Night on Fire by Ronald Kidd

way it made sense. I didn’t like sharing my things or my friends. But sharing Lavender was different, like sharing the sun.
    I said, “So, you’re an intern.”
    She nodded. “They pick two of us at school each year. I was lucky.”
    â€œMr. McCall says you’re good.”
    â€œHe’s a good reporter,” she said. “I like helping him.”
    â€œHe lives next door to me.”
    â€œI know,” said Jarmaine. “I know all about you.”
    That made me feel funny, like there was some kind of shadow world next to mine, where Jarmaine lived and watched.
    â€œThere are some things you don’t know,” I said.
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œAll kinds of things. My dreams.”
    Jarmaine gazed off into the distance. “Let’s see. You dream of a house. A husband. Kids playing in the yard.”
    I smiled. “Nope. I dream about going to Montgomery or maybe New York or Washington, DC. I’d meet new people, try new things. I’d do whatever I wanted to.”
    â€œSuch as?”
    â€œThings. Big things. Be a writer.”
    The idea just popped out. I hadn’t really thought about it, but it sounded good. I could work and learn at the same time, the way Mr. McCall did. I could write stories like Miss Harper Lee. I could dream, then try to catch the dreams on paper.
    â€œMy dream is a place,” said Jarmaine. “Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.”
    â€œA college?”
    â€œI want to do something with my life. Be a journalist or a lawyer like Thurgood Marshall.”
    â€œWho’s he?” I asked.
    She looked at me as if I’d stepped off a flying saucer. “ Brown versus the Board of Education? The Supreme Court decision? ‘Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.’ Thurgood Marshall was the lawyer. What do they teach you at your school?”
    â€œNot that,” I said.
    â€œThings are happening at Fisk. There’s a group called the Nashville Student Movement. They integrated the lunch counters last year. They met with the mayor, and he backed down. I’m going to join them.”
    â€œThe mayor backed down? To some students?”
    Jarmaine nodded. “Their leader is a woman, Diane Nash. She’s a Fisk student. She led a demonstration at the capitol.”
    â€œYou couldn’t do that here,” I said.
    â€œThe demonstration?”
    â€œAny of it. Not in Alabama.”
    Jarmaine picked up a section from last week’s paper that was folded next to her on the bench and pointed to a small article.
    Negro Group Sets Bus Mixing Tour
    WASHINGTON (UPI) – More than a dozen Negroes and whites planned to board buses today and head south to break the color barrier on Dixie’s highways.
    The travelers, picked and trained by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), will ride the commercial buses through Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.
    So Lavender had been right. It really was happening.
    â€œI heard about that,” I said. “Your mother told me. She said they’re called Freedom Riders.”
    Jarmaine nodded. “They’ve been trained in nonviolence, like Mahatma Gandhi. No matter what people do to them, they won’t strike back. They started their trip last Thursday in Washington, DC, and plan to finish in New Orleans. They’re coming through Anniston this Sunday. They’re making history, and I’ll be at the Greyhound station to see them.”
    â€œDoes Lavender know you’re going?” I asked.
    â€œNo,” said Jarmaine, “and you’re not telling her.”
    I shook my head quickly. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”
    Her eyes bored into me. She was strong, I could tell. But she was nervous. She was proud but not used to showing it.
    I know because she blushed.

CHAPTER NINE
    Afterward, Jarmaine and I walked inside, where she went back to work. I found Grant leaning against