The Planet of Junior Brown by Virginia Hamilton Page A

what he said was a lie.
    â€œYou have to come with me Friday,” Junior told Buddy. “You got to help me … I mean, help her … because he doesn’t want me to have my lesson. He maybe even could damage her concert piano… .”
    For some time Junior had kept secrets from Buddy. Now everything was coming out in the open. Still Buddy could hardly believe that Junior suddenly wanted to have him come to his music lesson next Friday.
    â€œMaybe sometime next week I can come see you at your own house,” Buddy said. He looked unconcernedly out the window.
    In Junior’s mind, his mother’s fearful presence tried to warn him against bringing Buddy home. By gritting his teeth, Junior was able to hold her back.
    â€œI guess so,” Junior said. “I’ll figure out a good time when Mama isn’t feeling too sick.”
    â€œMaybe about Wednesday,” Buddy told him.
    â€œAnd then on Friday, you can come with me to Miss Peebs’,” Junior said.
    â€œWe straight then,” Buddy said. “Nobody going to keep you from having your lesson.”
    On the bus, Junior and Buddy watched people hurrying along windswept Broadway for fifty blocks. Junior felt safe with Buddy and safe hidden in the seat. Except for hunger which had gnawed a numbing hollow inside him, he had a long, nearly peaceful ride all the way uptown.

4
    FOR BUDDY, THE CITY of darkness was deeply familiar and as fine a treasure as any he could have dreamed. He had accepted its mindless indifference to life because he knew it was he, alone, and others, as alone as he was, who gave it what little humanity it had.
    There were hundreds of kids like him who had never known what even the poorest home was like. No one worried whether they had a floor to sleep on or food to eat; whether they had got into trouble, or if they were getting along all right. It was not that no one cared about them, Buddy knew. It was simply that no one had any idea they existed.
    Rarely did Buddy trouble himself about his mother, whom he hadn’t seen since the age of nine. He knew she had abandoned him because his presence reminded her how completely unable she was to care for him. Out of desperation she had walked away from him. Buddy had been glad to never again have to see her suffering. If Buddy longed for anything, it was for a brother. He had known many brothers, but not a single one whom he could run with or just even make angry once in a while.
    Buddy recalled living in the hallway and in the basement of the building where he and his mother had lived before she left. People knew him and felt sorry for him. They gave him clothes and some food. Once in a while people would take him in to live with them. But people had children of their own. Just when Buddy thought he was going to stay one place, the children there would fall into a fit of jealousy. The next thing Buddy knew, he was back sleeping in the hallway.
    Maybe that was why somebody had called the Children’s Shelter on him. He’d barely gotten away in time. He’d seen the car pull up about the time he was bedding down for the night. He’d had to lay there and be cool about it, sitting up, rubbing his eyes when they kneeled over him. They asked him his name and if he had any living relatives. He had taken his time. His plan for escape had depended on his sounding truthful. Buddy had told them his name. And then he first made up the story about his mother really being his aunt.
    His mother had left him, Buddy told them. So he stayed with his aunt, who lived over on the next block. But she had told him to get out; she wouldn’t even let him take his little sister, who he was afraid would starve. That had done it.
    â€œWhere does your aunt live again?” they had asked. He explained and when they took him outside, he pretended he thought they were kidnapers and he wouldn’t get into the car. He began to cry. “Just walk around the corner