Ghost (Track #1)(17)

When I got to school, first I looked around for Brandon Simmons. But he was nowhere to be found. The only reason I was checking for him was because he could always sniff out stuff like raggedy shoes, or whatever, not that he would’ve tried me two days in a row. If he did, he would’ve won because my legs were barely working, but he wouldn’t test me, not after what had happened at lunch. If anything, people might’ve been teasing him. But like I said, he wasn’t around. Principal Marshall was, though, and the first thing he said to me was that this had better be an altercation-free day, followed by, “And Mr. Simmons won’t be joining us. He’s suspended,” which I have to say were the sweetest words I had heard in a while. I caught up with Dre in the hall for a few seconds. He assumed I was limping because of the fight—battle wound—and was telling me how everyone was talking about how I mopped Brandon, even the people who got chocolate milk splashed on them.

“Bro, you like a hero,” he said. “Like, you could run for class president right now and win, if you were into all that stuff.” He threw his arm around me. “Picture that . . . President Cranshaw.”

“Whatever, man.” I slipped from under his arm, laughing to keep from wincing. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Me, Ghost, a hero. Until social studies.

I wasn’t really in the mood to learn about Alexander the Great, even though I did like the fact that he was called “the Great,” but what I was even less in the mood for was sitting in front of Shamika Wilson. Shamika was . . . big. Like . . . huge. She had to be almost six feet tall in the seventh grade. And she had a birthmark that covered half her light-skinned face in dark brown, like a comic-book bad guy or something. But Shamika wasn’t a mean girl. She was actually kinda cool. The only problem with her was that she was super silly, and she had a laugh as big as her body. But it was a real laugh. The kind that made her bend over. The kind that Coach was faking when I first met him. So when I sat down in front of her and bumped her desk, knocking one of her pencils on the floor, Shamika leaned over to pick it up, noticing my new and improved sneakers. And then came the thunder. It just came out of nowhere, and once she starts laughing, Shamika can’t stop. And the worst part is that she can sort of pass her laugh around the room to everybody, just because the sound of it is so outrageous. So if she laughs, everybody laughs. Imagine the sound a car makes when it’s trying to start, but can’t. Now, speed that sound up, and crank the volume high enough to blow out the windows in heaven. That’s Shamika’s laugh.

“What’s so funny, Shamika?” Mr. Hollow, the social studies teacher, asked, unamused. “Would you care to share it with the rest of the class?”

And that’s pretty much when I started to panic. When I had that doctor moment I was talking about, when they cut somebody’s arm off and then realize it was a bad idea—my shoes equaled that arm. And now Mr. Hollow was basically asking to see my surgical screwup. Oh. No. Please, Shamika. Don’t share it with the class. Don’t share it with the class!

Shamika couldn’t get herself together long enough to even speak, so instead she just pointed at my feet. And that was all it took for like sixty other eyeballs, including Mr. Hollow’s, to laser beam me and my sneakers. I tried to cross my legs, then stuck my feet farther under the seat, then pull my pant legs down, but then my butt was out. There was nowhere to hide, and the next few seconds, with the whole class howling, felt a gazillion times worse than Brandon’s stupid jokes about my mom.

Mr. Hollow finally shut it all down and went on about Alexander the Great, while I, Ghost the Worst, stared at the pages in my textbook, the stupid black words on the stupid white page all blurring together as solid black lines. I was literally shaking with embarrassment, like my insides had turned into ice. Ice that was cracking.

I wanted to break the desk.

Or flip it over.

Scream. Something. Anything.

Miraculously, the lunch bell rang. Everybody poured into the hallway, moving toward the cafeteria, some still talking about me, others playing and joking, slapping heads, jumping on backs, getting Mr. Baskin, the school security guard, all mad as usual, forcing him to leave his post to deal with the craziness. And knowing that Baskin wasn’t where he was supposed be, once I finally got to the double doors of the lunchroom, a lunchroom I felt was waiting to eat me, I just kept walking—more like a sore walk-run—straight out the front door of the school.

I had never skipped class before. Never. I mean, I had my fair share of school problems, but I was never bold enough to just not go. And I definitely didn’t have the guts to walk out in the middle of the day. But now I didn’t have a choice. I had to get out of there.

Once I was outside, I broke out in a full-on run. I mean, I straight-up jetted, and because I was so scared of getting caught, I couldn’t even feel the pain in my legs anymore. Adrenaline overload. I ran and ran, until I was far enough away from the school to not get caught. I turned down a busy street with a whole bunch of stores on it, just because it seemed like the easiest place to blend in. I almost went into a wig shop, just because I figured I might be able to grab a disguise. I mean, a wig would definitely do it. But . . . nah. Then there was the fish market. I looked in the window. Three short guys took huge fish—big like they were baby sharks or something—and hacked the heads off with giant knives. WHAM! That was wild, but somehow I could relate to the fish. Actually, I could kinda relate to the men chopping the heads off the fish, too. Then I came to a sporting goods store. That’s when the best idea ever popped into my head.