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  “Gimme the ball, gimme the ball,” Nate begged, but Travis kept it just out of his brother’s reach. Darrell looked away and went inside.

  When he walked in, his mother stopped unpacking boxes and came over to help him put the groceries away.

  “You okay about school tomorrow, honey?” she asked.

  “I’m okay,” Darrell said.

  “You know it’s only a mile down to Bluford. And when it rains, you can catch the bus right out on the corner.”

  “I know, Mom.”

  “I’ll pack you a nice sandwich and an orange—”

  “No, Mom. I’ll get something in the cafeteria.” He could tell she was worried about him and that this was her way of telling him she cared. But it bothered him when she treated him like a baby. It only made him feel smaller. He wished she would just leave him alone.

  “Well, just in case, I’ll put some granola bars in your backpack,” his mother said, opening her purse and fishing out ten dollars. “Here you go, honey.”

  He felt bad taking the money. Back in Philadelphia, he would occasionally find work to make a few dollars. Once in a while he baby-sat a neighbor’s kid. A few times he worked at a small pizza shop sweeping the floors, keeping the counters clean, and taking out the trash. Sometimes he even made enough to give some money to his mother. “Maybe I’ll find a job here, Mom. You know, like the ones I had back home,” he said.

  “Don’t you worry, honey,” she replied. “I’m making better money now. You just concentrate on school.”

  As his mother spoke, Darrell heard a muffled yell come from outside. He walked to the door and looked out to see Travis and Nate fighting in the driveway. Nate was lying on his stomach. His arm was twisted behind his back, and Travis was straddling him, saying, “Say you’re sorry. You better say it, or I’ll twist it harder. Say it.” Nate was whimpering. Dirt and pieces of leaves were in his hair. He was struggling, but he was unable to escape his bigger brother.

  Darrell could not bear to watch. He knew how Nate felt. He had been in that position before. He remembered the times Jermaine hurt him and no one stepped in to help. No matter where he went, it seemed there always were bigger kids who liked to show how strong they were by picking on smaller, weaker people. Now he was seeing the same thing happening in his own family. He could not sit still and let it happen.

  Darrell bolted out of the apartment, jumped down the steps, and moved in behind Travis. Then in one quick motion, he wrapped his arms around Travis’s chest and yanked the larger boy off his brother. Stunned, Travis kicked and squirmed until Darrell let go.

  “Keep your hands off me!” Travis yelled.

  “Pick on someone your own size next time,” Darrell said. His pulse was pounding.

  “I’m gonna tell my dad what you did!” Travis screamed, enraged that Darrell had interfered.

  The yelling drew Uncle Jason from the house. “Hey, what’s the problem here?” he asked.

  “Darrell is pushin’ me around. He said he’s gonna hurt me,” Travis whined.

  “Tell me what’s goin’ on, Darrell. What are you doin’ messin’ with my boy?” Uncle Jason asked.

  “Travis was beating up Nate, so I stopped it. I didn’t hurt him,” Darrell said.

  Uncle Jason started smiling and nodding before Darrell finished his sentence. His face seemed to brighten, as if something pleased him. “Those boys like to play a little rough, Darrell. That’s part of a boy’s growin’ up that you been missing out on. I’m hopin’ living here with us will give you a little of what you’ve been missing.” He threw an arm around Darrell’s shoulders. “Don’t worry when you see the boys playin’ rough. They’re just testin’ themselves. That’s how a boy becomes a man. Understand?”

  Darrell said nothing. Uncle Jason walked over to his sons, holding his fists up near his face like a fighter in a boxing match. Then he stepped closer and faked slow-motion punches into the boys’ chests, stopping just before his fist reached them. “You boys get inside and get cleaned up. Go on!” he said. He put his big hand on their shoulders and gently steered them towards the front door. Travis grinned at his father, but Darrell noticed a different look in Nate’s eyes. The little boy was rubbing the arm Travis had twisted, and though he said nothing, Darrell could read the look as if it were a word written on a sheet of paper. There was hatred in Nate’s face.

