A Hole in the Universe - Mary McGarry Morris [36]
Ahead at the corner, his young neighbor Jada waited to cross. Remembering the incident in front of her house last week and not wanting to embarrass her, he pretended not to recognize her.
“Assholes! You’re supposed to stop,” she muttered as cars whizzed by. “That’s it, I’m going.” She stepped off the curb.
“Look out!” he said. “They’re still coming.”
“What’re you, some kind of crossing guard?” she said over her shoulder.
“There’s too many cars. It’s not safe yet.” Traffic still unnerved him.
“Yeah, right.” She was trembling. An empty bookbag hung from her bony shoulder. She wasn’t wearing a sweater or jacket, just a thin T-shirt. Goose bumps covered her arms. “So can I go now?” she asked with the last car.
He looked both ways. “Seems pretty clear now.”
They crossed and she walked fast to keep pace. He glanced over, then looked again, startled by the incongruity, the strangeness, the hybrid confusion that was her exotic freckled face. Her tight curly hair was a pale rust color. Her green tilted eyes seemed almost lidless. She had a fine, hooked nose above a mouth so wide and full that it seemed to take up the lower half of her small face. Her skin was of indiscernible color, not white, brown, or yellow. Even her boyish, lanky stride seemed contradictory, wrong on so female a body, tall and skinny as it was.
“What do you want?”
“Nothing.” He slowed down, wanting her to get ahead.
“How come you keep looking at me, then?”
“I was just wondering if you were on your way to school,” he said quickly, uneasily.
“Well, yeah!” As proof she lifted the bookbag.
“Which one do you go to?” He slowed even more, and so did she.
“The Craig.”
“Oh. Craig Junior High. I went there.” And hated it, he remembered.
“It’s middle school.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Don’t know.” She shuddered in the sudden biting wind.
“What grade’re you in?”
“Sixth. Same as last year.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirteen.”
There were boys walking behind them. He had run out of questions. The Market was still two blocks away, with the Craig a block on farther. When they came to the Shoe Fix Shop, a small white dog darted out from the alley and ran snapping at their heels.
“You fucking mange! Get the fuck outta here!” The girl’s kick sent the dog yelping into the street.
“Hey, what’d you do that for?” called one of the boys. They all wore jackets or sweatshirts under their sagging backpacks. “Yeah, Jada, you freak, what’re you doin’ kicking a little dog!” another yelled.
Without a word or break in gait, she hoisted her middle finger up over her head and kept walking.
“Freak! You freak!” they all jeered. “You crazy, fucking freak!”
Her eyes narrowed and her mouth curled in a snarl, yet she seemed amused by their taunts, if not proud, as they ran by screaming.
“Was that their dog?” Gordon asked.
“No!” she sneered. “It’s Cootie’s. Plus, he’s not even a real dog.”
“Looked real to me.”
“Yeah, well, he lives in a box, all winter, him and Cootie—like, under the bridge! They even eat the same food.”
“That’s not the dog’s fault, though, is it?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe Cootie’d have a whole better life if he wasn’t stuck with such a friggin’ loser dog.”
Her logic made him laugh. “He could always give him away.”
“Or kill him,” she added.
He didn’t know what to say.
“But the thing is, he can’t. They’re, like, stuck together. Like, like they got no choice, you know?” she said as they kept walking. “Fucking pathetic, huh?”
“Who’s Cootie?”
“The crazy one. He’s always smoking. He wears this, like, ski-hat thing. Even in the summer he does. And he stinks.”
“Oh, I’ve seen him around.” Gordon stopped when they came to the Market. Cootie had been in the store the other day, trying to buy cigarettes with food stamps, but June made him leave. When he returned later with a bag of empty cans and bottles, she would redeem only a few,