Once we walked outside, she squeezed my hand and said, “Baby, you did what God told you to do. You stayed by that lil’ boy side. That’s somethin’ special.”
I looked up at her because she always talked like she knew secrets about the world. “I ain’t know what to do,” I whispered. “I just ain’t wanna leave him.”
“That’s because you got a healin’ spirit,” she said as we walked toward the bus stop. “Some people was born to help without bein’ asked. You one of them girls, Toni. You gon’ be somethin’ real special.”
I didn’t know what that meant. I just held her hand tighter while we waited for the bus to rumble up the street, the hot wind hittin’ our faces and the sun glarin’ off the bus bench.
We got on the first bus, then the second, and she kept her arm wrapped around me the whole ride while I stared out the window thinkin’ about Jaksonn and how scared he looked. I didn’t know why my heart felt so heavy, but sittin’ beside Grandma Glo made it feel a lil’ less confusing.
She kissed the side of my head and said, “When your spirit talk, you listen. That’s your gift, baby.”
I nodded again, still not fully understandin’, but I knew one thing for sure.
I wasn’t ever the type of girl who could walk away from somebody who needed me.
And that was the day I realized it…
The next day I went back to school and my stomach felt funny the whole walk through the hallway. It was that weird feelin’ when you know everything in the world look the same but somethin’ inside you feel different and you not sure why. Kids was talkin’ and laughin’ like always, and backpackswas droppin’ on the floor loud when people sat down, and somebody already got in trouble for runnin’, so Magnolia Crest felt like Magnolia Crest, but I still felt off.
I kept lookin’ toward Jaksonn’s desk even though I already heard from Mrs. Lattimore that he was fine. She told the whole class he was at the hospital yesterday and the doctors took care of him, and she said he would be back when they let him out. Everybody clapped when she said it, but I didn’t clap loud. I just smiled small because even though he was fine now, I kept seein’ his body shakin’ on the ground, and I kept hearin’ the way everybody screamed. It was the kind of thing that stayed stuck in your head even when you tried to think about somethin’ else.
I sat down at my desk and played with the zipper on my backpack while everybody else talked about video games and poptarts and whatever else kids usually talked about. Nobody acted scared or sad no more, and I guess that made sense because kids forget fast, but my mind was still thinkin’ about yesterday. Even when I looked out the window and saw the janitor pushin’ the trash can across the grass, my head went back to the way I held Jaksonn’s head and told him he was gon’ be okay. I ain’t know why that memory felt so heavy, but it did.
When the bell rang, Mrs. Lattimore told everybody to quiet down because she had an announcement. She smiled at me in that way grownups smile when they already know somethin’ you don’t, and she told me to come stand up in front of the class.
“Toni, sweetie, come up here,” she said, her voice soft like she was bein’ extra gentle.
My classmates ooooohed like I was in trouble, but when they saw her smilin’, they started whisperin’ instead.
I walked up slow, feelin’ all the eyes on my back. I stood next to Mrs. Lattimore while I kept my hands behind me because that made me feel less awkward. She lifted a gold certificate with my name on it. It had a cheap star sticker in the cornerand a printed picture of a trophy, but it looked important now that she was holdin’ it up for the whole class.
“This is a Courage Certificate,” she said. “And I am giving it to Toni Harper because she helped keep Jaksonn safe while she waited for us to get there yesterday. She stayed calm and she stayed with him and she followed her instincts. She was very brave.”
Everybody clapped loud this time. A couple girls even cheered like we was in an assembly. I felt my face get warm, and I didn’t know if I wanted to smile or hide my face in my shirt. I didn’t feel brave. I didn’t feel like I did anything special. I just felt like I had to help him, so I did.
I took the certificate from her and nodded, then went back to my desk and slid it inside my folder because I ain’t want to stare at it. Some kids whispered “good job” when I walked past, and I just shrugged because I didn’t know how to answer.
The mornin’ moved slow after that. We did multiplication that made half the class groan, then we read a story about a lion that couldn’t roar, and then we lined up for lunch. Everybody ran to the cafeteria like they always did. I walked behind them, pullin’ at the sleeve of my jacket because the cafeteria always smelled like hot mashed potatoes and wet mop water, and I hated that smell.
At the lunch table, my friend Shalae sat next to me and bumped her shoulder into mine.
“You famous now,” she said, laughin’ before takin’ a bite of her chicken nugget.
“I ain’t famous,” I said. “I ain’t do nothin’ for real.”
“Yes you did. I woulda ran so fast yesterday I mighta broke a shoe.”
I laughed because she probably would have. She was dramatic and scary about everything.
“Did you see it?” she asked, her eyes wide. “Was his mouth foamin’?”
“He wasn’t foamin’,” I said. “He was just shakin’ real bad and I knew somethin’ was wrong.”
Shalae nodded slow like she was tryin’ to picture it. She didn’t joke no more after that. She just ate her nuggets and gave me one of her fries because she knew I liked the crispy ones.
After lunch, recess came again and everybody spilled out onto the yard like we had been locked up all day. The sun was bright and the swings was already full, and somebody was tryin’ to race across the monkey bars even though he had fell last week.
I felt lighter than I did in the mornin’, so when a couple kids asked me to rap again, I started twirlin’ in a circle like I did yesterday.
