Taneesha Never Disparaging Read online

  I did the same stuff with Daddy and headed for the stairwell.

  “Don’t forget to set your alarm,” he said. “Remember, your mother and I leave early tomorrow.”

  “I won’t forget.”

  I climbed the stairs. The altar bell bonged. I heard them do Sansho and start Gongyo, their evening prayer. I reached the top of the stairs, entered the hallway, and walked into my room. Their Gongyo begin:

  Niji seson

  Ju sanmai

  Anjo ni ki

  Go shari-hotsu…

  I closed my door. Too tired to do anything but fall into bed, I pulled the covers up to my neck and turned onto my side. “Sorry Officer HP,” I yawned. “I’ll brush and floss in the morning.”

  Muffled words rose up from the living room. I couldn’t make them out anymore. A rhythm I’d heard since before I could remember reached my ears like the song of an old friend and rocked me to sleep.

  I had no idea that in just a few hours I’d be up against an evil like nothing I’d ever faced before. If I had known what was coming, or who was coming, I would have been downstairs chanting my butt off.

  CHAPTER 10

  HUMAN-EATING BIGFOOT

  Monday morning, I slowly opened my eyes. I could just glimpse cloudy daylight seeping through the slats of my window blinds. I rolled my head over on my pillow to check the alarm clock. 8:32 glowed in red light. I blinked my eyes in focus to get a good look at those numbers. They seemed off. Then it hit me: I’d overslept! Daddy and Mama had already left for work. I was supposed to get up and out on my own—and I’d blown it!

  I got to Hunter late. In my classroom, I scurried around like a hamster on Mountain Dew. I stripped down to my dress-code black-and-white and put my coat and everything away. Panting, I eased the seat of my black pants into my chair, next to Carli’s desk.

  “Hey, girl!” she grinned, whispering.

  I had nearly fallen a couple of times rushing the whole way to school over chunky snow and slippery ice. Now I was out of breath. I swallowed the last of a toasted-bagel-and-turkey-bacon sandwich. I’d been gobbling it bit by bit since I left home.

  “Hey…girl,” I said, hoarse.

  “Harrumph!” Mr. Alvarez cleared his throat and raised his left eyebrow. Whenever he did that, he reminded me of my father, only meaner. “Taneesha, you’re already tardy. You’d do well to stop talking and start your class work.”

  “Yes, Mr. Alvarez.” I slinked down into my seat.

  Great. You are SO embarrassing, Taneesha. Why don’t you just disappear?

  I heard the faint, low dip and rise of Rayshaun Parker and some other kids saying “Ooooooooh.”

  Pictures of the sheep I saw on last year’s field trip to Lake Farm Park flicked through my head. The poor animal stood naked with all its wool shaved off, a weird, hairless thing for all to see.

  Guess who’s a sheep now? Baaa! Baaa!

  I raised my desktop and ducked my head inside, hiding like an ostrich—head in sand, butt in air—totally exposed. I took out my notebook and pencil, closed my desk without even a little clump, and read the Problem of the Day off the chalkboard. Then I pressed my pencil on my paper just hard enough to work it without making a sound.

  After we finished going over the Problem of the Day, Mr. Alvarez stood in front of us with his arms behind his back. In seconds, forty eyes looked at him and just as many lips were zipped.

  “Class, this week’s a busy one for us. As you know, this past Friday was Take Your Child To Work Day. Those of you who participated must present a report on your experiences. Presentations begin tomorrow and will conclude Friday.”

  Just fine. I bet he’s going to do alphabetical order like always.

  I wished my name began with a Z. Even a P would do. But with Bey-Ross, I always end up being one of the first people picked for alphabetical order. I felt my stomach twisting into a sick knot.

  “We are going to give the reports in alphabetical order by last name—”

  I knew it!

  “But in reverse. Lawrence Young, you will be the first to share your experience with us tomorrow.” Lawrence, a scrawny light-skinned boy who looked like a third grader, gave a low groan.

  Hunh? All riiiight!

  “Questions, anyone? No? Good.

  “The other big event we have this week is our class election.”

  Oh, no!

