ONCE FRITA FOUND ME UNDER THE PICNIC TABLE, SHE KNEW EXACTLY what had happened.
“Did Duke Evans and Frankie Carmen do this to you?” she asked, setting down her certificate and class picture so she could untie my shirtsleeves.
“Yup,” I said.
Frita shook her head. “I knew I should’ve come looking for you as soon as you didn’t line up, but Ms. Murray said, ‘Don’t you move, Frita Wilson,’ and I thought for sure you’d show up…. But don’t worry, Gabe. I’m going to liberate you from this situation and then we’re gonna take care of business. Just you wait.”
Liberate was a word I should have known because Frita’d said it before, but right then I couldn’t think of what exactly it meant. Only from the look on Frita’s face I guessed it meant trouble.
“I can’t believe they made you miss Moving-Up Day,” Frita said, her eyes burning like hot coals.
“Don’t matter,” I told her. “I’m not moving up anyway. I decided it.”
It was as if a cloud passed over Frita’s face. She looked at me and her brow scrunched into a V.
“What do you mean you’re not moving up?” she said. “They called your name, so you’ve got to.”
“Nope,” I said. “I made up my mind.”
Frita frowned.
“You can’t stay behind,” she said. “We got to be in the same grade—otherwise, who will you play with? Won’t be anyone to pass notes with, or to pick each other for teams. Who will help you with your math and who’ll eat my brussels sprouts on chicken and biscuits day?”
I thought it over. Frita did have a point. Back before the integrating, life sure had been plain. A teacher had even written on my report card in kindergarten: Gabe seems lonely and needs to make some friends. I couldn’t go to school without Frita.
“Why don’t you stay back with me?” I suggested, but Frita wrinkled her nose and pretended like I hadn’t said that.
“You’ll love the fifth grade. Just try it,” she said instead, using her whiniest, most pleading voice.
But I thought about Duke and Frankie and I knew Frita was wrong. I’d broken my pinky swear because of them.
I shook my head. “Nope,” I said. “I’ll just get beat up on every day, so I might as well stay back. I’d rather be alive in the fourth grade than dead in the fifth.”
Frita stomped her foot. “They won’t get you,” she said. “I promise.”
“Oh, yeah?” I asked. “How you going to promise that? You’d have to pay them all the money in the world…”
Frita stuck her stuff under one arm and grabbed my elbow.
“No, I won’t,” she said. “C’mon.”
My stomach twisted into a knot. “What are you going to do? Are you going to tell Ms. Murray? Don’t you think we should find my pop first?”
But Frita wasn’t listening. Sometimes she’s like a locomotive—there’s no stopping her until she wants to be stopped. She dragged me to where the punch and cookies were set up and it didn’t make a lick of difference that I was trying to run the other way.
“I’m going to do what Terrance taught me,” Frita said. “And don’t worry about getting in trouble—this is justified on account of what they did to you.”
Justified? I wondered if justified was anything like terrified. Probably was if it was something Frita had learned from her older brother. Terrance was eighteen, and when it came to pounding, he was the expert. He kept five different punching bags in the basement of their house. There were big ones as tall as he was, tiny ones the size of someone’s head, and there was one in the corner that was exactly my size.
One time me and Frita snuck down there when we thought no one was home. Only then we’d heard Terrance’s feet coming down the steps—clunk, clunk, clunk. He didn’t see us at first and started punching that little bag a hundred times a second. I breathed in real sharp by accident and that’s when he turned around and saw us under the stairwell. First I screamed, then Frita screamed. Then Terrance chased us clean out of the house. I hadn’t gone into her basement since.
So if Frita was going to pull something she’d learned from Terrance that could only mean one thing. Trouble.
“You know my momma will be wondering where I am,” I said, right quick. “We better find her before we do anything else…”
I searched the crowd, but right then Frita caught sight of Duke, and that’s when things got crazy.
“Just see if anyone picks on you again after this,” Frita said.
She let go of my arm, marched straight up to Duke, drew back her fist, and before anyone could take a breath she punched him smack in the nose. Duke toppled back, knocking over the punch bowl, and Frita dove after him. She was rearing back to punch him again when Frankie tackled her from the side. All around me people were gathering in, pushing and yelling, but I was frozen solid.
“Fight! Fight!”
“Get her…”
“You kids stop that!”
Everything was happening at once, and before I could blink, there was a slew of adults pulling everyone apart and my pop was one of them. He dragged Frita off Duke, but it took two other guys to help because she kept swinging her arms like cyclones. Duke got to his feet and stood next to his pop. His nose was dripping blood and his clothes were all soaked in fruit punch and he was sniffling real hard, like he was trying not to cry.
Then his pop yelled, “You got beat up by a nigger girl?”
The whole crowd went silent soon as he said that. Even Frita stopped swinging and her eyes popped. My breath came out like someone had punched me in the gut, and I looked around to see who would yell at Mr. Evans for saying that, but all the adults were looking at the ground, shuffling their feet.
Then Pop stepped up.
“You best not be using that word,” Pop said. He said it steady and quiet, like he says just about everything, but I could tell he meant business.
“You talking to me?” Mr. Evans asked, looking down. Pop is short like me—he’s shorter than all the other adults—but he didn’t back away.
“Yes, I am.”
Mr. Evans moved like he might put up his fists, but he looked around at all the faces in the crowd and then he spat on the ground instead. It was hot and dry, so that spit sat at Pop’s feet like a challenge. Then Mr. Evans grabbed Duke by the elbow.
“Come on,” he said, real gruff.
He nodded into the crowd to Frankie’s pop and they took off. Our teacher, Ms. Murray, was trying to say something to them about their boys fighting, but they didn’t even stop to listen. Only Duke stopped long enough to look back over his shoulder. His eyes narrowed into tiny slits, and there was so much hate in them, I could read exactly what his mind was saying.
I’m gonna get you. Just you wait.