Madison looked at me. “Hey, Madison,” I said. She did a weird wave. Just jabbed her arm up and snapped down real quick. Then she buried her face in Patty’s stomach. She was probably freaked out by my name.
“Okay, okay, let’s go,” Patty said, looking over at a white woman. “Momly’s waiting for us.” Then she looked at me and said, “And before you start wondering if I’m reversed albino or something, me and Madison are adopted. So no need to be weird about it, ’kay?”
“Oh, I wasn’t—I—” I stammered, trying to pretend like the whole reversed albino thing didn’t pop right up in my head the second she called that white lady “Momly,” which was obviously one of those mom nicknames, like . . . I don’t know . . . “Ma” or something.
“It’s cool,” Patty said, smiling. She picked up her bag and threw it over her shoulder. Then she bent down and lifted her sister, holding her tight to her hip, and they left. Once Patty hobbled past Coach, Sunny and his dad started walking with her. Sunny turned around awkwardly and threw his hand up in the air to me.
“Good job today, Ghost!” he yelled, and even though I would normally think this was some kind of slick way of making fun of me, the look on Sunny’s face and the way his voice sounded made me think that he really meant it. So I waved back and said, nowhere near loud enough for him to actually hear me, “Thanks.”
That left me and Coach. When we got to his cab, I tossed my backpack on the floor in the back, slammed the door, and lay down on the sticky leather.
“If you sit back there, I gotta treat you like a customer, kid,” Coach said, starting the car. I didn’t say nothing. Coach turned around in his seat and glared at me. “Okay, then fine. I’m gonna run the meter. If you gonna make me drive you home in silence, I might as well get paid for it.”
Still, nothing from me. Not a word. Nothing to say. All I could think about was how stupid it felt to crash and burn on the track like that on my first real day of practice, and how Brandon Simmons would’ve laughed me off the planet if he was there to see that, and how I had finally beaten him up for talking smack about me and would’ve done it again, and how Patty said Lu had (was?) albino, and how she a white mother, and ladders were the worst, four-three-two-one-one-two-three-four, and water bottles, and how come I didn’t know any of this, and how come everybody’s shoes were so good, especially Lu’s and Patty’s. And probably Usain Bolt’s.
“. . . I swear, I almost broke my nose, kid. I mean, I just clipped the hurdle and dove face-first to the ground.” Despite his riding-in-silence comment, Coach was blathering on, probably telling me a story, but I wasn’t really listening. He continued, “So I know what it’s like to be embarrassed in front of your teammates. Trust me, tomorrow nobody will even remember.”
I heard that part, that tomorrow nobody would remember, and I’m not sure if I believed it or not, but I knew what I could do to help the situation. In addition to the ladders, water bottles, white parents, albino thinking, I also thought myself up a plan.
When we pulled up in front of my house, Coach put the car in park.
“Twenty dollars,” he said, trying to lighten the situation.
“Coach.”
“Nah, nah, don’t try to dash on me,” he insisted. “You done already robbed me for half a day’s pay.”
“But I paid you back already with all that sprinting I gave you earlier,” I groaned.
Coach did a double take. “Oh, you thought that was for me?” He pressed a finger to his chest.
I shook my head and unlocked the door. After I got out, Coach rolled down the window. The car slowly drifted forward. “Remember what I said, Ghost. . . .” He accelerated slightly. “Tomorrow it won’t matter. It’ll be a new day. A new chance!”
When I got inside my house, I didn’t waste no time. I knew what I needed to do, and I knew that I had to do it before my mother got home and made me eat dinner and watch some sappy flick with her while she procrastinated doing her homework. See, besides working in a hospital cafeteria, she was also taking online classes (there were also textbooks in that big purse), trying to get her nursing degree. She always says she can’t wait to one day trade that serving spoon for a stethoscope, and this house for a new one not in Glass Manor. But she hated homework. I guess I get that from her.
I dropped my backpack on the couch and headed straight for the kitchen. The drawer next to the stove was where my mother kept leftover duck sauce, soy sauce, chopsticks, menus, tape, screwdrivers, but most importantly, all her coupons, organized and paper-clipped by product. Seemed like everybody was having a sale on ketchup, which was a good thing because ketchup always made cafeteria food taste better. Way better. Along with the coupons (and all the other stuff) were the scissors she used to cut those coupons. These weren’t just regular scissors, though. Nope. These were hospital scissors. At least that’s where my mom got them from, and they were big, and shiny, and heavy, like if a doctor gotta cut somebody’s arm off or something, he could just use these bad boys and . . . snip, snip, bye-bye arm. Which was why I knew they’d be perfect for what I needed them for.
I grabbed the scissors and sat down on the kitchen floor. Using one foot to press against the heel of the other, I pushed my sneakers off. I yanked the laces out of both, so the floppy tongues fell forward like drawbridges coming down out of beat-up, leather, no-named fortresses. Because here’s the truth—I was still so angry about what happened on the track. Embarrassed. There was so much noise inside of me. So much of everybody’s laughing. So starting with the left shoe, I took those big scissors and began cutting and cutting, performing my own kind of surgery, the blades sawing and slicing into the black leather until the high parts of my high-tops were gone.
5
WORLD RECORD FOR THE MOST RUNAWAYS IN A SINGLE DAY
I WONDER IF doctors ever cut off somebody’s arm or leg and afterward realize that they made a huge mistake. Like, totally blew it. Because that’s definitely how I felt about low-topping my high-tops, but not until I got to school the next day.