my God! Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Can you do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Can you bring something to wear?”
“My clothes are going to be too big for you,” she said.
“Just bring something you think might fit me and meet me in the second-floor bathroom before advisory.”
Chantel met me in the bathroom with some blue jeans and a white shirt with a red star on the front. I went in the stall, took my clothes off and put on things she’d brought me. I stuffed my other clothes in my book bag. When I came out the bathroom stall, I checked myself out in the mirror. Chantel handed me another bag. “These some other clothes you might can fit into.”
“Okay, thanks,” I said.
“So what happened? Where are you staying?” she asked.
“It is a long story. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“So are you going to still be in the talent show?”
“No, I can’t go.”
“What about Dajuan’s party?”
“No.”
“You should go to Dajuan’s party. It’s going to be good. And I can come and pick you up.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Don’t you understand? I don’t know where my mother is and my little brother is in the hospital.” She was so damn dumb and she was making me mad. I walked out of the bathroom. She followed and said she was sorry. I ignored her.
“You’re not coming to class either?” she yelled down the hall as she followed me.
“I have to make some calls and check on my family.”
She finally stopped following me and began walking in the opposite direction toward class. I went into the school nurse’s office and asked her if I could I use the phone. She was busy taking a boy’s temperature but said yes and pointed to the phone in her inner office. I closed her door a little and called my dad’s house.
“Charlotte, my dad there?”
“No, your dad’s not here. He’s at work.”
“Do he know we in foster care? Why didn’t he come up to the hospital?”
“Yeah, he knows. He thought you were lying, so he didn’t come to the hospital. He been talking to some woman, I think her name is Ms. Norton. She said he got to go to court and go before a judge and bring in all this paperwork, and they got to come and inspect the house.”
“So why he didn’t go talk to the judge?”
“’Cause your dad can’t be doing all that, missing days from work. He don’t have no sick days left.”
“Well, can you tell my dad I called?”
“Sure, mm-hmm, I’ll tell him,” she said. I couldn’t believe my dad didn’t even check to make sure we were all right. He is so fucked up and Charlotte is just as dumb. Next I called Alanna. She said that Bilal was getting out of the hospital and that our mother was staying at Aunt Joanie’s house. She also gave me John’s number at Nitra’s house.
“Did Mommy tell you how long we were going to have to stay there?” I asked Alanna.
“No, she told me they said she was under investigation for child neglect and child endangerment.”
“Oh,” I said.
“How is the lady’s house y’all staying at?”
“It is okay. She’s an old lady. Alanna, give Mommy and John our number.”
I didn’t know what else to do. I wanted to see my old house, but it was more important to go to class. Ms. Norton said she was going to be checking up on me, and I remembered she was going to lock me up if I thought about cutting classes.
If I had somewhere else to go I would. I would never go back with Ms. Waters. I hated it there already and I wanted to go home. But I had to make sure Bubbles was okay. After school I stopped past my job. Mr. Newman was working the register when I walked in the door.
“What are you doing here?” He looked me over and said, “What’s going on with you? Why didn’t you call me to tell me you quit?”
“I didn’t quit,” I said as I explained to him what happened.
“Well, can you work today?”
“I have to ask my foster mom, because they said if I don’t come straight home I was going to jail.”
“Where are your parents? What kind of parents do you have?” he asked.
There was no explaining to the old man. So I just stayed until three and then I told him I had to go. That was enough time for him to catch up on his prescriptions. He then told me he would hold my job for two days and then he would have to hire someone else.
Ms. Waters didn’t like anyone on her phone. She said she only had one line and nobody was going to be tying it up. I went in the kitchen and asked permission to use her phone. She said I had five minutes. I dialed Ms. Norton.
“Hi, Ms. Norton,” I said.
“Who is this and how can I help you?” she said, all mean.
“It is Kendra Thomas. I forgot to tell you that I have a job and I would like to keep it.”
“I have to call your job and confirm your hours with your manager.” I gave her all the information and she said she would call me back.
Ms. Waters was a church fanatic. She kept Bibles in every room except for the bathroom. She didn’t allow any television in her house until after dinner and then it was only for an hour or two. I just stayed in the room and listened to the radio. Bubbles was adjusting just fine. She liked playing with Dennis, that slow boy, because he made her laugh. The other boy, Charles, didn’t talk to anyone. He just stood in the corner and kicked the wall. When he wasn’t kicking the wall he was ripping pillows apart.
I had finished my homework and was tired of being in that room, so I walked downstairs to get some water. I sat down at the table. The girl Tianna said, “What’s up?”
I said, “Nothing.”
“Where y’all from?” she asked.
“Southwest Philly.”
“Why y’all here?” she asked.
“I had a fire in my house. And you?”
“My mom had an overdose.”
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Sixteen.”
I told her I was seventeen and she said Dennis was her little brother. Then she took a blunt out of her pocket and offered me some weed.
“I’m good. Ain’t she going to smell that?”
“That lady can’t smell, and she go to bed like clockwork every night by nine. I sneak back out every night,” she said as she emptied the blunt out onto the table.
“How long you been here?” I asked.
“Six months.”
“Why so long?”
“My mom didn’t get herself together yet. I actually just came back here. I was at the Youth Study Center for two months ’cause I missed curfew two days in a row.”
After talking to her I knew there was no way I was staying here for six months. Plus I would be eighteen in a month. They would have made Alanna come too if they knew she was still in school, even though she was eighteen.
Bilal finally came home. He acted