them because the whole school thought they were hot stuff.They had had Mae Jemison come up to the school once, and President Clinton and some author from New Jersey, so they thought they were special.
“Can you get nine boards?” Cody asked me.
“Yeah.”
“If you keep crashing the boards you’ll get fouled,” Cody said. “I’ll drive more down the lane so I should pick up a couple of fouls, and the whole team will work on assists.”
Coach Law kept talking about the will to win and Cody kept looking at Bobbi’s numbers. I was wondering if Cody was going soft on Bobbi. Ashley had a copy of Bobbi’s numbers, too, and she wanted to write them up in
The Palette.
The game started and I gave up everything to work on the boards. The dude I was up against, a West Indian brother I knew, was strong and did a lot of pushing but he couldn’t really sky. I was snatching bounds pretty easy.
The whole thing was that all of us went into the game with Bobbi’s numbers in our heads. It was a little freaky at first, but I didn’t want to fall down on my count.
In the end we beat them. No, we crushed them. Okay, we left them bleeding and whimpering on the court! Cody scored thirty points and was getting so mean I had to helpPowell defend him. I only scored sixteen points because I’m a merciful kind of guy.
I felt great about the game and especially about beating Powell. But the way that Ashley wrote it up in
The Palette
you would have thought that Bobbi beat Powell all by herself.
I saw Kambui in the media center and he asked me if Bobbi was going to replace me on the team.
“I just hope the coach doesn’t fall in love with those numbers,” I said.
“Did Sidney show up with a picture of a crackhead?”
“No, he gave me a picture of a chessboard with numbers on it,” I said. “Very strange. But we’ll publish it just to make him feel good.”
Kambui said that publishing something that didn’t make sense was stupid. I wanted to help Sidney but I didn’t want to do stupid stuff. I had given the chessboard to Bobbi to put together with the stuff we were going to publish in the next issue of
The Cruiser.
Now I wasn’t sure and texted her saying that maybe we shouldn’t publish it.
if it don’t mean anything lets not do it Z-Man
Z-Man, wake ↑ it’s a simple substitution code figure it out – Bad-B
SHADOWS
By LaShonda Powell (sent to
LaFemme)
There are scary things
That lurk in the corners
That bump and creak in the shadows
There are clouds that chill
The damp hallways
Filling the cracks beneath the doors
Muffling the sadness
Stifling the sobs
An odor like flowers at a funeral
Floats inches above the floor
Sweet fragrance of death
Sticking to the skin
Mixing with the sweat of fear
They say that smell
Is close to taste
It is bitter, and I must swallow
Eyes closed, arms folded
Kids I never knew
Lie curled in tight circles
Dreaming of better times
There is a small square room
In the corner of my heart
It lies behind a door
I hope I never open
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Da Vinci Code
A nother teenager got shot in the Bronx,” Mom said. “A young girl. And you know the sad part about it?”
“She got killed?”
“No, but she’s fighting for her life,” Mom said. “The sad part about it is that it didn’t even make the front page. Don’t you think that’s sad?”
“Yeah.” I knew what she meant, that a girl got shot and it wasn’t a big thing. I looked over Mom’s shoulder and moved her hand so that I could see what had made the front page. It was a story about a girl rapper throwing her shoe at a cop. There was a picture of the girl and she looked really mad. I had heard some of her raps and they weren’t anything special. “I guess people being shot isn’t a big deal.”
“She’s Puerto Rican,” Mom said.
“You think that makes a difference?”
“My grandfather used to say that, when he was a boy, if a black person got shot or killed you had to wait until Thursday to find the
“Can you get nine boards?” Cody asked me.
“Yeah.”
“If you keep crashing the boards you’ll get fouled,” Cody said. “I’ll drive more down the lane so I should pick up a couple of fouls, and the whole team will work on assists.”
Coach Law kept talking about the will to win and Cody kept looking at Bobbi’s numbers. I was wondering if Cody was going soft on Bobbi. Ashley had a copy of Bobbi’s numbers, too, and she wanted to write them up in
The Palette.
The game started and I gave up everything to work on the boards. The dude I was up against, a West Indian brother I knew, was strong and did a lot of pushing but he couldn’t really sky. I was snatching bounds pretty easy.
The whole thing was that all of us went into the game with Bobbi’s numbers in our heads. It was a little freaky at first, but I didn’t want to fall down on my count.
In the end we beat them. No, we crushed them. Okay, we left them bleeding and whimpering on the court! Cody scored thirty points and was getting so mean I had to helpPowell defend him. I only scored sixteen points because I’m a merciful kind of guy.
I felt great about the game and especially about beating Powell. But the way that Ashley wrote it up in
The Palette
you would have thought that Bobbi beat Powell all by herself.
I saw Kambui in the media center and he asked me if Bobbi was going to replace me on the team.
“I just hope the coach doesn’t fall in love with those numbers,” I said.
“Did Sidney show up with a picture of a crackhead?”
“No, he gave me a picture of a chessboard with numbers on it,” I said. “Very strange. But we’ll publish it just to make him feel good.”
Kambui said that publishing something that didn’t make sense was stupid. I wanted to help Sidney but I didn’t want to do stupid stuff. I had given the chessboard to Bobbi to put together with the stuff we were going to publish in the next issue of
The Cruiser.
Now I wasn’t sure and texted her saying that maybe we shouldn’t publish it.
if it don’t mean anything lets not do it Z-Man
Z-Man, wake ↑ it’s a simple substitution code figure it out – Bad-B
SHADOWS
By LaShonda Powell (sent to
LaFemme)
There are scary things
That lurk in the corners
That bump and creak in the shadows
There are clouds that chill
The damp hallways
Filling the cracks beneath the doors
Muffling the sadness
Stifling the sobs
An odor like flowers at a funeral
Floats inches above the floor
Sweet fragrance of death
Sticking to the skin
Mixing with the sweat of fear
They say that smell
Is close to taste
It is bitter, and I must swallow
Eyes closed, arms folded
Kids I never knew
Lie curled in tight circles
Dreaming of better times
There is a small square room
In the corner of my heart
It lies behind a door
I hope I never open
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Da Vinci Code
A nother teenager got shot in the Bronx,” Mom said. “A young girl. And you know the sad part about it?”
“She got killed?”
“No, but she’s fighting for her life,” Mom said. “The sad part about it is that it didn’t even make the front page. Don’t you think that’s sad?”
“Yeah.” I knew what she meant, that a girl got shot and it wasn’t a big thing. I looked over Mom’s shoulder and moved her hand so that I could see what had made the front page. It was a story about a girl rapper throwing her shoe at a cop. There was a picture of the girl and she looked really mad. I had heard some of her raps and they weren’t anything special. “I guess people being shot isn’t a big deal.”
“She’s Puerto Rican,” Mom said.
“You think that makes a difference?”
“My grandfather used to say that, when he was a boy, if a black person got shot or killed you had to wait until Thursday to find the
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