Miami Jackson Gets It Straight (4 page)

“I sure like it, but there are so many other things I need more,” says Ms. Rollins. And they move on.

I’ve found Ms. Rollins a gift! I make sure she is gone. I check the price. All three pieces come to $25. I have just enough.

Am I good or what?

I really got to go. I’m running out of time. I make it to the center fountain just as the six o’clock chimes are ringing.

Leesie and Marquisha are coming up the escalator to the main level. Even from a distance I can tell something is wrong.

There is a boy behind them. Looks like my sister’s horoscope is right. She’s been discovered—and, it seems, by a certified creep. He’s leaning over and saying something to Leesie. Her eyes turn into lasers.

When they reach the top, Marquisha
splits. The Creep hangs on to Leesie. As they walk toward me, I get a good look at him. He’s got some serious dreads and an earring in his ear. I can’t hear, but Leesie’s face is saying, “Leave me alone.”

She comes closer. He follows. Then he grabs her shoulder. I’ve been warned not to speak to Leesie in public. But…

Suddenly, I’m possessed. I’m thinking I can jump in the face of a boy at least seven years older than me. He looks eight—no—ten feet tall. But there’s no stopping me.

“Say, man. Why you got to be all over the lady like that?”

Caught him off guard. Leesie, too. She’s standing there with her mouth hanging open.

The Creep looks at me hard. “What’s
that I hear buzzing?” he asks. He eyes me up and down. “Oh! It’s Mosquito Man!” He chuckles softly. “Watch out! Mosquitoes get … smacked.”

He claps his hands shut. WHAM! The sound makes me jump.

I fall back into a fake karate stance. Like I’m a black belt or something. He steps forward. I do some fancy footwork and sidestep him.

All at once, Leesie moves in. Hands on her hips. “Touch my little brother, Amon, and it’ll get real ugly.”

“You heard her!” I pull myself tall. Trying hard not to look nine.

“Ohhh, so this is your brother. That explains …”

The Creep stands there stone still. His head is tilted to the side. The way Denzel
Washington holds his head.

To her surprise—and mine, too—he drops to one knee. He takes Leesie’s hand in his.

Then coming straight out of Disney, he says, “I have offended you, my beautiful black princess. I am sincerely sorry. I beg your pardon.”

He kisses the back of her hand. Then he turns to me, saying, “Is that cool with you, li’l bro?”

I’m figuring the guy for a real nut job. “Yeah. Yeah, man. Everything is cool.” And we touch fists.

He winks at Leesie and walks away.

I can’t believe the way she is looking at him. “Now that’s how you say I’m sorry!” she whispers.

Okay, so he’s Prince Creep.

“You’re not mad at me?” I ask on the way to the car.

“Mad? No. It is good for Amon to know I have a brother who has my back.”

Now she winks. Smiles. Once again Leesie-the-Homonym!

We’re on the way home. Leesie asks me to put in the new CD from Peace and Love. My heart stops! I don’t have the brown and white Bemiston bag!

No gift! The diary, the address book, and the wallet are gone—missing.

“Think!” says Leesie. “When did you have it last?”

Everything is blank.

We hurry back inside the mall. I search all over the place. No bag. Nothing.

“It’s not really lost.” I refuse to believe
I’ve done something so stupid.

Leesie helps. She asks people passing by if they’ve seen a Bemiston bag. Nobody has.

We retrace my steps. No bag.

“Check with the lost and found!” Leesie says.

“Who ever turns anything in at the lost and found?” I’m angry and scared. I want to run. Hide. Fall in a hole. Disintegrate.

Leesie finally gets me to go home. I’ve lost Ms. Rollins’s gift. I’m dead meat!

We get home. Mama is deep into grading papers. I beg Leesie not to tell what happened. She wants me to tell Mama, now.

“Mama told you to stay with me,” I say. “But instead you went off to be discovered by the Creep.”

“Stop,” says Leesie. She grabs my arms. “Stop it, right now! You lost your own bag. Don’t try to blame somebody else.”

I pull away from her.

I’m really scared. Scared Mama might think I’m not ready to go to Camp Atwater.
Scared of how stupid I’m going to look. Scared of letting Ms. Rollins down. “Please, Leesie. Don’t say anything to Mama yet. Give me time to think.”

“Okay,” she says to me. “We’ll wait until morning.”

There’s a box of fried chicken on the counter. The thought of eating makes me sick. “Hey there,” Mama says. “What did you buy your teacher?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say, and head straight to my room.

My room is another universe. And I am master of it.

The walls are painted space blue. When the lights are turned off, stars appear on the ceiling.

On one wall are my favorite sci-fi characters. Spock, Scotty, Captain Sisko, The Men in Black, and Ripley and the Alien. On the other wall are pictures of all my baseball heroes—Ken Griffey, Jr., Lou Brock, Hank Aaron, and Mark McGwire. Along with a poster of Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell, and Josh Gibson from the old Negro Leagues.

A mobile of the nine planets hangs from the light fixture. My NASA history timeline is over my bed, along with a poster of John Glenn.

