A Star is Born Read online

  “If I take the knight I can win a piece,” Bobbi answered. “But the puzzle is a mate in two. Okay, I won’t show up, but you know Culpepper is going to turn three shades of red and we’ll all be in his office tomorrow.”

  I knew that, but I also knew we had to show LaShonda some love and some support. Mom had called St. Francis, where LaShonda and Chris were staying, and talked to the director there.

  “They talked about some kind of spectrum,” Mom said, rubbing cream on her forehead. “It depends on where a person is on the spectrum how well they’re expected to do.”

  “How well is Chris expected to do?” I asked.

  “They said they don’t know,” Mom answered. “Which isn’t good, is it?”

  “And what happens if he doesn’t do well?”

  “He might have to go to another kind of facility,” Mom said softly.

  At school I met Bobbi in the media center and told her what had happened at the Port Authority and what Mom had found out.

  “She’s got to take care of him, I guess,” I added.

  “So LaShonda can just say she doesn’t want any part of the Virginia Woolf program,” Bobbi said. “They can’t make her do it, can they?”

  “No, but she’s thinking that maybe she won’t be able to go to college at all,” I said. “That’s, like, a real possibility. People don’t like to run it down like that, but there’s no guarantee that everybody at Da Vinci is going to get over.”

  “Everybody here should get over,” Bobbi said, making a move. “If they don’t just because they don’t have enough money, it sucks big-time.”

  Maybe nobody wanted to say it, but that’s what it looked like. Mr. Marcus, our science teacher, said that he always questioned longevity rates, which said that poor people just happened to die earlier than people from richer groups.

  I didn’t know what to do, really. Bobbi was definitely on time thinking kids shouldn’t get messed around just because they didn’t have a lot of money, but I knew how things rolled in the real world.

  I didn’t know how to feel, either. Except maybe sad.

  At home, Mom made a stir-fry with hamburger and frozen veggies and it came out terrible. Some of the veggies were still cold and the hamburger tasted nasty. She said it wasn’t that bad and then when I didn’t eat it she got on her hurt look.

  I put my plate in the microwave and zapped it for two minutes. It didn’t taste any better, but at least it wasn’t cold.

  Somehow they let Kelly Bena, the smartest girl in the school, read the announcements. Actually, they can make anybody in the school read them, but usually they won’t let Kelly because she deliberately messes them up.

  “The girls’ soccer team will meet in the boys’ locker room at three-oh-five,” she announced. “Make sure you bring your equipment, which will include —”

  The mike went dead for a minute and I knew somebody in the office had shut it off. Then Kelly came back on.

  “Okay, it’s the boys’ soccer team that will meet in their locker room at three-oh-five,” she said. “Sorry about that, girls. Everybody who has an overdue library book, please note the sign on the media center door that says to return them at once for inventory. If you can’t read you are probably excused from —”

  The intercom went dead again.

  “And the final announcement is that the Cruisers will meet in Mr. Culpepper’s office at the end of the last period. Anyone who doesn’t show up will be burned at the stake. And have a nice day!”

  “Yo, Zander, you going to show?” Kambui met me in the hallway.

  “We have to show, I guess, but we need to work out a strategy for LaShonda,” I said.

  “Okay, you’re in charge of the strategy,” Kambui said.

  “You couldn’t think of anything, either?” I asked.

  “LaShonda said she was just going to say no and walk away from the whole deal because she doesn’t want her business all out there in the street,” Kambui said. “And she definitely doesn’t want it bouncing around Mr. C.’s office.”

  Mr. C. was smart, but as far as kids were concerned he was kind of lame at times. He kept talking about some perfect world and how all we had to do was to follow his road map and we would all get to heaven, make big bucks, and cop some Nobel prizes. When you didn’t follow his program he got pissed and crawled down the back of your neck about what didn’t you understand? What he didn’t understand was that sometimes the world didn’t work according to his logic. You can jump on a scholarship if you’re jumping by yourself, but if you have a little brother to take care of, as LaShonda did, things get hard in a hurry.

