CHAPTER 9

SO, THE NEXT afternoon, I can’t believe it when it happens.

Me and Dan are walking and he soft-smacks my face. Boom. We start slap-boxing.

This is how we sometimes play. If one of us soft-smacks the other, it’s on. We start boxing like two UFC fighters or Creed.

Right now, I bob and weave. Swing. “You think you better than me?”

Dan blocks like whoa. Swing. He misses. “Watch me beat you.”

“Beat me?” I say something I heard Muhammad Ali say: “I float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!” Swing, swing.

He skips around me, drops his guard! Swing. Bap. I tag his cheek.

Kids our age walk by and a few hawk us as we slap like two cats pawing each other in those GIFs.

Then a woman’s voice barks at me. “Young man! Leave that boy alone!”

Yo! Why’s she yelling at me?

What happens next is so wild, I feel outside of myself seeing it happen.

“Go back to your neighborhood. Don’t bring trouble here,” she tells me.

Huh? She thinks I can’t live here since it’s a mostly white neighborhood and I’m Black. And she thinks I’m trouble.

The man with her talks to Dan. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you? Should we call the cops?”

“WHOA!” Dan interrupts them. “This is my best friend. We’re playing.”

The look on the couple’s faces—their minds won’t let them believe me and Dan are tight.

The lady’s head jerks back. “Oh.”

The guy’s slit eyes still stay on me like I’m no good.

They walk off, and Dan hangs an arm around me. “What’s up their butts? They think they cops or something.”

I shrug. “I don’t know.”

“And why they ask me if I was okay? Don’t they know I’m better than you?” he jokes.

“Better?” I ask Dan. “Hold up. How you better than me?”

“What?”

“You said you better than me.”

“In slap-boxing.”

I feel like I’m bugging. Maybe making this about something more. But I have to ask. “Besides slap-boxing, we the same. Equal, right?”

“Yeah. Of course we’re equal. Why?” Dan scans my face. “You good, Stephen?”

I lift my fist for Dan to bump. “Dead it, bruh. I’m good. We good.”

He fist-bumps me. “Good. Because I might have to slap you again.” He jumps, jokey, to slap-box some more.

“Nah,” I tell him. “Not here.”