crowd broke up slowly, in whispers and low murmuring.
I walked home, because I wanted to be alone for a while. By the time I finally got there, the sky had turned a dark blue-black. The kitchen light cast its warm yellow out into the yard. Dad was frying hamburger, the smell pouring out the window. Steam rose around him as the frying pan popped and hissed.
Before going into the house, I went out to the rocks and sat on the edge of the island. The glow from the fading sunset left a warm, golden trail over the dark ocean that ended at my feet, as if I were connected to a great, glowing well just beyond the limits of my vision. The steady rush of waves sounded like the drone of Dad’s sampan cruising out to the fishing grounds. The last of the sunset was so brilliant, in a muted sort of way, that I picked up a stone and threw it out to sea. I wondered ifthe old man was watching the night fall and tracing the same burning curves that cradled the undersides of clouds just above the horizon. He, too, would be standing at the end of the slowly fading trail of light.
The old man worked off the end of the pier for three more days, but Keo and I stayed up the hill with the dogs, shooting BB guns. Keo had seen enough. The whole thing was a waste of time, he said. The movie would look fake.
And I’d seen enough, too. Enough to know that this time, Keo was dead wrong.
Jack Christensen, the new boy from California, had convinced Keo and the rest of the sixth grade boys that they’d be in a bargeload of trouble when they went to the big school up in the highland jungles and had to deal with the seventh and eighth graders. Keo, being a year ahead of me, was the first to have to face the unknown—the shadowy school ten miles up the mountain, a place that suddenly loomed before us like a long, gray squall moving in from the sea.
Dark as it all seemed, though, it existed only in our minds. There were rumors and distorted facts passed down from older brothers and sisters, but no one really knew. Except Jack. He’d never been to the school and hadn’t known anyone who’d gone there, but still, he knew, because he’d seen it all in Los Angeles. They smoke and drink and fight, he said. They join gangs and carry knives.
No one wanted to believe him, but there wasn’t one of us who could ignore him. We’d form our own gang, he told us, and call it theBlack Widows. Any sixth grader who wanted protection could have it. All he had to do was swear to help any other Black Widow who got into trouble—and, Jack added, do whatever he said.
One morning in April I walked into the school yard and found Mrs. Carvalho, the principal, lowering a dead mongoose down the flagpole. Almost all eighty-seven kids in the school were standing around watching her. The mongoose was tied to the halyards by its tail.
Keo, Jack, and four other boys sat watching the whole thing from the steps leading up to the veranda that fronted our L-shaped, four-room school house. Bobby Otani, a fifth grader, sat next to Keo, trying to keep from laughing. But the others, all sixth grade Black Widows, were stone-faced. I went over to join them.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Keo ignored me. Bobby Otani snickered and Keo elbowed him. I sat on the lower step, below Keo. Mrs. Carvalho untied the mongoose and marched toward us, its tail pinched in her handkerchief. The mass of kids stepped aside as she moved through them. “Which one of you did this?” she asked.
I quickly stared down at my feet, realizing how guilty we must have looked, sitting off from everyone like we were. And it surprised me to find myself being accused along with everyone else. The younger kids gathered around Mrs. Carvalho and gazed up at us.
Immediately, the boys behind me said, one after the other, “Not me, Mrs. Carvalho; we didn’t do it; not us.”
Mrs. Carvalho searched our faces with narrowed eyes. “I want
all
of you in my office after school.” She walked up the stairs past us,
I walked home, because I wanted to be alone for a while. By the time I finally got there, the sky had turned a dark blue-black. The kitchen light cast its warm yellow out into the yard. Dad was frying hamburger, the smell pouring out the window. Steam rose around him as the frying pan popped and hissed.
Before going into the house, I went out to the rocks and sat on the edge of the island. The glow from the fading sunset left a warm, golden trail over the dark ocean that ended at my feet, as if I were connected to a great, glowing well just beyond the limits of my vision. The steady rush of waves sounded like the drone of Dad’s sampan cruising out to the fishing grounds. The last of the sunset was so brilliant, in a muted sort of way, that I picked up a stone and threw it out to sea. I wondered ifthe old man was watching the night fall and tracing the same burning curves that cradled the undersides of clouds just above the horizon. He, too, would be standing at the end of the slowly fading trail of light.
The old man worked off the end of the pier for three more days, but Keo and I stayed up the hill with the dogs, shooting BB guns. Keo had seen enough. The whole thing was a waste of time, he said. The movie would look fake.
And I’d seen enough, too. Enough to know that this time, Keo was dead wrong.
Jack Christensen, the new boy from California, had convinced Keo and the rest of the sixth grade boys that they’d be in a bargeload of trouble when they went to the big school up in the highland jungles and had to deal with the seventh and eighth graders. Keo, being a year ahead of me, was the first to have to face the unknown—the shadowy school ten miles up the mountain, a place that suddenly loomed before us like a long, gray squall moving in from the sea.
Dark as it all seemed, though, it existed only in our minds. There were rumors and distorted facts passed down from older brothers and sisters, but no one really knew. Except Jack. He’d never been to the school and hadn’t known anyone who’d gone there, but still, he knew, because he’d seen it all in Los Angeles. They smoke and drink and fight, he said. They join gangs and carry knives.
No one wanted to believe him, but there wasn’t one of us who could ignore him. We’d form our own gang, he told us, and call it theBlack Widows. Any sixth grader who wanted protection could have it. All he had to do was swear to help any other Black Widow who got into trouble—and, Jack added, do whatever he said.
One morning in April I walked into the school yard and found Mrs. Carvalho, the principal, lowering a dead mongoose down the flagpole. Almost all eighty-seven kids in the school were standing around watching her. The mongoose was tied to the halyards by its tail.
Keo, Jack, and four other boys sat watching the whole thing from the steps leading up to the veranda that fronted our L-shaped, four-room school house. Bobby Otani, a fifth grader, sat next to Keo, trying to keep from laughing. But the others, all sixth grade Black Widows, were stone-faced. I went over to join them.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Keo ignored me. Bobby Otani snickered and Keo elbowed him. I sat on the lower step, below Keo. Mrs. Carvalho untied the mongoose and marched toward us, its tail pinched in her handkerchief. The mass of kids stepped aside as she moved through them. “Which one of you did this?” she asked.
I quickly stared down at my feet, realizing how guilty we must have looked, sitting off from everyone like we were. And it surprised me to find myself being accused along with everyone else. The younger kids gathered around Mrs. Carvalho and gazed up at us.
Immediately, the boys behind me said, one after the other, “Not me, Mrs. Carvalho; we didn’t do it; not us.”
Mrs. Carvalho searched our faces with narrowed eyes. “I want
all
of you in my office after school.” She walked up the stairs past us,
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