The Hate U Give(99)

The voice is a bit louder now. Not clear yet. A man and a woman run by on the sidewalk, pushing two shopping carts with flat-screen TVs in them.

“They wilding out here,” DeVante says with a chuckle, but grabs his side.

“King kicked you, didn’t he?” Seven says. “With those big-ass Timbs on, right?”

DeVante whistles a breath out. He nods.

“Yeah, he did that to my momma once. Broke most of her ribs.”

A Rottweiler on a leash in a fenced-in yard barks and struggles to come after us. I stomp my foot at it. It squeals and jumps back.

“She’s all right,” Seven says, though it seems like he’s trying to convince himself. “Yeah. She’s fine.”

A block away, people stand around in a four-way intersection, watching something on one of the other streets.

“You need to exit the street,” a voice announces from a loudspeaker. “You are unlawfully blocking traffic.”

“A hairbrush is not a gun! A hairbrush is not a gun!” a voice chants from another loudspeaker. It’s echoed back by a crowd.

We get to the intersection. A red, green, and yellow school bus is parked on the street to our right. It says Just Us for Justice on the side. A large crowd is gathered in the street to our left. They point black hairbrushes into the air.

The protestors are on Carnation. Where it happened.

I haven’t been back here since that night. Knowing this is where Khalil . . . I stare too hard, the crowd disappears, and I see him lying in the street. The whole thing plays out before my eyes like a horror movie on repeat. He looks at me for the last time and— “A hairbrush is not a gun!”

The voice snaps me from my daze.

Ahead of the crowd a lady with twists stands on top of a police car, holding a bullhorn. She turns toward us, her fist raised for black power. Khalil smiles on the front of her T-shirt.

“Ain’t that your attorney, Starr?” Seven asks.

“Yeah.” Now I knew Ms. Ofrah was about that radical life, but when you think “attorney” you don’t really think “person standing on a police car with a bullhorn,” you know?

“Disperse immediately,” the officer repeats. I can’t see him for the crowd.

Ms. Ofrah leads the chant again. “A hairbrush is not a gun! A hairbrush is not a gun!”

It’s contagious and echoes all around us. Seven, DeVante, and Chris join in.

“A hairbrush is not a gun,” I mutter.

Khalil drops it into the side of the door.

“A hairbrush is not a gun.”

He opens the door to ask if I’m okay.

Then pow-pow—

“A hairbrush is not a gun!” I scream loud as I can, fist high in the air, tears in my eyes.

“I’m going to invite Sister Freeman to come up and give a word about the injustice that took place tonight,” Ms. Ofrah says.

She hands the bullhorn to a lady who’s also in a Khalil shirt, and she hops off the patrol car. The crowd lets her through, and Ms. Ofrah heads toward another coworker who’s standing near the bus at the intersection. She spots me and does a double-take.

“Starr?” she says, making her way over. “What are you doing out here?”

“We . . . I . . . When they announced the decision, I wanted to do something. So we came to the neighborhood.”

She eyes beat-up DeVante. “Oh my God, did you get caught in the riots?”

DeVante touches his face. “Damn, I look that bad?”

“That’s not why he looks like that,” I tell her. “But we did get caught in the riots on Magnolia. It got crazy over there. Looters took over.”

Ms. Ofrah purses her lips. “Yeah. We heard.”

“Just Us for Justice was fine when we left,” Seven says.

“Even if it’s not, it’s okay,” says Ms. Ofrah. “You can destroy wood and brick, but you can’t destroy a movement. Starr, does your mother know you’re out here?”

“Yeah.” Don’t even sound convincing to myself.

“Really?”

“Okay, no. Please don’t tell her.”

“I have to,” she says. “As your attorney I have to do what’s in your best interest. Your mom knowing you’re out here is in your best interest.”

No, it’s not, ’cause she’ll kill me. “But you’re my attorney. Not hers. Can’t this be a client confidentiality thing?”

“Starr—”

“Please? During the other protests, I watched. And talked. So now I wanna do something.”

“Who said talking isn’t doing something?” she says. “It’s more productive than silence. Remember what I told you about your voice?”

“You said it’s my biggest weapon.”

“And I mean that.” She stares at me a second, then sighs out her nose. “You want to fight the system tonight?”

I nod.

“C’mon then.”

Ms. Ofrah takes my hand and leads me through the crowd.

“Fire me,” she says.

“Huh?”

“Tell me you no longer want me to represent you.”

“I no longer want you to represent me?” I ask.

“Good. As of now I’m not your attorney. So if your parents find out about this, I didn’t do it as your attorney but as an activist. You saw that bus near the intersection?”