Sarai
Ceon was super mad for the rest of the night. He walked around slamming doors and cupboards. He snapped at Mattie when he asked for something to eat. “Ask ‘Danny’”, he said in a sharp, biting tone that made Mattie cry. I sat beside him on the linoleum floor and patted his curly head. Ceon stormed into the storeroom, and when Fletchie tried to follow him, he growled. So did Mattie’s stomach. “What are we going to eat?” he asked Fletchie when he finished crying in the storeroom. I got a sense Ceon didn’t want to hear us. I closed the door and Fletchie ran a hand through his hair and didn’t say anything.
“Sarai, Matt.” We looked at him. “Pack your book bags before you go to bed. We’re getting out of here.”
Danyelle
My blood boiled as I walked down Edgewood Avenue. I turned right on Edgewood and Studebaker. Ceon had angered me and apparently I had angered him too. Who did he think he was, yelling at me and accusing me like that? He seemed really upset, about their living conditions and whatnot, but there was no reason for him to treat me that way. And Fletcher. My skin became hot with anger as I walked crisply down the sidewalk in the crisp fall breeze. My mind chewed on the things that I had blurted out to Ceon. Things like my reading issue and stuff. I gasped out loud and couldn’t believe that I said all that stuff to him, a complete stranger!
I remembered the deli as I walked down the sidewalk, my head low. It smelled musty and a little like Lysol. It was in surprisingly good condition, having one bathroom and an open area and a small “storeroom” where all of them must have slept. They kept it well, considering the years Joe had died, but still. The deli, the alley, as a matter of fact, was no place for little kids like Fletcher and Sarai and Matthew to live. As for Ceon, I couldn’t care less. I couldn’t believe I thought he would have accepted me easily. He was tall and lanky, about 2 inches taller than me and had a button nose and wavy, dark brown kinky hair. He was the color of a latte and his eyes were bright, light brown and wide and he had long eyelashes that cast feathery shadows against his cheeks and sent shivery little creatures up my spine. In fact, he was very cute, and I remembered him looking down at my pointed finger, and I shivered. And not because of the crisp air. He had a way of tilting his head to the side and blinking rapidly, even squinting a bit when he was about to be a jerk. I noticed that when he said, “I am the owner of this home”, he puffed out his chest and seemed… proud about it. I would have been, I knew it grudgingly. I would have been proud in the exact way he was. He didn’t look proud about owning the home. He looked proud about being alive. Proud about the accomplishment, not the home.
Ceon had a strange agility in the way he moved. He was like a bird, ready to fly away at any moment. He had a hunger about his face, and I got the feeling that he gave up meals so that his siblings wouldn’t go hungry. And yet there was strength in his face that I grudgingly admired, too. It was like defiance. Like, yes, I ran away. Yes, I’m starving, and so are my siblings. Yes, we’re half dead. But I’m going to be a pain in your butt and not die anyway. I’m going to live, not because you want me to, but because I want to. This insubordination was in each of their faces. He looked just like Matthew in an older way, while Sarai and Fletcher had longer faces. Fletcher’s hair was the curliest, knottiest, unruliest hair I had ever seen in my life, and I loved every strand of it. Sarai was identical to Matthew, yet different in her own way. The way I told them apart was because of Matthew’s haircut. Sarai’s hair was lighter than his; while Matthew’s hair was dark brown just as his older brothers’, Sarai’s hair was so brown it almost looked red. Just looking at her face made you know she was intelligent, a precocious little girl with sharp eyes and a way about her that made me shiver a bit; her level of intelligence was unexpected, for a six-year-old.
As I made a right on Lansing Avenue, a crisp paper airplane landed at my feet. I looked around for anyone that I could find, but I saw a curly head duck into the bushes. I walked past the airplane, thinking it was one of those bozos at Ruby Studebaker sending me dumb notes about Special SSR. But when a voice whispered my name from the bushes, I walked back warily and picked up the airplane.
I placed the airplane in my bag and continued walking home. When I arrived home, I grabbed my key from my back pocket and placed it in the keyhole. When I turned the key, I was greeted. By an empty home. I walked to the fridge and saw a bright pink post-it with a note scrawled out by Mom:
Will be home late. $20 on the coffee table for pizza.
I stared at it for a really long time. The thing was, I didn’t feel like pizza. I felt like a real, home-cooked meal. A real home, actually.
I opened my book bag and the first thing I saw was the paper airplane. It was another scrawled note, but this time not from Mom.
Meet us in the alley tomorrow at 4:00. Bring something to eat.
-Fletcher
Wednesday
Even though I had gone without dinner yesterday, I couldn’t do it for the second day in a row. The twenty-dollar bill was still on the coffee table. I sighed and called Mario at the pizza place. He was not really my friend; he was the pizza guy. But I liked talking to him. Mario’s dad owned the Pizza Palace. Mario got to do mostly whatever he wanted, and his dad made a bundle, even paid Mario for working there. Pizza Palace was the only pizza place near Studebaker, so Mario was living the high life. I could swear every time I saw him he had a new pair of sneakers on. His mom had a big job too. She used to be a makeup artist, and was always getting hired by actors. Now she was a cop, a drastic change, but often jokingly referred to herself as a “fashion cop”, too. In short, Mario had it good, and he was the only thing I had closest to a friend. He always made sure I got discounts and extra toppings. I always made sure he got a big tip. Not that he needed one. I waited for the dial tone.
