Secret Saturdays (6 page)

I went to find Vanessa and Kyle. Vanessa was playing basketball. I decided not to stop her game. Especially after hearing Sean say how him and her had some special friendship. I didn't know how she'd respond. I checked for Kyle. He was on one knee and about to race two kids from our class. Bony Charles with the braces and dark-skinned Vicky, who always kept her hair in neat braids with rainbow-colored beads at the ends.

“Don't keep your thoughts and feelings bottled in,” I could hear my mother saying. Before, I thought Kyle would tell me to mind my business. Right now I wanted him to do me a favor. “On your mark, get set . . . ,” Kyle began.

I put my hands up and stopped the race. “Kyle! I need to tell you something!”

“What?” Kyle asked. His forehead was dripping sweat.

“Come on. We racing or what?” Bony Charles said.

“Relax,” Kyle said to him. “I just raced you twice and beat you. Wait.”

Me and Kyle moved over to the volleyball net. Kids were playing volleyball all wrong.

“What's good?” Kyle asked me.

“I need to tell you something. Don't tell Vanessa. Sean just lied to me, I think.”

“Really? How you know?”

I wasn't ready to tell him I knew Sean had lied because I saw him leave early Saturday morning. “You remember how I once told you my mom said liars can't stare you in the face when they lie?” I said. “That they always look away?”

“Yeah.”

“Sean did that. Go over to him and his new best eighth-grade friends and ask him what he did this weekend. Watch how he acts. I bet you a dollar he won't make eye contact with you.”

Kyle looked over at Sean. “No bet. I'm not going over there to see if Sean is lying. If he is, he has his reason. That's his business, not mine.”

“Do it for me then. Go see how Sean acts with you. For me.”

Kyle gave me a stank look and twisted his lips to the side. “Fine. Be right back.” He ran over to Sean and Mark's eighth-grade crew. It took Kyle only a minute to get back. “You right. Sean was weird. He didn't look me in the eye.”

I stood there. Confused. “Sean's lying.”

“Okay, he's lying,” Kyle said. “So what?”

I had nothing to say.

“Thought so,” Kyle said. “I'm out. I'll be racing.”

I went over to the pull-up bar on the opposite side of the gym from Sean. Sean's acting different, was all I could think. Why was he lying? Where was he going? Why at four in the morning?

SEAN WAS TWO LUNCH TABLES DOWN FROM US.
He was laughing with his cousin Mark, Junito, and some more eighth graders who were about nothing.

I checked Kyle's face. Kyle was looking at Sean too. Analyzing him.

Vanessa, on the other hand, was eating her spaghetti and meatballs and humming a song. She was into her food. Forget her.

Now I was ready to pull Kyle to the side and tell him about Sean's secret Saturday trip. But I couldn't do that. That would make me a snitch.

An idea popped into my head. If Sean backed out of another sleepover, I'd get Kyle to stay over my place. We'd bust Sean, and Kyle would get curious. That would lead to us approaching Sean. Two people saying something is different than one person snitching. I'd feel better confronting Sean with Kyle there. I'd be less nervous speaking up, knowing Kyle was there to back me up.

But maybe none of that would happen, I thought. Maybe Sean wouldn't even sneak out again
.

 

Over the next few weeks, me, Sean, Vanessa, and Kyle did the usuals. Hung out in our lunchroom. Gym. Met after school, did homework, and played games. But Sean wasn't always the usual Sean. Sometimes, he was mad different and took his meanness to a whole other level. When he acted that way, it was hard for me to feel normal with him.

One day at the beginning of science class, he pulled this kid George's chair from underneath him.

Our teacher didn't see Sean do it.

“I'll get you back.” George fake-laughed.

But him, me, and Sean knew he was too scared of Sean to do anything.

The next day, Sean pulled Richard's chair as he sat in math.

“Stop,” Richard said.

Sean winked and smiled at me like I was supposed to think what he just did was funny, but I didn't smile back. I was too busy wondering what was wrong with him. First, yesterday with George and now Richard? What if one of them fell and got hurt? Plus, what if a teacher busted Sean? I was more worried about Sean getting in trouble than he cared himself.

Every day, in the halls, when he walked behind boys and they didn't see him, Sean tossed the gum from his mouth into their hair or hoodies. He never used to bother kids for no reason. Now it was like every time he was around other kids, he had to be mean.

I was annoyed with Sean. Kyle was too. Before, Kyle used to laugh at all of Sean's jokes. Not anymore.

That week me and Kyle saw him be mean and we'd just stare at each other and suck our teeth like we were saying, “He's bugging.”

Once the hall was mad crowded as me and Sean headed to lunch. He snuck behind this boy Kenneth and kicked him in the butt.

“Yo!” Kenneth swung around. “Who kicked me?”

Sean pointed at someone else. “He did.”

I could tell from Kenneth's face that he guessed Sean did it, but he pretended he didn't have a clue because he knew Sean would embarrass him if Kenneth tried to act brave.

“That was mad funny,” Sean said to me, putting his fist out for a pound. “You saw Kenneth's face?”

“Nah.” I shook my head. “That wasn't funny,” and I left Sean hanging.

“You soft,” Sean said.

Yeah, he definitely wasn't the old Sean.

 

Me, Sean, and Kyle kept doing our sleepovers.

Weeks later, almost at the end of October, me and Kyle slept over Sean's. It was late and we were bored, doing nothing. Right then, I decided to entertain myself. In elementary school he collected Yu-Gi-Oh! cards like crazy. Sean didn't see me get out the shoe box he kept them in because he was busy playing with his new iPhone.

Yo! More was in his shoe box than just Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. Sean had a bunch of dollar bills in there. I scooped them and counted them.

