“Okay, I assumed. But it shows me how much I don’t know about him.” Sonny stuffs his hands in his pockets. “It’s not worth the distraction.”
Yet the way his voice dips says otherwise.
There are more people outside the school than usual. Mainly near the front doors. There’s lots of chatter. We have to push through the crowd to try to get a glimpse of what’s happening.
“This is some bullshit!” somebody shouts up ahead.
Sonny and I find Malik and Shana. Malik’s height helps him see over the crowd.
“What’s going on?” Sonny asks.
Malik’s jaw ticks as he looks straight into the school. “They’re back.”
“Who?” I ask.
“Long and Tate.”
Seventeen
“What the hell?” Sonny says.
There is no way.
I stand on my tiptoes. Long ushers a student through the metal detectors, as if he never left, and Tate checks a backpack nearby.
My whole body tenses up.
Dr. Rhodes said there would be an investigation and that disciplinary action would take place if the administration saw fit. Long and Tate throwing me to the ground must not have “fit” their idea of bad behavior.
Dr. Rhodes is near the doors, telling everybody to come inside in an orderly fashion.
“How the hell can they be back?” Sonny asks.
“There wasn’t enough noise made about what they did,” Malik says. He looks at me.
No, hell no. “This is not on me.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“You may as well have!”
“Y’all!” Sonny says. “Not now, okay?”
“We need to do something,” says Shana.
I glance around. Half the school’s out here, and most of them eye me.
Am I pissed? Doubt that’s even the word for it. But whatever they want me to do, I don’t have it in me to do. Hell, I don’t know what to do.
Malik watches me for the longest. When I don’t say or do anything, he shakes his head. He opens his mouth and starts to shout, “Hell no, we won’t—”
“‘Pin me to the ground, boy, you fucked up,’” Curtis yells over him. “‘Pin me to the ground, boy, you fucked up!’”
Malik tries to start his own chant over him, but Curtis is loud and angry, and it becomes contagious. A second person yells out my lyrics. A third. Fourth. Before I know it, I’m hearing my words from everybody but me.
And Malik.
“We will not tolerate that type of language,” Dr. Rhodes calls over them. “All students must stop at—”
I have a moment. Of all the places and times to have one, I do. See, those words started in my head. Mine. Conceived from my thoughts and my feelings. Birthed through my pencil and onto my notepad. Somehow, they’ve found their way to my classmates’ tongues. I think they’re saying them for themselves, yeah, but I know they’re saying them for me.
It’s hard to say this is a protest. So many of my classmates who look like me are rocking to a beat that’s not even playing. They’re jumping around, bouncing, dancing. Locs and braids shake, feet won’t stay still. There are ayes and yahs mixed in, upping the hype. It’s different from what happened in the Ring parking lot. That was a mini concert. This is a call to war.
Long and Tate appear in the doors. Long has a bullhorn.
“All students must report to class,” he says. “If you do not, you risk suspension.”
“‘Run up on me and get done up!’” someone yells out.
That becomes the new chant, and it’s definitely a warning.
“‘Run up on me and get done up! Run up on me and get done up! Run up on me and get done up!’”
“This is your final warning,” Long says. “If you do not disperse, you will—”
It happens so fast.
A fist connects with Long’s jaw. The bullhorn flies from his hand.
Suddenly, it’s as if that punch was the green light some students were waiting for. A cluster of boys charge Long and Tate, taking them to the ground. Curtis is one of them. Fists fly and feet kick.
“Oh, shit!” Sonny says.
“We need to go!” says Malik.
He grabs my hand, but I tug away and rush forward.
“Curtis!”
He stops kicking and whirls around toward me.
“Cops!” I say.
That one word is enough. I bet everything that the police are en route. Curtis hurries over to me, and we run with