  Darrell knew that feeling well. Poor Nate, he thought. He decided he would watch out for his little cousin, no matter what his uncle said. That was what Malik would do. And that was what he was going to do too.

  Chapter 4

  Sunday night, Darrell had trouble sleeping. Every few hours he woke up and checked the clock to see how much time he had left to rest. He wanted the night to last forever. At least then he would not have to go to school. Yet every time he looked at the clock, it was closer and closer to the time he had to get up, the time he had to go to the same place as Tyray. Alone.

  Darrell was awake when the day’s first dim light started to creep into his small bedroom. The weather seemed to match his mood. A raw November rain left the sky dull gray and sunless. What a day to begin at Bluford, he thought.

  For breakfast, he forced himself to eat a few spoonfuls of oatmeal and a gulp of milk.

  “Darrell,” his mother scolded, “that’s not enough to keep a bird alive. How you gonna grow taller and heavier if you eat like that?”

  “I can’t eat no more, Mom. My stomach feels funny already,” Darrell said.

  “Poor baby. You’re really nervous about school, huh? I’m so sorry we had to make the move out here after school started . . . I know you wanted to stay at Franklin back home.” She came over and kissed him on the top of his head. Though part of him hated that she felt the need to baby him, another part of him was glad she did it—as long as it was in private. It was comforting to know how much his mom loved him, and he clung to that when things got really bad. Just as long as she never babied him in front of anybody.

  Even though the sky was dreary and rain seemed to be lurking in the swollen clouds, Darrell chose to walk to school. After the long bus trip from Philadelphia, he preferred to walk in the rain rather than sit on another bus, even if the ride lasted only a few minutes.

  At 7:30, he grabbed his backpack and headed out to the street. Just in case Tyray was waiting for him, Darrell walked off the main route, sticking instead to a back street that went in the same direction.

  As he neared the school, Darrell saw more and more kids. He glanced at the different groups of people all around him, hoping to see someone his own size, a freshman looking more like a middle-schooler. Finally as he reached the front of the school, he spotted a little guy with glasses. He was stockier than Darrell, but just as short. Darrell quickened his pace to catch up to him, figuring that at least tey could share their misery over being so small. But as Darrell watched, two other boys walked up alongside of the smaller kid.

  “Hey, Jamel. How’s it goin’?” one boy asked.

  The smaller boy turned and smiled. “Wassup, Miguel?”

  The third spoke up then. “Jamel, did Mitchell cover anything important on Friday? I missed class.”

  “We did Act III of Romeo and Juliet. You can borrow my notes,” Jamel replied.

  “Man, what kinda story is that? Makes me glad I don’t have a girlfriend,” said Miguel.

  The three continued talking and laughing. Darrell figured they had probably been friends all their lives—just like he had been with Malik, Reggie, and Mark.

  The short kid with the glasses is nothing like me, he thought. Jamel was “in.” Darrell was on the outside looking in. Disappointed and alone, Darrell kept walking. Everyone was talking to somebody else. All the kids around him seemed to be with old friends. Everything Darrell had feared was coming true. He was probably the only new kid in the entire school.

  Darrell’s first class was English. It took him a few minutes to figure out where the room was. As he walked in, he noticed a familiar face. Amberlynn w
as in his class! Grateful to see someone he recognized, Darrell looked for a seat next to her, but they were all filled. A few other girls were talking to her when he came in, and she did not seem to notice him.

  Anyway, why would she want me to sit next to her when she can have all her friends nearby? Darrell thought. Besides, he had to be careful not to take someone else’s seat. He did not want to make enemies on his first day. He decided to take the nearest empty seat but then saw a kid in the back of the room motioning for him. The boy was pointing to a desk next to him. Darrell thought the guy was being friendly, but as he sat down at the desk, he recognized the boy’s face. He was one of the kids with Tyray the other day. Darrell turned to get up when he saw something that made his jaw drop.

  Tyray walked into the classroom.

  Quickly scanning the class, Tyray strolled over to the boy who sat next to Darrell and gave him a high five. “Wassup, Rodney,” Tyray said. Then, walking behind Darrell’s desk, Tyray kicked it, jarring Darrell and causing the whole desk to move a few inches. “Whoops,” Tyray said as he sat down in the desk on the other side of Darrell.