  What LaShonda was thinking was that if she never got to college she would have a hard time even supporting her brother once they aged out of the group home. I was feeling her strong.

  Three times a week we have Phys Ed, which means forty-two minutes of hopping around and doing fake push-ups or doing lame exercises on the horse twice a week and one day of just jiving around. Nobody was going to the Olympics and nobody at Da Vinci was being recruited for big college sports except, and only maybe, Cody Weinstein could make a college team if he went Ivy League and changed his mind about playing basketball. His father was athletic director and kept pushing him to play, but they didn’t get along very well. This was our jiving around day, and me, Kambui, Cody, and Alvin played H-O-R-S-E.

  I could beat anybody at H-O-R-S-E any day of the week except for Cody, and sometimes I could beat him. Kambui couldn’t play because he was too busy getting fancy with his short little arms, and he never made any of his shots.

  “I talked to LaShonda,” Kambui said. “And she said she wasn’t going for the Virginia Woolf program and she wasn’t going for the perfume company, either. She said she was just going to lay it out to Culpepper and school him on the happenings. Case closed.”

  I went to the corner and threw a jumper that swished cleanly through the net. It looked so pretty I wished I had it on tape. Kambui missed it, so did Alvin, but Cody made it.

  The thing was that I knew it was never simply “case closed” when you were dealing with Culpepper. He was going to run down this and throw in some that and sprinkle in obvious a few times and remind everybody that he was an adult and in charge and we were just kids. LaShonda was right. She had to tell Mr. C. she had made up her mind and the case was closed and she didn’t want to hear any more about it. It wasn’t good but it was the only way to handle Mr. C.

  “You think that Mr. C. is just going to let it slide?” I asked after I had whipped everybody.

  “He doesn’t have a choice,” Kambui said.

  “The thing with adults is that they don’t know when they don’t have a choice,” Cody said. He had been listening to me and Kambui talk and we had filled him in. “You just wait and see.”

  The Cruisers met outside Mr. Culpepper’s office and it was Bobbi who came up with the first cool observation.

  “Why are we all here?” she asked.

  “Because the announcement said we all had to be here,” Kambui said. “And we already did our no-show bit yesterday.”

  “But why are we all here when it’s only LaShonda’s decision?” Bobbi went on. “He’s got to be thinking about using us to put pressure on LaShonda. He’s going to threaten us with something if we don’t go along.”

  “What’s he going to threaten us with?” LaShonda’s voice went up. “He’s not giving us anything.”

  “I don’t know, either,” Bobbi said. “But look out for Culpepper, he’s sneaky.”

  “Hi, guys!” Caren Culpepper came out of her father’s office and waved.

  “Maybe he’s going to get Caren to try out her charms on Zander again,” LaShonda said, smiling.

  I was glad to see her smiling.

  We went in and sat on the bench in the waiting area. Mrs. Williams, the official Da Vinci secretary, looked up and smiled at us. We waited silently for about two minutes and then Kambui spoke up.

  “He’s probably watching us on closed-circ
uit television,” he said. “I saw that once on The First 48. They were watching to see how nervous this dude was before they interrogated him.”

  “Did he confess?” Bobbi asked.

  “Yes, but we haven’t done anything,” LaShonda said. “So all I’m going to say is the truth, and the truth is that I don’t want any part of their program.”

  Mr. Culpepper came to his office door, twisted his face into a kind of smile, and then beckoned us all in. I was confident. I glanced over at LaShonda and she had her battle face on.

  We went in and sat down and I saw that Bobbi had her battle face on, too.

  “LaShonda, I really respect your decision,” Mr. Culpepper started. “I fully understand how much your brother means to you and what a sacrifice it will be for both of you to turn down this opportunity. But that’s what life is about, taking the road we see that best fits our needs. I know your friends have been supportive and will continue to be. I’ve asked you all here today simply to consider the problem as presented to me by St. Francis.”

