Day one of school—conquered. Even with the red-haired girl dissin’ my clothes and Terrance giving me dirty looks, it still was nothing compared with my other first days. Trust me, I’ve been mean-mugged by the scariest, shoved by the toughest, picked on, made friends, then dumped by the best of ’em. Never mind that two girls hated me so much—for no reason at all!—they made a list full of stupid stuff just to inform me that they hated me.
Once inside my house and in my new room, I turn on my old trusty CD player’s radio—one of the things I’ve managed to keep during our moves—and immediately start digging in my junk box in the closet. I push past a bag of nail polish, my Rihanna CDs, and an iPod that’s missing its charger, till it’s in my hands: my black button-down shirt, had it since I was seven. For the first time all day I let myself really relax. I drape the shirt over my head, pull it back into a ponytail, and tie it with a ribbon. It sways to the right and left, cascading down my back just like Rihanna’s. It feels kinda silly—I’m not seven anymore—but I don’t care. It lets me pretend to have good hair. It makes me beautiful. Even my skin looks lighter against the dark fabric.
Next, I sneak into Mama’s bathroom, steal her makeup bag, and slide out her foundation. The cream glides over my skin like icing. Now I’m light-skinned. I turn up the volume on my CD player. And I can’t stop myself: I start singing along, letting my voice—the voice that won’t ever come out if anyone’s listening—loose. Everyone in the audience begins to wave their arms and dance in the aisles. Then from behind the curtain comes a rare and special appearance—Dad. He grins at me—for me—and joins me onstage, a microphone in his hand, and the drums thump and the horns blare.
The song ends. A commercial comes on, and just like that—my fantasy’s over for now. I pull the shirt off my head, wash my face, and do my social studies homework. When I’m done, I turn off my music and go sit in the picture window—I can’t believe we have a picture window!—and watch the street. Then I get to thinking that, yeah, we should have flowers in our yard. After a while, all on its own, my body starts to rock side to side and before I know it, I’m humming. Humming Mrs. Hill’s song. Then singing.
“When the sun comes back and the first quail calls,
Follow the Drinking Gourd,
For the old man is a-waiting for to carry you to freedom,
If you follow the Drinking Gourd.”
This reminds me of when, oh, about two schools ago, I read a book about a family of slaves who tried to escape over the Cincinnati River in the winter. They didn’t even have coats or boots. Nothing except the clothes on their backs. It had to be really unbearable to drop everything and run off like that. I can’t help but wonder how it feels to be so bound up that you can’t be or do what you want. Bound so tight that you’d take a huge risk like that, crossing a river in the snow.
One day. That’s all it takes for Mr. Benjamin to discover that I know nearly nothing about math. He discreetly lays the assessment facedown on my desk. I flip over a corner. Forty-nine percent. Great. I stuff the stupid test in my backpack, knowing what’s to come. At the end of class, Mr. Benjamin’s sure to tell me that he’s moving me to the low math class. Not zoning out is hard ’cause my mind keeps asking, What’s the point? And I keep answering, I know. I’ll never get math.
But then Mr. Benjamin excitedly posts himself in front of the class and scribbles marks on the smart screen that look like hieroglyphics. “My friends, today we’ll be starting a new unit.” He extends his arm and announces, “The slope and y intercept.”
Mute. We all stare.
“The sooner you all embrace math, the less painful it will be. I promise.”
We all grunt. Loud.
“Before you start groaning and moaning, my friends, let me explain. Math is like a chess game, or . . . or a puzzle. Even the Rubik’s Cube can be solved by using algorithms.”
“That’s why I never got that cube,” says a boy with a surfer haircut.
Hilarious. We all laugh.
“Allow me to show you.” Mr. Benjamin draws formulas, connects lines, waves his hands and joggles his eyebrows. Everyone in class copies examples, asks questions, solves equations, and gets excited. Even me.
When class is over, Mr. Benjamin calls me to his desk. I knew it! “I believe I’ve worked out a solution that’ll help you catch up.”
“A . . . solution?”
“Yes, I have a wonderful student who’ll tutor you.”
Okay, this is something new. But hold up—the last thing I need is some nerdy white kid trying to make me out to be a dumb Detroit girl. “What do you mean?” I ask cautiously.
“Here, meet Troy Benson. Troy?”
Troy, the one who helped me in the hallway and is in my language arts class, too. Here’s the thing—all of a sudden I’m a tiny bit nervous, I mean, because he is a boy. I mean, I knew he was a boy. Obviously . . . but this is me, Genesis, working one-on-one with a boy.
