”

“I’m gonna distract the king and all the nefarious minions. And when they’re all not looking, the Nine Flavas can start doing their breaking-bones dance,” I say. “It’s like how Admiral Kirk tricked Kruge into going to the Genesis Planet in the movie. Remember?” Without waiting to hear what she thinks, I march up to the crowd, demand that they get out of our way, step over one of the Genesis Tens-now-Fives doing his dance moves on the cardboard, and walk straight up to the Sonic King even as the Sonic Boom pulses so hard, it reaches my bones.

I inhale, put my hands on my hips, and as regular ol’ Ebony-Grace Norfleet Freeman, I yell, “Daddy, my friends wanna do that breaking-bones dance and win this contest! They need the money to get their outfits made by Dapper Dan for the contest at the Apollo Theater!”

He only waves me away, holding headphones to his ear and changing the record on his control board. I watch how he places his fingers on the black, shiny round disc, pulls it back, moves it forward a little bit, and pulls it back some more as the sound changes from a screech to a bass to a boom-boom, then back to a bass and a screech over and over again. I can feel the crowd, the block, and maybe even the whole city swaying and rocking to the beat.

The man in the song sings “Planet Rock” as everybody repeats each word with him. I am so small against this big, big sound. It pounds, swirls, and blows past me in a heavy wave as wide and deep as outer space.

I turn to see the boys moving their bodies to the beat. Every part of them pops and locks like a machine, like an engine, like a robot. I watch everybody’s faces like a hundred suns gleaming bright. This isn’t like church where my nana’s friends let go of their bodies to make way for the Holy Spirit, as the pastor would say. This isn’t like when Mrs. Headley and Mrs. Turner shimmy their shoulders and throw their heads back and put their hands up in the air saying, “Yes, Lord!” This isn’t because of Momma’s Jesus.

This breaking-bones dance, this pounding bass, these faces like a hundred suns as they clap and groove and make their bodies move is because of something bigger than this little planet. This sound, this music really did come from another world, and if what that man on the song is saying is right, then this Sonic Boom is really from a place called Planet Rock.

The Sonic Boom does make you lose all control. And the man talking over the song calls it the Soul Sonic Force.

One of the cardboard boxes on the ground is empty. Pablo Jupiter and his crew are doing a two-step dance like The Commodores or The Jackson 5, kicking out side to side and clapping their hands to the beat. No one is doing the breaking-bones dance on the cardboard. So I take my chance.

I look back over at the brown, rectangular cardboard—it’s dirty and beat-up as if it’d been trampled over by every single person who lives in No Joke City. But it’s for dancing, not for walking over. Then suddenly, the tears and footprints and stains start to morph into whirling black holes, like dark storms on the surface of a far-flung planet. The storms spin to the beat of the music, and in no time at all, the cardboard becomes a giant black void speckled with stars and tiny Milky Ways.

In the distance is a Planet Boom Box with its beaming radio tower bouncing and spinning to the music. It pulses like a heartbeat and before I even say Planet Boom Box, I spot the Sonic King holding out his scepter toward me as a giant iridescent bubble aims straight for me. It blows up in my face and out comes the loudest mind-controllest sound in the entire galaxy.

I lose all control and count down to the beat ready to launch: 5, 4, 3 . . .

The man on the song raps over the beat, “So twist and turn, then you let your body slide and glide / You got the body rock and pop, bounce and pounce . . . ”

I hop right onto the cardboard, that becomes the galaxy, and I fall and fall and fall like Luke Skywalker falling through those giant shafts after fighting with his own daddy, Darth Vader, in Cloud City. Every time I think I land on something, I keep falling again. Atmospheric pressure pulls and pushes me in different directions as my arms and legs flail about and the Sonic Boom keeps pounding its mind-controlling beat into my ears and throughout my body. Still, I don’t scream. I have to be strong so I can help the 9 Flavas. I’m coming for you, Bianca Pluto! Then, finally, I land on the surface of Planet Boom Box.

I am a meteor spinning toward Planet Earth.

I am R2-D2 and C-3PO moving about like hands on a clock—tick-tick-tick-tock.

I bend my arms and bop my head and pop and lock my bones like Michael’s dancing machine and they don’t even break. I let the groove take over my whole soul and ride on Planet Boom Box until it reaches the end of the galaxy. This Sonic Boom is what the spinning universe sounds like.

But it comes to a stop and everything is like it was in the very beginning—quiet, like floating in zero gravity.

“Come on, Broomstick,” the Sonic King says over the microphone. “You can’t just come in and bust up the contest like that!”

Everyone is booing me. The nefarious minions are shouting in my face, telling me to get out of the way. Their gibberish words are like laser beams attacking the Uhura. I can’t even activate the deflector shields because I’m out of breath and my heart is racing.

“That’s not what you were supposed to do, Ebony-Grace!” Monique shouts.

“You can’t dance, Ice Cream Sandwich!” says Rhonda.

“You messed up the whole contest!” Vanessa yells.

“Why’d you do that for, Ebony?” Bianca asks, stepping closer. “We were supposed to dance. You didn’t even practice. Why do you always want attention?”

“It was a distraction. You were supposed to jump in and do your moves!” I say.

Bianca clenches her fists and tightens her jaw as if she’s ready to punch me.

“Hey now!” Daddy says. “Y’all take that somewhere else. Everybody’s over here having a good time. Now don’t mess that up, girls.”

I watch as Bianca stomps away and the rest of her friends roll their eyes at me, stick out their tongues, or don’t even look my way.

Everything continues to swirl around me as if I’m invisible, as if I’m an alien.

“All right, y’all. I think we gotta tie,” Daddy says on the mic. “We gotta fifty-fifty split between the Genesis Five and Cold-Crush Calvin and the Fresh Four!”

Everyone claps and cheers. I look toward where the 9 Flavas are standing at the edge of the crowd near the red-and-white-checkered food table. I can’t hear their words as they pout and point with anger spread across all their faces. Bianca sits on the curb again with her chin in her hands. She glances at me and shakes her head. I look down at my feet.

“Beam me up, Captain Fleet,” I whisper against the blasting music again. This time, a robotic voice sings “Jam On it” and it sounds as if the Sonic King’s Funkazoids are making fun of me from the control boards.

“That’s not fair,” someone says as they brush past me. It’s Pablo Jupiter, pouting and looking back at Calvin and them as if they’d just betrayed him. He walks toward Daddy’s auto repair shop.

I look back at Bianca again, who isn’t even looking my way. Then back at Pablo Jupiter who is walking away. So, like I’m being pulled by a tractor beam, I follow the boy who has the wide and tall doors to his imagination location flung open to let in all the dancing stars and bouncing planets and soaring rocket ships.