  “Elections take place on Thursday. Tomorrow we’ll hear campaign speeches from our candidates for president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer. Candidates, if you want to bring the campaign materials we discussed last week—buttons, posters, flyers, et cetera, you can do so tomorrow.”

  My butt is fried!

  I hadn’t made one thing for my campaign. I had no idea what to bring tomorrow. Maybe wiry Ronnie Lawson felt the same way. Maybe that was why, right then, his hand flapped like a flag on a windy day over his twelve-inch ’fro. Maybe he was going to confess that, like me, he wasn’t ready to give a speech tomorrow.

  “Yes, Ronnie?”

  “Can we bring food, Mr. Alvarez?”

  “Food?”

  Food?

  “Yeah, you know, to hand out to everybody. I mean, like a snack or something.”

  Oh brother.

  Don’ t worry. I told you, you’ ll lose anyway.

  “Well. Okay. I suppose a snack will be alright.” Mr. Alvarez folded his arms. He made his lips into tight little lines, thinking. Then he said, “We’ll just have the speeches and, er, refreshments, after lunch. Sorry your campaigns have to be so rushed, candidates. Between the state tests and our regular work we just ran out of time to get everything in.”

  Get everything in? I didn’t want to get anything in. I wanted out.

  Why does Ronnie always have to overdo stuff?

  By the time school ended, life was normal again. To my relief, none of the kids teased me about how Mr. Alvarez dogged me for being late that morning. Even Rayshaun Parker and the rest of the ones who went “Ooooooooh” didn’t mention it.

  Outside, Carli and I walked up Bernard with clouds that hid the sun hanging over us.

  Earlier, over lunch, she’d grilled me about my campaign:

  “When we get back to 509, can I see your speech?”

  “I left it home.”

  “Did you make buttons?”

  “A poster.”

  “Why so glum?”

  “Got a headache.”

  “How’s your head?” Carli asked while we slogged up Bernard.

  “Hunh? What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

  “Your headache. I’m guessing it’s gone, hunh?”

  “Oh. Yeah. Yeah, that. I feel a lot better. Thanks for asking.”

  “So, how long is your speech?”

  “Long enough.”

  “I thought you were going to call me so I could hear it.” She sounded kind of down.

  “I didn’t want to bug you.”

  I hated lying to Carli, but what was my choice? I didn’t have a speech. I didn’t even want to be tangled up in any election. But lately, that was all Carli seemed to live and breathe, even though the whole thing was making me sick, including her—the person who’d plopped me knee-deep in this doo-doo in the first place.

  “You wouldn’t have been bugging me, Taneesha. Don’t you know I’m your biggest fan?”

  I felt like such a turd.

  But the smile on her face was almost enough to make me feel better. Almost.

  “FIGHT!”

  I jerked my neck to the right. On the other side of Bernard, two girls were at it. One had a face the color of brown sugar. She was maybe taller than my father. And a lot wider than him. She had a bloody cut above one eye. The other girl’s lip was bleeding and puffy. She was a little darker than the first girl and about her same size.

  The two girls’ scratching, pulling, punching, and biting kept up non-stop. Kids barked, “Get her! Get her!” up and down the street. Cars came to a crawl to pass the crowd. Then they pi
cked up speed and zoomed away.

  Four blocks from Hunter, the two girls—seventh-graders maybe—were on their own to scratch, pull, punch, and bite until only one was left standing.

  “Hey, you! White girl! What’s up with your leg? Is it broke?”

  The shout had come from somebody on my side of the street. It grabbed me by the ears and whirled me around.

  Say it isn’t so.

  I saw none other than big bad Shrek herself, in all her raging-red-jacket glory, standing over Carli.

  I noticed Carli lying on her butt on the sidewalk. Apparently, she’d slipped on the ice. I helped her to her feet. We stood side by side.

  Carli brushed snow off her coat. “No, my leg’s not broken. It got hurt when I was a baby, but I’m okay now. I just have to wear a brace to help me walk.”

  “What you mean you got to wear a brace to help you walk? You mean you a cripple, right?” The older girl pointed to Carli’s leg. She sprayed nasty laughter into the cold, winter air. “Hey, you ain’t nothing but a little cripple, white girl!”