Troy strides over, grinning. His teeth are crazy white. He’d be half cute if he weren’t so dark, is what Grandma would say. Me? He’s definitely half cute.
“My classroom is open for use during lunch or after school, if you like,” says Mr. Benjamin. “Well, I must leave you two to figure out timing—I have to prepare for my next class.”
“I can take it from here, Mr. B.” Troy turns to me and says, “Hello, again.”
“Hey,” I say, ignoring the fact that my hands have gone clammy.
My cheeks get hot. Chill, girl. “Yeah.”
“So, we can meet either during lunch or after school, it doesn’t matter,” Troy tells me. “We can start out with three days a week, see how you do.”
“How ’bout lunch?” I say.
“Great, let’s start tomorrow,” Troy says, going back to his desk and packing up his things.
I feel silly just standing there watching, so I ask, “Do you tutor a lot?”
He slings the bag’s strap over his shoulder and hurries back. “Sometimes, for extra credit.” He stops, pulls out a comic book, and tucks it under his arm.
“We were doing something else at my other school. And I just made some dumb mistakes on that assessment, that’s all,” I say, covering; I don’t want him to think I’m some moron. All these different lessons from the different schools are jumbled in my head, and I can’t sort them out.
“Don’t worry, we’ll straighten you out; a lot of people get tripped up on math.”
Troy and I are walking down the hall—talking. I can feel a stupid grin on my face, and I can’t stop it, can’t even say something cool like, Hey, thanks for looking out yesterday, when I was turned around. Well, that’s not exactly cool, but still, I can’t say it because my lips are frozen. And the grin’s still there even after Troy leaves for class.
I’m totally killin’ it on day two. Not.
I hate these shorts.
The PE uniforms must be made weird because no matter how much I shimmy the shorts down my thighs, they still creep up when I sit, totally failing to protect my butt from the cold, hard gym floor.
Coach Singletary is pacing back and forth in front of us, blabbing about some physical fitness test that’ll count as 75 percent of our grade. “You’ll be expected to run a full mile. Timed.” A mile? I ain’t never run that much unless I was being chased. Then she goes on about curl-ups, push-ups, and flexibility tests. “Any questions?”
Someone raises a hand. “Does the test start today?”
“No, but pre-testing does. The boys will start with curl-ups and push-ups with Coach Baynor. And the girls will have the pleasure of running outside in my company.”
“But that’s not fair,” another girl protests. “It’s freezing out there!”
“Life’s not fair,” answers Coach. “And yes, it’s a little brisk. Just remember to pace yourselves. Don’t want you on the sidelines upchucking.” A few kids laugh. “Move. Once you get your blood flowing, you’ll warm up.”
While the boys grab mats, we girls grudgingly follow Coach Singletary. The gym doors burst open, and a blast of chill air sends goose bumps racing up my arms. When we get to the track, I stand to the side and pretend to tie my shoes as clusters of girls jog off. Yvette and Belinda sprint away, with a few girls encircling them. Once they’re all ahead of me, I start. It takes forever to complete one puny, little lap. No, it’s not puny. It’s enormous. It’s so big that Usain Bolt himself would stop and say, “Now wait a minute.”
By the second lap, I’m gasping for air. My arms pump harder, my entire body aches, and only the momentum carries me forward. Sweat rolls down my back. I wipe my forehead.
My forehead.
My hair.
Sweat is like kryptonite to pressed hair, kinks it right up.
“What’s the problem, Anderson?”
“Cramp,” I lie.
“Walk it out.”
Coach doesn’t need to tell me twice. I mosey along, fanning my face and praying silently that my hair doesn’t get any worse than it is already. Not too far ahead, the basketball-inspecting girl with glasses from yesterday runs alone. Every so often she stops and ties her shoes, but I keep my distance. She’s not weird looking from what I can tell. She must have crooked teeth or a wandering eye or something strange about her. Why else would she be by herself? Before I know it, I find myself jogging a few feet behind her. I hang back—she’s even slower than I am—and soon my pace falls in sync with hers.
Suddenly, as if she has eyes in the back of her head, she spins around. “There are other lanes; can’t you find one to run in instead of following me?”
I freeze. But no way am I gonna act afraid of a white suburban girl. “For your info,” I say, “I wasn’t following you. There’re a million girls on this track—someone’s bound to be behind you.”