  “I don’t care what they say.” LaShonda was getting mad.

  “I care because I see so much talent in you young people,” Mr. Culpepper said. “I can’t wait to see the play again just to see your costumes.”

  “I don’t want them to wear my costumes again,” LaShonda said. “As far as I’m concerned, they can go on naked.”

  “You can’t do that, LaShonda Powell!” Mr. Culpepper was already turning a fifth shade of red. “There will be NO nudity involved with any students from Da Vinci!”

  “Then you better cancel the whole performance!” LaShonda was getting up close and personal, and Kambui was trying to get in between them.

  “This is … this is … the chance of a lifetime, young lady.” Our assistant principal was beginning to sputter, and Kambui was practically dragging LaShonda out of the door.

  Bobbi McCall was in tears. Yes, tough-as-nails Bobbi was on the verge of a major boo-hoo.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Bobbi in the hallway. “I thought LaShonda was doing great.”

  “She was,” Bobbi said. “Until they told her that if she took the scholarship they would have to separate her from her brother. No way she’s doing that, Zander. And the Cruisers have to back her up!”

  I knew the play we were going to put on again would put the Cruisers on the map big-time, especially with all the noise about LaShonda’s costumes. But if we blew it after all the press coverage they wouldn’t be able to dig a hole deep enough for us to crawl in!

  I was getting nervous.

  “What did St. Francis say?” Kambui asked.

  I had a sinking feeling.

  “What they said was that they didn’t see how I was going to support my brother once I aged out of St. Francis,” LaShonda said. “There will have to be —”

  LaShonda was already crying.

  “Yo, LaShonda, you got any ideas about — you know — what other people do in, like, your situation?” Kambui said.

  “If they’re rich they can hire somebody full-time,” LaShonda said. “Other than that it depends on how people — the children — are getting on. If they’re like Chris there comes a time when … you have to make a decision to walk away or — I don’t know. I just don’t know!”

  I hate to see a friend cry. I was blinking back tears and feeling sick to my stomach. It just wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t fair right out there in the open where we could all see it.

  We all hugged LaShonda before she left, her books clutched to her chest, her head down, going toward the boulevard.

  “If I die and come back to life I’m coming as a frog!” Bobbi said. “Then all I’d have to do is swim around in muddy water and burp, or whatever the heck frogs do.”

  THE CRUISER

  POEM TO MY BROTHER

  By LaShonda Powell

  There will always be summer rains

  Leaves glistening in the sun

  Weighed down by golden droplets

  Beautiful in their silence

  As there will always be us

  There will always be birds

  Singing morning hymns in

  Distant forests

  Though no one will hear

  As there will always be us

  There will always be mountains

  Booming their majesty

  To the open arms of the sky

  Summer rain, birds, mountains

  As there will always be us

  Yo, Zander.” Kambui and I were going up the hill on the way to school. “If it was scientifically proven that roaches were the perfect food, and you lived an extra year for every thousand roaches you ate, how many would you eat?”

  “The question is stupid and I’m not answering any stupid questions today,” I said.

  “It’s not stupid,” he said. “You’re just too intellectually lazy to get to it.”

  “None. I’d kill myself by not eating roaches,” I said.

  “That makes sense to you?” Kambui asked. “You could grow them for free and save on your grocery bills and everything. I’d eat every roach I saw.”

  “Check out the television truck in front of the school,” I said. There was one of those vans with the round antennas parked in front of Da Vinci.

  “You might as well stop eating today,” Kambui went on. “If eating doesn’t mean good health to you, then what are you eating for? You say you don’t eat junk food, right?”

  “What I’m going to do is watch you eat up all the roaches and then make a fortune writing about you,” I said. “I’ll die young, but at least my breath won’t smell like roaches.”

  “That looks like some kind of a demonstration,” Kambui said. “Check out those folks carrying signs.”

  “They’ve probably heard we’re over here eating roaches,” I said as I checked out the signs.