  What is she doing?!

  “I am not a cripple! I just wear a brace, that’s all!”

  I couldn’t hear what Carli said after that because that older girl’s devil laugh strangled her words.

  I got so mad, I couldn’t see. “You leave her alone!” I felt my heart bursting out my chest. “She hasn’t done anything to you! You’re being mean and stupid!”

  I froze, wanting to say, “Why are you doing this? Why are you being so mean?”

  But I couldn’t.

  Because just then I saw something that totally ghostified me.

  Pure viciousness.

  It burned in the eyes that looked back at me. For the first time, I really noticed that girl’s size. How she towered over me, not like an irritablebut-harmless Shrek on PMS, but like a Sasquatch, a ferocious, human-eating Bigfoot.

  You better back off, Taneesha. This girl can hurt you for real.

  Carli gently took my hand. “Let’s just go home, Taneesha. It’s okay. I’m all right.”

  “Oh yeah?” growled Bigfoot. “Well, I don’t like the way your friend here just spoke to me, little cripple girl.”

  That does it!

  “She is not a cripple,” I said, through clenched teeth. “She has a name. You shouldn’t call people ugly names! You wouldn’t like it if somebody called you one!”

  “Is that right? Well, what you going to do about it?” That girl was so close, I smelled chiliburger on her breath. And worse, she looked ready to pounce.

  As cold as it was outside, sweat started dripping down my forehead. I didn’t know what to do.

  Run, scaredy-cat, RUN!

  I wasn’t stupid. I would have run if my feet hadn’t been sticking to the ground like they were screwed there.

  I looked up at the girl and made my eyes real wide. I bet I looked dumb.

  “I-I-I was just s-s-saying that you didn’t need to be mean. Th-th-that’s all.” And I sounded dumb.

  On top of that, all of a sudden, I had to pee real bad. That’s all I needed, to pee myself in front of a crazy girl that looked like she could kill me—and would.

  “Well, I think you need to M-Y-O-B! Mind your own bizzzzzz-nesss. Hear me?” On the last two words, she poked her finger at my nose, just missing it.

  I backed up and I ducked my head, hating being such a coward, especially in front of Carli.

  “Yes.”

  “What you say?!”

  “I said, ‘yes.’ I hear you. I’ll mind my own business.”

  “Good,” she grunted through a twisty smile. “Don’t worry. I’m going to make sure you keep your promise!”

  She swiveled around and headed down Bernard.

  After a minute, Carli and I started up the street again.

  “Carli, let’s not tell our parents, okay?” I said, quietly.

  “What?! But don’t you think they should know what happened?”

  I didn’t want to hear my parents telling me to chant. I didn’t want to hear anything from the Gosho either. I’d almost gotten beat up, and tacking one of Nichiren’s quotes on that fact wasn’t going to make it all better.

  “I’ll handle it, okay? Promise you won’t tell?”

  “All right,” Carli said, all like I-don’t-know-ifthis-is-a-good-idea. “I promise. I won’t tell.”

  CHAPTER 11

  FLOUNCING OUT

  At my house, Carli and I sat at the kitchen table. In silence, we drank soymilk and snacked on crackers, tuna salad, and cucumbers.

  “So, Taneesha, can I read your speech, now?” Carli asked in a voice that wasn’t as zippity as it normally was when she got on that subject.

  I didn’t want to hear anything about the stupid election. I wished I could wave a magic wand and erase everything that had happened today.

  “Did you print it out yet?”

  “No, Carli. You cannot read my dang speech and I wish you’d have kept your mouth shut and not nominated me at all.”

  She hung her head.

  “Oh. I didn’t know you felt that way. Sorry.”

  Hot blood rushed to my face. I wanted to snatch back my witchy words and unsay them.

  Can’t you do anything right, Taneesha?

  I reached across the table and patted Carli’s hand. “I’m sorry, Carli. It’s not your fault. I’m just—I’m just scared, that’s all.”

  “About the election?”

  “No! I mean, yes—but that’s not all. That girl. She was mean. What if she comes back tomorrow?”

  “Well, maybe she won’t.”