  Darrell felt trapped. He could not imagine how he would survive a whole year with Tyray and Rodney on either side of him.

  Just then the teacher, Mr. Mitchell, came in. He stepped behind his desk at the front of the room and surveyed the class through dark wire-rimmed glasses. Darrell was relieved he was there. It meant he was safe, at least for the moment.

  “We have a transfer student all the way from Philadelphia joining the class today,” Mr. Mitchell said. “His name is Darrell Mercer.” As the teacher spoke, everyone in the class turned to look at Darrell. He wanted to hide under his desk. He could feel their eyes scanning him. He knew they were thinking he looked too short to be in high school, that he looked skinny and weak. Worse, he thought, maybe some were feeling sorry for him because of how small and scared he looked. He wanted to get up and run out of the class. Instead he just waited in agony for the stares to go away. “Darrell,” Mr. Mitchell continued, “are you sure you want to sit in the back of the class? I’m not always nice to people who sit in the back row.” He smiled as he spoke. Then he turned to erase some writing off the chalkboard.

  This is my chance,A chance to get away from Tyray and Rodney. “I guess I could see better from the front,” Darrell replied. As he started to get up, Darrell felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. Tyray’s wide hand gripped his small shoulder like a giant claw and shoved him back into his seat.

  “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, fool,” Tyray whispered. The whole time, Tyray looked straight ahead, making sure not to draw Mr. Mitchell’s attention. Only nearby kids seemed to notice the drama unfolding in the back of the classroom. When Darrell looked at them for help, they just looked the other way.

  “I can, uh . . . see better from up there,” Darrell pleaded quietly to Tyray.

  “How much you gonna be able to see when I punch your face so hard your eyes swell shut?”

  Darrell always thought teachers were fools. They never seemed to know what was going on in their classrooms. Kids could be hiding drugs or threatening other kids, and the teachers would just ramble on about some poem written hundreds of years ago. Mr. Mitchell seemed worse because Tyray had actually touched Darrell right in front of him, and he still did not notice.

  “We still have this empty desk up front,” Mr. Mitchell said, “and it looks like Darrell doesn’t want it. But, you know, it hurts my feelings to see such a good spot in the front of the room go to waste. So I am going to give it to a very lucky person today. Tyray, you are the winner. Why don’t you move up here?”

  “Why me?” Tyray growled. “I didn’t do nothin’!”

  “The back of the room seems a bit too distracting for you. Besides, people who sit in the front of the room tend to have much better grade point averages than those who sit in the back. So come on up here,” he said.

  A few kids in the classroom laughed. Darrell held his breath. He wanted Tyray to move as far away from him as possible.

  “I ain’t movin’ from here,” Tyray said in a sullen voice.

  “You’re on the freshman football team, aren’t you, Tyray?” Mr. Mitchell asked.

  “Yeah,” Tyray mumbled, crossing his arms on his chest. “So?”

  “Well, Coach Meade and I are good friends. And I would hate to have to tell him that you refused to listen to a teacher. He might think you would refuse to listen on the football field. He might even kick you off the team. Now if you want to avoid all that, why don’t you just sit up front?”

  Tyray slowly got to his feet. On his way towards the front of the classroom, he deliberately stepped on Darrell’s foot. Pain shot like electricity through Darrell’s body. “Whoops, sorry,” Tyray said, acting as innocent as possible. Despite the pain, Darrell felt great relief. At least he did not have to sit next to Tyray. He also had respect for his new English teacher. Darrell was not exactly sure if Mr.Mitchell knew what Tyray was doing to him in the back of the room, but it did not matter. Without embarrassing Darrell, Mr. Mitchell had managed to stop what was happening. And for that Darrell was grateful.