I am happy in my room. It is a spaceship. In it I can go to the stars in a flash. I can find new planets and unknown galaxies.

The idea makes me feel like I’m riding a Ferris wheel.

Tonight I don’t want to explore. I don’t
want to find anything. I have messed up bad! And Destinee Tate is playing baseball.

What am I going to do? No gift. No money.

That’s it! I need money. If I had enough money I could buy another gift. But where …?

Slowly an idea comes. It’s bad … awful … terrible. I can’t make it go away. It grows quickly. Man! It makes me sick to even think about what I’m getting ready to do.

I slip out of my room. I walk down the hall to Mama’s room. I go in. Her pocket-book is on the chest. She is downstairs grading papers. She always sticks money in the side pockets. I try to touch the pocket-book.

Stop! This is crazy. I run back to my room and hide my face. I am so ashamed.

Nothing is that important. I’ll never go there again. I’ve got to think of a straight-up way to get out of this mess. Don’t know how just yet.

“Miami?”

I’m long past getting tucked in. But Mama still comes in to say good night. She used to read to me. Tell me stories. My favorites are about when she was a girl in Tennessee.

Now, we just talk. About anything, everything. Whatever.

Right now, I don’t want to talk to Mama. I feel too ashamed, too sad.

I take long, slow breaths so she thinks
I’m asleep. Leesie taught me how to fake it.

Mama has a way of knowing when something isn’t quite right. “Are you okay?” she asks.

No, I’m not okay, I’m thinking.

I’ve lost the teacher’s gift. I’m ready to steal money from my mother. No, I’m not okay!

But I don’t say a thing. I keep right on breathing slow and steady.

“Okay,” she whispers. She’s talking to me. But I’m supposed to be asleep. “Just two more days and school will be out. Daddy will be home. You can go to camp. Hang in there. We’re hot, hot, and burning up to summer.”

She starts out the door. Then she trips over my jeans.

She mumbles something and picks them
up. “What’s this?” She finds the Egyptian coin I bought at the mall. “Ah,” she says. “If I had bought this as a gift for
my
teacher, I’d be proud. This is a wonderful gift.”

Mama shuts off the light as she leaves the room.

Yes! Yes! Yes! Mama thinks the coin is a good gift. So why not let it be the gift? Who would know? It costs the same as the other gift. And Mr. Frison says it should be given away. Perfect! Yes! Yes! Yes! I’ve been saved by an Egyptian friendship token.

I run to tell Leesie.

String puts brown sugar on his oatmeal. I show him the friendship token.

“Wow,” he says. “An old coin.”

“No,” I explain, “it’s a friendship token.”

I remember what Mr. Frison said.

“It’s like the ones they found in a mummy’s tomb. The Egyptians gave these to friends like we send greeting cards.”

“This gift is kicking,” says String. “Ms. Rollins will love this.”

“What do you think Destinee Tate will think?”

String gets this funny look on his face
like he did in the mall. He doesn’t answer.

Then Mama smiles. “Miami, I’m so proud. It looks like you put a lot of thought into buying this gift. Your teacher will love knowing that it was picked especially for her.”

I feel a little bit like a creep. Leesie glares at me over the top of the funny paper. She thinks I’m a jerk, too. But like I told her last night, hey, I’m desperate.

Mama looks at Leesie, then at me. She knows that Leesie knows something. Mama also knows that I know that she knows that Leesie knows something. But nobody’s talking.

We step off the bus. First thing, here comes Lisa and Amika. Destinee is limping
behind them. They are all talking at once and acting excited.

Destinee asks, “What did you buy?”

We go to the library. I show them the Egyptian friendship token. “Egyptians used to give these to special friends and family,” I explain.

“Oh, no,” Amika screams. “You bought Ms. Rollins a grungy old coin! I knew it. I knew it. I knew you were going to mess up!”

Lisa looks at it. “You should have bought her something pretty like a scarf or a fancy pin. This is ugly. Just like you!”

“You aine seen ugly ’til you look in the mirror,” I say. “That’s ugly.”

Destinee holds the token in her hand. It is her turn to hate it. “What was on your pea-sized brain when you bought this?”

“We should take this back. Get our money and buy another gift!” says Lisa.

“I wouldn’t give this to a monkey,” says Amika, shaking her head.

“I think Ms. Rollins will like it,” says String.

Nobody hears him at first.

“You paid money for this?” Destinee says.

I bounce back hard. “It’s a great gift, dummy.”

“Who you calling dumb?” Destinee puts in.

“You, monkey breath.”

We’re all up in somebody’s face, calling each other names.

Suddenly, String pounds his fist on the table. “Shut up! I’m sick of you, Destinee. I’m sick of you, too, Miami.”

You can hear a pin drop.

“It aine about who bought the gift. It aine about who likes the gift. It’s about Ms. Rollins. Is it right for her? That’s what should matter. I think she’ll like the coin.”

String hasn’t put that many words together in his life.

I’m expecting Destinee to go off. But she is really quiet—spooky quiet. What’s on her mind? I’m wondering.