sneakers with them.
She’s wearing capris and pink high-top Converse.
Now she’s smiling. Or smirking.
Maybe she’s gonna give me my props.
When she gets near me, I hear, What a lowlife.
Who’s she talking about? I wonder.
“You ain’t all that, Monk. I don’t even know why everybody’s sweatin’ you. You’re such a geek,” she says, and that’s when I realize I’m the lowlife
she was talking about. GEESH!
“Yeah, a geek,” says Angel’s best (and only) friend, Carla.
They laugh, then, like the tide, go back into
the big middle school sea, and
I know I won’t get
too many more chances like this.
LAST CHANCE
“Um, Angel, maybe I am all that,” I say nervously. “Maybe I read Mr. Olley’s mind
and knew the quiz
was gonna be on mitosis and DNA, and that’s why he canceled it.”
Carla stops, turns around, and yells, “OH, NOW YOU GOT ESPN?” which sends the entire hallway into raucous laughter.
Angel shakes her head. “It’s ESP, girl.”
And this is The Moment
when my Entire. Life. Changes.
“BET I CAN READ YOUR MIND, ANGEL,” I holler, sweating profusely.
JEOPARDY, PART TWO
Part of me wishes she’d just keep on walking.
The other half prays
she turns around.
Everyone is quiet.
Angel stops, drops her bag, and marches toward my locker like I just started
something.
I got to pee, I hear her say to herself.
“Excuse me, geek? I know you’re not trying to start nothing,” she says.
“I’m just saying, I know a lot more than you think I know,” I fire back.
“Okay, so just because you’re smart, you may know all the subjects and school stuff, but you don’t know stuff that matters.”
If he wore some better clothes, he might be kinda cute. NOT!
“Maybe I do.” Sweat drips down my neck. “Maybe you should ask me something, anything you want to,
and I’ll tell you the answer.”
Angel and Carla laugh real loud.
The other kids join in.
It’s like a circus in the hall and Angel and I are the main attractions.
“You want a question. ?Cuál es la fecha de hoy, stupido?”
And even though I take French instead of Spanish,
I don’t need telepathy to know that whatever
she just asked me,
she ended with Stupid.
The whole hallway
is laughing at me, and she’s eating it up.
THE QUESTION
“I’m serious, Angel. Ask me a real question, something I could never really know, and if I get it wrong, I will do your geometry homework for the rest
of the month.
But if I’m right, you have to, you have to, uh, eat lunch with me all next week.”
GEESH! I finally get
Angel Carter’s attention, and all I can think
to ask for is a measly lunch.
Maybe she’s right. I am stupido.
Why didn’t I say a movie or a hug?
(That would have been real nice.) What is he doing? He’s kind of strange.
I think we used to go
to the same elementary school.
“All right, stupid, if you wanna do my geometry,
it’s a deal. Let me see what I can ask….”
What a loser. My grandmother was born in Georgia.
He’ll never know that.
“All right, Monkey,
Here’s your question:
What city does my grandmother live in?”
WAIT! City? NO FAIR!
You only said the state. GEESH!
This is not going to end well for me.
THERE’S LIKE TWO HUNDRED
cities in Georgia.
I’ll never get it right,
Unless…
“Angel, to be fair,
you should tell somebody
besides Carla the answer
so they can prove that I
got it when I answer it correctly.”
Stalling. What a loser!
Angel whispers to some boy
who’s in the orchestra with me.
I stare her down and hear it plain and clear.
The hallway full of students sings the Jeopardy! theme song and awaits my answer.
I try to make it look good, believable.
“Well, let’s see. You talk with a little country twang
so it’s gotta be a southern state.
Not Atlanta or some other big city, else you would be bragging
about your summer vacations. So it must be some really small town in Alabama or Louisiana that you’re not too excited about.”
I don’t believe this. No way. There’s no way he’s gonna get this.
“Time’s up, Geek. What’s your answer?”
“I’d have to say Savann—No, I think your grandmother resides in the same city that gave us the Godfather of Soul, James Brown. She lives in Macon, Georgia.”
Jay, the guy who plays tuba in the Orchestra, starts running down the hall, flashing
the paper Angel wrote
the answer on, and screaming, “HE GOT IT! HE GOT IT! MONK’S RIGHT.”
People are yelling and laughing.
Angel stands there in disbelief,
looking like Mr. Olley’s twin.
I GOT THAT FEELING
“Angel, is he right?” Carla asks.
“He must have cheated or something. You cheated, didn’t you, geek? How’d
you know where my grandmamma lives?”
But how could he cheat?
He was standing in front of me