“And you just happen to be the lucky one.” She talks with a sharp twang. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you watching me.”
I put my hand on my hip and say, “Girl, I ain’t been paying you no attention.” But I do check her out quickly—she doesn’t have a wandering eye or crooked teeth. She’s actually kinda pretty.
The girl keeps at it. “What about on your first day, huh?”
“I don’t know. I might’ve glanced your way.”
“Might’ve? Really?” She raises one eyebrow.
We stand facing each other, ignoring the whistles and screams of Coach warning us to get back to running. Ignoring the other girls on the track who’re slowing down to examine the scene, ready to shout, Fight, fight.
Then the girl does something unpredictable.
She yells at the gawkers, “What’re you looking at? Haven’t you seen two people talking before? Geez!”
Then she says, “I hate this track.”
And I say, “We didn’t have to do this at my old school.”
“You didn’t? You’re lucky.” White girl with glasses unties and reties her shoes, and then we walk-jog again.
“What’s up with them making us run in the cold?” I say. “We could get the flu.”
“Or walking pneumonia,” she adds, “and die.”
“Well, that’s a little extreme,” I say. “But I feel you.”
“Get outta the way!” a girl says from behind. Waves of blond and brown tresses bounce past us. “Move it, freak!” They all giggle that mean-girl giggle. I’m not sure which one of us—me, or what is her name?—they’re talking to, because we both go silent.
Coach whistles for us to pick up the pace. We don’t. Instead, the glasses girl fools around with her shoestrings again, and I fuss with my hair. Coach is yelling and her face is getting redder and redder, and this girl is tying and retying each shoe. Just as Coach is about to have a conniption, she stands up and says, “You know what’s the worst?” She jerks her head toward the girls in front of us. “Them.”
“No doubt,” I agree. We watch them run to the same beat like a pack of clones. Then I glance at Coach, who is now yelling at a different set of girls.
The girl adds, “They think they’re all that, like they’re better than you or something.”
“Me?” I ask, suddenly panicking—how did I already become their target.
“No, other girls, in general,” she explains.
We start back jogging. And it’s now clear to me that the girls were dissing her.
Glasses girl is thin but not skinny. Her nose is regular, her mouth’s regular, and she has nice brown eyes. I don’t get it. Why are they slamming her? So I ask, “Why you think they be trippin’ like that?”
She jogs a few more steps before answering. “Jealous maybe?” She adds, “Who knows?”
Now I jog without answering because I sure as heck don’t know.
Coach’s “Move It!” yells get louder as we round the track. “Anderson and Papageorgiou, move those legs!”
We step it up before Coach can run behind us blowing her whistle.
“My name. Papageorgiou, and I don’t wanna hear a joke about it.”
Now I know I like her. She’s tired of jokes too.
“Just wanna know what to call you, that’s all.”
“Sophia. Sophia Papa-gee-or-gee-oh.” She watches me.
I don’t crack a smile or anything. “Genesis . . . Genesis Anderson. And I don’t want to hear a joke about it either.”
And we run. My lungs feel like they’re exploding, sending sparks all through my body. But I don’t slow down. We run together. Me and Sophia.
“See you found a friend, Papa John’s pizza,” says the red-haired girl from Ms. Luctenburg’s class.
“I see you’re still a skinny puke face!” Sophia shouts back.
Skinny puke face? Sophia’s comebacks are worse than mine. Regina and the girls would’ve laughed me off the block with a corny crack like that.
“What’s the matter, Detroit?” says red’s sidekick. “Girls don’t run where you come from?”
“Ignore them,” Sophia tells me.
But I don’t. Might was well rep my city with a smooth-as-ice dis. Here’re a few tips learned over the last several years that I’m sure will fly out here in the ’burbs.
Throw them off with a question while laughing like you’re wildin’ out.
“Oh snap, did she just try to clown me?” I say to Sophia, who obviously doesn’t know the rules.
Make strong eye contact and don’t be the first to break it.
My eyes lock in with the red-hair girl, and she’s good. So good that I’m reminded of the stare down with Regina. But she ain’t Regina, and we’re not on a block in Detroit. Red-hair girl looks away.
Say something bad to make them back off.
“Keep talking. I can show you how we run in my neighborhood.” I can show you? Might as well add a “please” and “thank-you.” Ugh.
The girls laugh, mimicking us, and trot off. I peek again at Sophia and try to figure out why she’s getting hated on. And I have no clue. Maybe I should’ve stayed alone. Alone and invisible.