“Sean, where you get almost fifty dollars from?” I asked him.

Before Sean could answer, Kyle jumped up and took the money from me. “Son!” he told Sean. “You got money like that? Give me five bucks.”

Real fast, Sean hopped out of his desk chair and snatched his money from Kyle. “My pops sent me this,” then paused, “from Puerto Rico.” He switched the conversation quick. “Let's go watch videos in my living room.”

He had made his lying move. Either he didn't get that money from his dad or something else about what he said was a lie.

I looked at Kyle funny like “What's up with him and this money?” but we already knew he got money from his dad, so Sean's fifty dollars could be no big deal. Besides, right now, I got more hyped about Sean's giant flat-screen TV. I always liked watching it because it was as big as some televisions I saw in mansions on MTV
Cribs
. We dragged Sean's beanbags from his room and plopped them on his living-room floor.

Sean flicked his remote until he found a 50 Cent video on music-on-demand. I felt like a rich kid watching this TV. Me, him, and Kyle started nodding to 50 when Sean's mom came out her bedroom.

“Hey, guys,” she said all sweet to me and Kyle, but then she switched to a stank tone. “Whattup, bighead?” she said to Sean.

Her voice and dis on Sean shocked me. I wondered if they were pissed at each other. Their faces didn't change at all. Sean kept his eyes on the video, but then said back, “You a bighead,” with no feeling.

Jackie wasn't fazed. She kept walking and disappeared into the kitchen.

Kyle didn't pay them any mind. He was as focused as Sean on the video.

Sean and his mom were bugged. My mom never called me names. Plus, Ma wouldn't let me. If I dissed her, she'd smack me.

I thought back to when Sean walked into Ms. Feeney's Advisory and said that gang guy was a “bighead.” I wondered where he got that from. Now I knew. Sean's mom was calling him bighead.

 

The next weekend was Halloween weekend. Sean and Kyle slept over my place, but Sean came over late.

“Sorry,” Sean said to us, taking his jacket off. “My dad called from Puerto Rico to wish me a happy Halloween. My mom made me stay and talk to him.”

I felt a little jealous. Since my pops bounced, he never called me. Not on my birthday, not on holidays. I barely remembered how his voice sounded. I wondered if he'd even recognize my voice on the phone.

“It's cool,” I said.

“Don't worry about it,” Kyle said. “You here now.”

My mother always was a nervous wreck on Halloween. Since I was little, she'd said, “This holiday is some people's excuse to act dumb.” She was scared I'd get hurt because kids in Red Hook went egging. Sometimes, kids threw eggs at you from their windows or roofs. Then they hid. Some troublemakers took egging to another level and hard-boiled the eggs so their eggs felt like rocks when they hit someone.

Other kids traveled in groups and egged you right in the open, then dared you to do something. I saw fistfights break out because the wrong kid got egged and came back with a crew of friends, uncles, or cousins. On some Halloweens, to avoid drama, Ma took me out of the projects to safe neighborhoods. Carroll Gardens. Park Slope. Brooklyn Heights. There, cops were walking around everywhere on Halloween. People felt safe enough to sit right on their stoops with their house doors open. They smiled and gave candy to trick-or-treaters who passed by. No egging in those neighborhoods.

This year, my mom wasn't in the mood to take me, Kyle, and Sean out of Red Hook because her leg was acting up. When it was about to rain, she got pains. Kyle and Sean didn't want to go trick-or-treating anyway. They said we were sixth graders now and too big to ask for candy like little fifth graders.

Half of me agreed. Another part of me was into wearing costumes and getting free candy. I didn't tell Kyle or Sean my thoughts, though. They'd already said, “Trick-or-treating is for kids smaller than us.” If I said how I felt, they might tease me and call me a little kid.

After school, we bought our own bags of candy, and that night we stayed up watching scary movies on cable and dogging all our treats. When the movies ended, we made up our own corny ghost stories. We did that over and over until we fell asleep.

Things felt back to normal. Sean wasn't cracking on kids so much anymore.

The weekend after that, me and Sean were supposed to sleep over at Kyle's. Friday morning came. While me and Sean were on the bus, he said, “I can't do the sleepover.” He squinted out the bus window at something. He shrugged and, without looking at me, said, “My mom is having her friends over. She wants me around.”

Was he lying to me again? I couldn't take him lying to me again.

We got off the bus and Sean shouted at one of his older friends. “Rob. Wait up.”

“Sean,” I said. “Before we go over there, hold on.”

“What up, Justin?”

The words on my tongue. I wanted to say, “I saw you and your mother sneak out weeks ago. Is she really having friends over this weekend? Or you lying again?” But I rethought asking Sean that. He could be telling the truth now because he had missed only one sleepover before.

“Yeah?” Sean asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Cool. Let's go see Rob.”

Cool? Was me and Sean really “cool”? He was dissing me and Kyle again. I was tight. Me and Kyle should stay up late and spy on Sean, I thought. Find out if he's really sneaking out. But I had to be smart with that. I couldn't just approach Kyle and say, “Let's spy on Sean.” I was so in my head that I missed Sean leave. He was already three cars away, talking to Mark. We were supposed to go over there together. He didn't even stop to check if I was coming.

He said something to Mark and they started laughing. I sucked my teeth because seeing them act close got me even tighter.

 

At lunch, Sean and Vanessa went to the soda machine. It was the first time I had been alone with Kyle all day. I put my cheeseburger down and wiped my mouth with a napkin. “Sean can't do the sleepover,” I said.

“Really? How come?”

“Something about his mom having her friends over. What about you? You still down?”

“No doubt.”

My next words came out so fast I didn't even remember thinking them. “How about we sleep over my place tonight?”