I chilled there for a while, watching Sicko push everybody around until what always happens happened. A fight. As usual. Stupid Sicko pushed the wrong guy. A guy I didn’t know. And that guy pushed Sicko back. And then Pop got into it. And then Big James. Then Big James’s girl. And then some other girl. And then a junkie started howling like a wolf. And then I was out.
By the time I made it home, I only had a little bit of time to kill before Coach picked me up. Just enough time to wash up, or as my mom says, splash some water on my hot spots, throw on some clean clothes, and give myself two spritzes of perfume. It was Ma’s, and it smelled like flowers, but hey, so what.
When Coach showed up, he hit the horn a few times. And when I didn’t come right out, he hit it a few more times.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I said, locking the door. Coach had his window down and was talking to Mr. Jefferson, the neighborhood sweeper. At least that’s what we called him. He basically swept up the street every single day, but it didn’t seem to ever really get clean. There was always glass, or paper, or, I don’t know . . . a dirty couch.
“Wassup, y’all,” I said to Patty, who sat up front, and Lu who was in the back with me. I wondered where Coach put all the junk that was usually in his cab. Probably in the trunk, which was a place I never, ever, ever wanted to see.
“Wassup, man,” Lu said.
“I been around here before,” Patty said, skipping the hello. “I can’t remember when. But I know I been around here.”
“Me too,” Lu said. “Not really these parts, but my pops plays ball sometimes at the court down the street.”
“Oh yeah? I play at that court,” I lied. Man. I was getting smooth with the lies. “Just came from over there.”
Coach shook Mr. Jefferson’s hand, then turned around to me. “Took you long enough,” he tossed over his shoulder. Then he sniffed, and sniffed, and sniffed. “That’s you smelling like flowers?” Coach asked Patty.
“Nope, that’s pretty boy back there,” she said.
“Who, Lu?” Coach adjusted his mirror.
“No, the other one,” Patty said, talking about me. I couldn’t even believe she called me pretty boy. I squeezed my cheeks to crush my smile. And before Coach or Lu could say something slick, Patty added, “I like it. Smells good.”
One more stop before the Chinese food. We left Glass Manor and went to the other side of town. Like, the other, other side. Where the houses have yards in the front and the back. Where there are two or three floors and each kid has their own room. Even if there are like five kids, each one gets their own four walls. And everybody has a car. Or two. And there are driveways to park those cars in. And there are also basketball courts in those driveways, the kind you can move around and adjust to make it low enough to dunk on. No wig shops, no fish markets, no Mr. Charles, which had to suck. And as we pulled up in front of Sunny’s house, a big brick castle with an old rusty car in the driveway, I wondered why Sunny didn’t act like the other people I’d met who lived in this neighborhood. He was . . . cool. A little weird, but cool.
Coach hit the horn. Sunny came right out, tall and awkward. He waved to us, that funny wave he always did.
“Yo, Patty, you should get back here so Sunny can actually get his legs in the car,” Lu suggested. I agreed. It didn’t make sense for Sunny to be cramped up in the back with us. Plus, Sunny had already opened the back door on my side, and I just wasn’t into sitting in the middle.
“Yeah, Patty,” I said. “That makes the most sense.”
“I don’t care what y’all do, just do it quick so we can go,” Coach barked.
Patty turned around and looked us up and down. “Ain’t nobody sitting back there with y’all goons. I might get goon juice on me, and don’t nobody want goon juice on them. What if I can’t get it off me? Then what?”
“Patty!” Lu yelped. Patty turned back around, ignoring him.
“Patty, come on,” I begged.
“Seriously?” Lu whined.
At this point, Sunny had already started stepping in, forcing me to scoot over to the middle. The middle sucks. It’s where babies sit, and I ain’t no baby. Sunny crunched and scrunched his body until he got it all in there. It reminded me of this dude Yogi Laser I read about who holds the record for having the fastest time to cram into a box. Crazy. Sunny’s knees were smashed against Patty’s seat, and he had no place to put his arm, so he had to put it around me. It was all just ridiculous. Once Sunny closed the door, which took three tries, Patty and Coach turned around to look at us.
“Awww, look at y’all. Bonding like brothers,” Coach jabbed.
“Or like clowns!” Patty followed with a hook.
“Just drive, please,” I groaned, seeing Sunny smiling away, like nothing was wrong, out of the corner of my eye.
8
WORLD RECORD FOR HAVING THE BEST SECRET
THANKFULLY, IT DIDN’T take too long to get to the Chinese restaurant. After we finished staring at the big orange-and-white fish swimming around in a giant tank in the waiting area, we found out Coach had our seats prearranged. He and Sunny sat on one side of the booth, and me, Lu and Patty sat on the other side. The weird red vinyl seats oinked as we all shuffled in.
“Okay, so you guys, pick anything you want on the menu,” Coach unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. “Anything at all. We’re here to celebrate the newbies.”
I didn’t know how anybody else felt about picking anything on the menu, but I almost flipped out, I was so excited. I mean, I had been eating hospital food almost every day during the week for, I don’t even know how long. I guess, since my dad had been gone. So this was going to be heaven.
We all checked out our menus. Way more than what I usually see when me, Mom, King, and Aunt Sophie order in on the weekends. Me and Mom always get shrimp fried rice, Aunt Sophie gets crab sticks, which I always thought was a weird choice, and King nine times out of ten orders a cheeseburger with two egg rolls. And when the food comes, me and King always throw the fortune cookies at each other and try to whack them to pieces with the chopsticks.
“Is everyone ready to order?” A waitress had come over, pad in hand, to scribble whatever we said.
“I am,” Coach said.
“Me too,” Patty said, closing her menu.
I was ready too. Lu looked like he was still thinking about it, but we figured he’d be ready by the time the waitress got to him.
“I’ll have the shrimp lo mein,” Coach said. “With a Sprite.”
“Sesame chicken,” from Patty. “And to drink, do you have Cherry Coke?”
“Cherry Coke?” Lu bawked. “Who drinks Cherry Coke?”
“I do,” Patty said, holding her hand in front of his face to shut him up.
“Ummm.” The waitress thought about it. “I can put some cherry juice in a regular Coke. How about that?”
“Perfect,” Patty said, smiling.
Lu moved her hand away. “And for you?” The waitress was talking to him now.
“Oh, I’m not ready,” he said, picking up his menu again. “Go ’head, Ghost.”
“I’m gonna have the Peking duck, please. And a lemonade.”
“Peekin’ duck?” Lu, again.
“Not peeking,” Sunny said. “Pe-king. I’ll have that too, please.”
“And to drink?”
“Sparkling water, please.”