“Hello, Pizza Palace. How may I help you today?”
“Hey, Mario,” I said.
“Hi, Danyelle,” his voice went back to his normal, deep tone instead of the professional, nasal voice that he used only for customers. Mario was a junior at Ruby Studebaker High. He was 3 years older than me, and knew all too well about my dyslexia. However, I never saw him in school: the juniors and seniors went to class in a separate building farther down the block, but attended the same assemblies with the sophomores and freshmen, like me. I was pretty sure he was at the assembly about Special SSR. “What do you want?”
“I’m not sure, today. What would you want?”
Mario laughed. “Triple cheese with jalapenos.”
I smiled, and I could feel the rays from his sunny smile on the other end. “Well, I’ll get that.”
“Sure. Do you want to pick it up, or should I come deliver it? And, uh—large or medium?”
“Uh… I’ll get a large. I think I’ll pick it up. When does your shift end?”
“In about— I could see him looking down at his watch— 20 minutes. Why?”
“I need to take you someplace—’’
“Where?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you when I get there.”
“But…but—’’
“Bye, Mario.”
I wondered and looked down at my watch again. It was 3:47. I had to go pick up the pizza, meet Mario, and Fletcher? No time for homework. I sped through algebra, my one strong subject, and briefly skimmed Chapter 12 in English. Mademoiselle Antoine’s French would have to wait.
I looked at myself in the mirror. I dragged off my uniform pants and pulled on a pair of khaki cargo shorts. I kept on my light blue polo and sweater and pulled on my navy blue Converses. I looked at my hair. I brushed it back into a high messy bun. I left a note for Mom on the fridge in case she came home a little early.
Gone out to get pizza. Hanging out w/Mario after. I grabbed the twenty-dollar bill from the coffee table. I dumped out my schoolbooks from my book bag and put the twenty-dollar bill inside. I left my wallet, keys and spare change inside. I put Fletcher’s airplane inside and a pack of gum for S&M. I looked around the house, closed the door and left.
I walked crisply down the sidewalk and looked anxiously at my watch. 3:51. I began to run to Pizza Palace. When I arrived, Mario was clearing up, wiping the crumbs off the table with a rag. I handed him the damp bill and he took it and gave me the change. “What took you so long?”
I shrugged. “Homework.”
Mario grinned. “You’ve never done homework a day in your life, Danyelle.”
I laughed and picked up the pizza. It was still warm.
“So. Where we going?”
“You’ll see!” I grabbed the washcloth from him and wrung it out in the bucket. I hung it on the rack behind the counter. “Let’s go!” My watch read 3:56. “We have to hurry!”
“What’s the rush? Wait, Danyelle, lemme just—’’
I began walking while Mario locked up the store. He jogged to catch up to me, keys jingling in his pocket. I turned into the alley on Edgewood and Southgate, the one with which I was so familiar. Mario wrinkled his nose. “Dan, what are we doing here? This place stinks!”
“Shh!” I hissed. “Sit down.” I said, pointing to an open cardboard box on the ground.
Mario sat.
“Don’t you just think Studebaker is the best place in the whole world?” I asked him.
“You brought me all the way to this stink—’’
“Just answer the question!”
“Seriously Dan. Do you want to have a discussion about politics here?”
I glared at him.
“Okay, okay, well, fine. Yeah, Studebaker’s pretty great.”
“Yeah, no it’s not. Because there are kids who live down there,” I said pointing to Joe’s deli.
“Dan, you can’t be serious,” Mario began.
“But of course I am!” I said, stamping my foot in exasperation. “There are kids who live down there who have no parents who are starving slowly. Sheathing Orphanage wanted to ship them off to a bunch of foster homes, but when they said they wanted to stay together, the orphanage treated them like dogs, so they ran away!”
Mario sat staring at me.
“No.”
“Yeah, buddy.”
“S-so, what do I do? W-why did you tell me?”
“I don’t know,” I said; sitting beside him, lip trembling. “Because I have no one else to tell.”
“So why not tell your mom? She’s an adolescent attorney, right?”
“She’s too busy.”
“Not too busy for you.”
“I’ll say,” I said.
Mario looked from the alley to me.
“Fine.” He said.
“What?”
“I’ll help you.”
I smiled and looked at him. Then at my watch. 4:10.
I jumped up with my pizza and jumped two by two down the stairs to Joe’s deli. I knocked quickly. The door opened, and S&M stood by it, staring up at me.
“You’re late,” Matthew said.
“Sorry kiddo,” I said, rumpling his curly head. He beamed and opened the door fully. Noticing Mario for the first time, he jumped.
“Hey, there.” Mario said.
I admit the sight of Mario must have been very intimidating to Matt. However, he puffed up his chest—just like Ceon, ugh—and motioned for me to bend down to him. I did, and he whispered in my ear, “Is he your friend?” I whispered back, “Yes, he’s going to help you guys.” Matt patted my bun and gave Mario the thumbs up. He whispered to Sarai, who shrugged and smiled her cute toothless smile.
“Any friend of Danny’s is a friend of ours.”