  COMPLETE! NOT ELITE!

  All Students Are Created Equal!

  “What are they talking about?” I wondered aloud.

  “I don’t know,” Kambui answered.

  As we neared the school I saw Bobbi McCall, and we walked toward her. She was on her cell phone.

  “Zander, Mrs. Maxwell wants the Cruisers in her office right away,” Bobbi said. She was wearing feathers in her hair that went all the way around her head. It looked good.

  “What did we do now?” Kambui asked.

  I couldn’t think of anything the Cruisers had done or even had published in our paper. But Mrs. Maxwell was cool and everybody knew that, so I wasn’t sweating it.

  The people carrying signs were also chanting something, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying and it didn’t seem like a really big deal to me because somebody in Harlem was always protesting something.

  Me, Kambui, and Bobbi went in the front door of Da Vinci and Mrs. Brown, who works in Mrs. Maxwell’s office, motioned to us to come up the steps. On the way up Bobbi said she thought it was about our agreeing in The Cruiser to referee a food fight. Actually, we were just kidding, but maybe Mrs. Maxwell had taken it seriously.

  “I think it’s about the protest,” Mrs. Brown said.

  We got to the principal’s office and it was already crowded. There was a woman with a voice recorder who I figured was a reporter. LaShonda, looking tired, was already there. She kind of half smiled at us and shrugged. She didn’t know anything, either.

  “How you doing?” I asked LaShonda.

  “Hanging in there,” she said. “I don’t think this has anything to do with us.”

  Mrs. Brown motioned the Cruisers and the reporter lady into the principal’s office and we filed in. Mrs. Maxwell was standing behind her desk. Mr. Culpepper was standing in front of the American flag next to one of the school’s security guards, and on the other side was a dude dressed in an African robe and another guy I recognized. I had seen Charles Lord on television and in the Amsterdam News a lot of times. He was one of those dudes who was always against whatever was going on and always making statements to the papers.r />
  “Mrs. Maxwell, I’m going to say again that I do not approve of these children being here,” Mr. Lord said. “This is a matter for adults to decide.”

  “It’s their future you’re challenging, Mr. Lord.” Mrs. Maxwell’s voice was a little strained and I figured she was upset. “You cannot be against elite schools without being against elite pupils such as these young people. So you have to make your case to them!”

  “Are these students among the school’s best?” the reporter asked.

  “These students are just young people who work very hard to do well in the educational system,” Mrs. Maxwell said. “And who, apparently, Mr. Lord is against.”

  “My case is very simple.” Mr. Lord turned toward where the Cruisers stood on one side of the room. “I don’t think that there should be elite schools such as this one in the city of New York. I think that all students should have the opportunities that you have here. And that’s regardless of race, color, religion, or economic status. I hope you young people can agree with me and the Harlem community in this matter.”

  “My grandmother saw you on television,” Kambui said. “She said people like you don’t build anything, you just tear stuff down.”

  “Your grandmother is correct, young man,” Mr. Lord said. “It’s up to the city to build a competent educational system for all the children in New York. It’s up to people like me to tear down their excuses, one of which is the city’s elite schools, for not building a complete educational system for all the students in the city.”

  That was a good answer and it was really fast.

  “You’re quick and slick,” I said. “But being strong doesn’t mean you’re not wrong. Da Vinci is the bomb because everybody here works hard. If the really good schools in the city are smoking it’s because the kids who go to them aren’t joking. Wrap that up and send it to your brain.”

  “’Nuff said, Zander man!” This from Bobbi.

  I looked at Mr. Lord and I could see he was thinking big-time but wasn’t coming up with anything.

  “That was a very intelligent remark and I appreciate it,” Mr. Lord said. He had turned away from the Cruisers and Mrs. Maxwell and was talking to the reporter. “But I don’t think you children can understand the complexities of the fight for black education that I’ve been involved with over the years. I have been in the forefront of trying to get our people —”