  “But you heard her. She said she was going to make sure I mind my own business. Maybe she’s even planning to do something to you. Haven’t you thought about that?”

  “I think we should tell our parents, Taneesha. It’s crazy not to.”

  “I don’t want to, Carli. Don’t tell, okay? Let’s just see how things go tomorrow first? Please?”

  “I think you’re making a mistake. Sometimes you need help and this is definitely looking like one of those times to me.”

  “Please, Carli?” I hated begging, but I couldn’t stand the idea of my parents finding out what happened.

  “Okay. I won’t tell. At least not before tomorrow. After that, I’m not promising what I’ll do.”

  “Okay. That’s fair. Thanks.”

  “Thanks” wasn’t a big enough word for how I felt about Carli right then. Sure, she’d really messed me up with the whole nomination thing, but saving me from whatever know-it-all advice my parents would dump on me if they knew about the older girl almost made up for it. I’d been dumped on enough for one day. I didn’t need my parents adding to the pile.

  By the time Carli and I finished our homework, Mama was home. While she made dinner, we worked on a campaign poster in the living room. I’d had to confess to Carli that when I told her I’d made a poster, I’d really meant, “I have a board that’ll work for poster.”

  I used a purple marker on a giant, yellow-butused-to-be-white poster board I’d dragged up from the basement. It smelled musty, like dragon breath, and had COLOSSAL YARD SALE in huge, red letters on its bad side and lots of black mildew dots on its “good” side. But it was all I had, so it went with it.

  I magic-markered this on it in big letters:TANEESHA

  4

  PRESIDENT

  Carli and I drew a bunch of colorful flowers all around the slogan for decoration. I tried to make the mildew dots look like pollen springing from the flowers but the more I looked at my artwork, the more I had to admit that my idea had tanked.

  Whatever.

  Once I was done, I propped the poster against the moss-green couch.

  “That looks okay,” I said, real dry.

  “Want to make buttons or something? I brought the construction paper in case you needed it.”

  “Naw. I think the sign’s enough. I don’t want to overdo it.”

  I didn’t care about the dumb campaign. It took every
bit of my energy to make that poster.

  All I could think about was the older girl, Sasquatch, about how angry she’d looked when she said “M-Y-O-B!” Her booming voice filled every space in my brain like an endless lion’s roar. In my mind, I could see that ferocious beast—a big brown lion in a puffy red coat, tearing into me with her fangs. And, when she finished, leaving me on the ground—a heap of brown noodles with blood-red sauce.

  A while after Mr. Flanagan had come by to drive Carli home, my parents and I sat at the dinner table.

  “Taneesha, I spoke to Marsha,” said Mama, all teeth. “My supervisor. She said you and Carli can start coming to the hospital on Friday afternoons to read to the children. How’s that sound?”

  “Fine.”

  I stared at the food on my plate.

  “I called Carli’s father this afternoon and told him about it. You two can start this Friday.”

  I could hardly hear Mama. Only the sound of Sasquatch the Bigfoot’s lion’s roar: “M-Y-O-B!” I knew that was two different creatures mixed together—Sasquatch/Bigfoot and a lion—but I heard it anyway. I just knew I was fixing to be that ugly creature’s meal.

  “You remember Shantay, right? The little girl? I told her, too. She’s all excited.”

  I didn’t move, blink, or speak.

  I wished Mama would stop talking. Her voice was scratching at my brain like sandpaper. Add that to the big beast howling in my head and it was enough to make a girl go crazy.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Yeah, Mama. I’m fine.”

  “You sure, honey? You’re mighty quiet today. I thought you’d be happy about this news. Last week you were so excited about Carli coming with you to the hospital.”

  “I said I’m okay, Mama. All right?”

  “Taneesha, watch your tone with your mother,” warned Daddy, mid-chew.

  “I’m done now anyway.”

  I scooted back, stood, and grabbed my plate off the table. The food looked gross.

  “Wait, don’t throw that out—” began Mama.

  Too late.

  My uneaten dinner—a grilled salmon filet, brown rice and steamed broccoli, carrots and cauliflower—slid into the garbage pail.