Black and Blue Ivy

Confessions

"Think fast!" Naomi hurled the dodgeball at my face. I swatted it away with my palm.

"I'm not even playing, asshole!" I said, making a wide circle around the dodgeball game.

"I heard you're a real suck-up to Mrs. Langley," Dolores came up behind me. Her fetid breath told me she was munching on her hidden Doritos stores again.

I wheeled on her. "Well, you heard wrong."

Suddenly, I was knocked from behind. I stumbled, my knee slamming into the hard concrete.

Dolores got in another kick to my side before Sister Ida blew her whistle, and the girls resumed the game. Naomi tossed the ball high in the air and then spiked it with her fist toward a hapless freshie. The flush of my success completely forgotten, I stumbled to take refuge along the brick wall where the sun was brightest.

Joelle had stayed behind to make up some work from her last class and had missed most of the fireworks.

Hands thrust into the scratchy wool coat we'd each been issued, she joined me on the wall and asked if I were okay.

"Yeah," I said, although my one knee felt out of whack, and my side ached so much I would have puked if there'd be anything in my stomach. My mind drifted to the skate park, wondering if anyone missed me. Maybe at this exact moment, Clem was thinking of me too. If telepathy were possible, could I possibly send him a message, "Get me outta here!"

Joelle leaned against the wall. Her pale complexion was spotless in the sunlight. "Did you fall or something? Geez, your knee is bleeding."

"Those two bitches tripped me." I jabbed my finger toward the center of the asphalt, where the seniors played a raucous game of dodgeball. A petite freshie who looked as starved as me held Naomi's coat on the sidelines while the older girl, pink tongue poking out of her mouth while she aimed, propelled the ball into the crowd of girls. As they scattered, some screaming, the ball found its mark on the side of a freshie's head. As the poor girl stumbled away red-faced and humiliated, Dolores bent forward, slapping her heavy thighs, and laughed like a jackass.

"I hate them," I said.

Joelle whistled a sigh through her lips. "I don't blame you. They choose their targets." Her large brown eyes, accented with gracefully arched brows, floated toward me. "Looks like they're after you. Hate to tell you this—"She paused to cough. "But once they get you in their sights, they don't give up. Ever."

She coughed again, cleared her throat, and then added. "I'm just glad they leave me the hell alone."

I laughed. "Tell me your secret?"

Joelle leaned in close. "Dolores is stupid, but Naomi is a real scary bitch. Truly sadistic. She tried messing with me the first day I was here, and I got in her face and told her my cousins are part of a gang, and they don't take kindly to one of their own being messed with."

"Are they really part of a gang?" I asked, impressed.

"Hell, no. But it scared her enough to back off."

I pondered for a moment if I had any mobster relations I could leverage but came up short. "Hey Joelle, do you mind if I ask you—"

"How the hell I ended up here?"

"Yeah. If you don't mind."

Joelle sighed and said. "My mom and I were homeless, living in her car. One night, she took off to find food for us." Her head hung a bit lower as she whispered, "Never saw her again."

I shuddered from the cold and the image of Joelle sitting in a car waiting for her mother to return. "I'm so sorry. Do you—"

She shook her head. "I don't know what happened to her. Maybe she died, or maybe she just took off. I wish I knew." I sensed Joelle had more to say, but she started coughing again.