  As lunchtime drew near, Darrell started to feel a new kind of anxiety. He worried that he would eat lunch alone. When the bell rang, he walked reluctantly towards the cafeteria, dreading the meal to come. Inside, he took his place at the end of the line, got his plastic tray, and slowly moved towards where the kitchen staff dished out the food. The menu for the day was spaghetti and meatballs, along with a piece of garlic bread and a scoop of green beans. Dessert was a soupy green gelatin with strange-looking pieces of fruit suspended inside it.

  Just like the school cafeteria back home, Darrell thought.

  When his tray was full, Darrell stepped into the rapidly filling lunch area. Is there anyone I can sit with? he wondered. Before him, hundreds of people talked, laughed and ate with their friends. No one seemed as lost as he was. He spotted two freshman guys sitting nearby at a table with two empty chairs. Darrell had seen them in his morning classes. He wondered if he should try to go over and join them. They seemed friendly enough.

  Darrell carried his full tray towards them. In his mind, he rehearsed what would happen next.

  “Anybody sitting here?” he would ask.

  “No, sit down, man,” they’d say.

  Then Darrell would have his foot in the door. They’d talk about classes, their teachers. Then they’d make fun of the cafeteria food and talk about the best-looking girls in the school. The ice would be broken.

  Even though he was nervous, he decided to try what he had rehearsed. He went over to the table with the two freshmen, his knees shaking the whole way.

  “Uh, anybody sitting here?” Darrell asked.

  They did not respond the way they did in his mind. They did not even look up. Were they ignoring him? He felt ridiculous standing there with a full tray talking to people who were paying no attention to him. They continued their conversation as if he did not exist. Maybe they didn’t hear me, he thought. He tried again in a louder voice.

  “Anybody sitting here?”

  This time one of the boys looked up. “Yeah. We’re saving the places for friends.”

  “Sorry,” Darrell said, embarrassed. Quickly he moved away from the table.

  You stupid fool, Darrell thought. He imagined them laughing about him, chuckling at the scrawny kid who tried to sit at their table.

  Again Darrell looked out over the cafeteria. It was filled with hundreds of kids his age. But for him it was empty. Standing amidst the huge crowd, Darrell felt more alone than he ever had in his whole life.

  Darrell remembered being with his old friends in middle school. They were a single unit. Four boys, four separate people, but they were really one. What if a new kid came along and tried to join their special group? Would they have welcomed him? Probably not. Malik might have looked at the stranger and said the same thing, “We’re saving that place for a friend.” It would not have been that they were
bad guys. It was just how things were.

  Get used to it, Darrell thought. Finally he spotted an empty table over in the corner. He quickly moved to it the way people in a rainstorm run for cover. Alone, he shoved a tangled mass of soggy spaghetti noodles into his mouth. The food was bad too, he thought. The spaghetti sauce tasted like red paste, and the gelatin dessert had an odd chemical flavor.

  He hoped that some other lonely student would join him, but nobody came.

  Darrell wondered what his friends back home were doing right now. At Franklin, they’d eat lunch in a table near a window. It was a great place to eat, and whoever got to the cafeteria first raced to claim it. From their table, they could see people passing by on the street below. Darrell and Malik liked to point out attractive girls as they walked by the school. He wondered if they even noticed he was gone.

  Suddenly Darrell was aware of two guys standing at his table. For a minute, he thought they’d come to join him. He looked up at them and smiled, trying to be as friendly as possible.

  “You done?” one of the guys asked.

  The question hit Darrell like a slap in the face. Instantly he realized his mistake. The boys knew he was done eating, and they wanted his table. Not him, his table.

  “Oh yeah,” Darrell said, picking up his tray and walking over to the trash barrel. He dumped his plastic dishes and stacked the tray. Before he walked out of the cafeteria, he paused for a second and looked back at the crowd behind him.

  It was amazing, he thought. He had spent the entire morning in classes with so many kids. But not one joined him for lunch. Would he spend the whole year at Bluford alone?

  Chapter 5

  During algebra class, Darrell was sure Amberlynn looked right at him. He knew she did. She was only about five feet away. But then she looked away as if she had never seen him before. Didn’t she remember standing in the line at the supermarket? Didn’t she remember saying “we freshmen” as if they had a special bond? Clearly their conversation was not as important to her as it was to him.