Chapter 4

5 0 0
                                    


My sister Keisha is at the podium speaking about wonderful memories of the Ferocious Five. She sniffles throughout. Keisha speaks about the time we spray painted action heroes like a black superman on the wall of the community center. People in the church laugh now. But back then, it wasn't so funny. We got into a lot of trouble for that one. Bobby's father insisted that he apologized to the community publicly. When Bobby addressed the church about the incident, as practically everyone in our community attended Pastor Donald's church, Bobby told them that he was sorry, but people needed superheroes to help them through tough times.

Jesus was our savior, but Jesus sent superheroes for kids to believe that all the wrongs can be made right in the world. He was only thirteen then, but everyone saw his greatness!! He may be a troublemaker, they said, but one day he was going to be a preacher like his daddy. So, after that day, people saw Bobby differently. He was special.

"My sister Valerie didn't need anyone to tell her that Bobby was a beautiful soul. She always knew..." Keisha keeps talking. My eyes cloud with tears as I remember when my teenage crush for Bobby Dickens turn into something real. Something powerful.

********

I was in the ninth grade and Michael Scott made me cry. Michael was a bully. He kept pulling on my cornrow braids and pinching me in class, and was just plain mean, when I paid him no attention. One day by accident, I took home the wrong notebook from class and placed it in my bag. It was Michael's notebook. Something made me flip through the pages and at the back page of the notebook, he had all these comic drawings of a girl with my name. In the drawings, Micheal was telling the girl how much he liked her cool dark skin, brown eyes and long curly hair. The following day when I returned the book to Michael, he got scared and started blurting stuff about my father in front of the entire class. My daddy and Michael's daddy were best buddies back in the day. Michael told me that my father hated Keisha and me. And that's why he left my mother after little Roger was born. My classmates' eyes bored into my flesh like cold chips of ice. I wept.

After school, Roger and I were at our favorite hangout spot, a wooden area beside Spirit creek. Of course, I was crying. Roger wanted to know what was wrong, but I couldn't muscle up the courage to tell him. Plus, I wasn't sure how Roger would take the news. Afterall, our father totally abandoned us. Perhaps Micheal was speaking the truth.

Dwayne later came by and told us there was a big fight at school.

"what happened?" I asked.

"Bobby is in big trouble. He beat up Michael Scott so bad, the guy had to be rushed to the ER!"

A Dark SunWhere stories live. Discover now