Secret Saturdays Read online

  Even Kyle acted worried about Sean. “He’s mad quiet tonight,” he said when Sean went to the bathroom.

  “Right?” I said. But before we could talk more about it, Sean was back.

  The next weekend, me and Kyle were supposed to sleep over Sean’s place. Friday when we got dismissed from school, I looked for Sean so we could ride the bus home together. He was ghost. I thought I’d catch him at the bus stop on the corner of our school. Nope. Only Kyle was there. Vanessa wasn’t meeting us. She had heard the girls’ basketball team wanted new players so she had gone to after-school tryouts.

  “Where’s Sean?” Kyle asked me.

  “I don’t know.”

  Kyle looked away and mumbled, “He probably bounced on us again.” He said that so quietly that it was like he was saying it to himself.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” Kyle turned back to me. “You try Sean’s cell?”

  I pulled mine out and tried, but Sean’s voice-mail message came on. “No answer.” I slipped my cell into my pants’ pocket.

  “Let’s wait for him for five minutes, then go,” Kyle said.

  Soon, ten minutes passed and our bus pulled up. The doors opened and Kyle went to get on.

  I stopped him. “Let’s wait for Sean for a little lo nger.”

  “Why? You see him calling us?” Kyle said, annoyed. “Sean’s having fun somewhere. Maybe he decided to take a later bus with his cousin Mark or another one of those seventh or eighth graders he’s been hanging with.”

  What Kyle said about Sean maybe riding home with one of those kids sounded right. Sean was spending more and more time with them. Me and Kyle squeezed through the crowd of kids and went to the back of the bus. There, he put his iPod earphones in his ears.

  On the ride home, I didn’t bug Kyle about Sean anymore but I did try Sean’s cell again. Twice. No answer. When me and Kyle got off the bus, we said if we didn’t hear from Sean by eight o’clock, we’d do the sleepover anyway. At my apartment. When I got home, I rode my elevator upstairs and knocked on Sean’s door. No answer.

  At eight thirty that night, Kyle came over for our sleepover.

  “Where you think Sean is?” I said.

  Kyle breathed out heavy. “Maybe Jackie picked him up from school early. Took him to the movies or shopping until late. We’ll hear from him later tonight or we’ll see him tomorrow. Watch.” Kyle stayed quiet for a few seconds. Was that his way of saying he didn’t want to talk about Sean anymore? Did I sound like a scratched CD to him? Stuck on Sean? I switched the topic and asked Kyle if he had heard anything about Vanessa’s tryouts. He hadn’t.

  About an hour later, Kyle was playing his handheld video game. I got off e-mail and called Vanessa. “What happened with tryouts?” I asked her.

  “I didn’t make it,” she said. “The coaches told me I need to work on my dribbling and layups.”

  Even though she said she was okay, she sounded upset.

  “Next time, though,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Next time.”

  Then I brought up the real reason I called. “You seen or heard from Sean?”

  “Nope.”

  “He didn’t ride the bus home with me and Kyle. We didn’t even see him after school. Plus, nobody picks up his phones. Where you think Sean is?”

  “Why you up his butt?” she said.

  Me? Up Sean’s butt? “Stop protecting your man,” I said.

  She laughed a fake laugh. Too hard to be real. “You still think I like him? I’m hanging up.”

  She did.

  I was so heated that I slammed my phone in its receiver, then kicked the whole thing over.

  Saturday afternoon, me and Kyle were on the handball courts in the stadium. As Kyle served the ball, he said, “Sean’s ghost and I need to get my father’s magazines.”

  Kyle had given Sean the latest XXL and Vibe yesterday morning before school. A thought popped into my head. If Sean had to give them back so fast, he wouldn’t have time to write down rappers’ rhymes for me. Then I realized my thought was dumb because Sean had stopped doing me that favor a while ago. He did that when we were close. Before his secret trips. I smacked the ball and wondered if Kyle really needed his pops’s magazines back or if it was just Kyle’s way of worrying about Sean.

  “You just let Sean hold those magazines. Why you need them back so quick?”

  “When I was getting my stuff ready for our sleepover, my father told me to get his magazines back. He didn’t have a chance to read them yet.”

  Kyle underhanded the ball and roofed it over the wall by accident.

  “I’ll get it,” he said, and jetted.

  Over the weekend, I tried Sean again. His cell and house. No one picked up.

  It was the same as the other weekends. Sean jetted. Only this time Sean hadn’t lied ahead of time. He just bounced.

  Monday morning at school Sean popped up in the second-floor hall as me, Kyle, and Vanessa walked to our first class of the day. Kyle acted as if Sean hadn’t gone anywhere over the weekend. It was hard to front too, but I did and acted as if everything was normal.

  The weekend before Christmas surprise, surprise . . . Sean vanished again.

  This time, Jackie was in front of school at dismissal, waiting for Sean in a black livery cab with tinted windows.

  “We seeing my aunt in Jersey.” He fixed his black-on-black New York Yankees baseball cap and stepped in the cab and they drove off.

  I didn’t try calling him that weekend.

  That Sunday night at bedtime I was only half tired.

  My mind kept going from how close me and Sean used to be to how he’d switched up. I didn’t know what to do with myself because I couldn’t fall asleep. So I got my rhymebook and a black pen out of my backpack and sat at my desk. Sometimes I needed a beat to get my words going, but tonight I didn’t need one. I opened my black-and-white Composition notebook and started writing: I can’t say much about how Sean switched up.

  I thought we’d be tight from this day until we grew old and gray.

  But it’s strange how things change.

  We don’t even do things we used to.

  Rhyming was our thing. Now, he rhymes with his new crew.

  I wish I could wave a magic wand right now

  And make me and Sean tight again right now. But there’s no magic, just reality

  And Sean is vanishing. To where? That’s a mystery. Somebody knows his secrets, true? What should I do?

  Maybe stay up late one night soon

  And catch him and his moms sneak off our stoop And I’ll yell from my window, “Where you both going to?”

  But that’s not right.

  You don’t disrespect your boy and his moms like that in real life.

  I feel this can’t go on.

  If me and Sean don’t go back to what we had all along,

  Our friendship will be gone.

  By the time I finished that last sentence, I felt more tired. My eyes were droopy. I shut my rhymebook and slid into my bed and pulled the covers over my head. Right before I fell asleep, I thought I needed to do something about this Sean thing. Tomorrow. I’d talk to Vanessa or finally be up front with Sean.

  Sean Strikes Out

  MONDAY MORNING, me and Sean rode the bus to school together. On the ride, I wanted to ask him why him and his moms took so many trips. Who was on the bus that we knew from school? After a quick look, I didn’t see anyone familiar. That made me less nervous. Every time I looked at Sean, I pumped myself up by saying stuff in my head like, “He’s right here. Do it.”

  When this elementary school girl two seats from us got off the bus, it was just me and Sean in the back. Until that husky, white Dominican kid Manny with the green crossed eyes who liked messing with Sean in Friday Advisory came over.

  “Punk,” he mouthed at Sean, while standing pretty far away.

  “Your father,” Sean said, and gave him the middle finger.

  Manny smiled, all evil, then turn
ed and went to some of his friends.

  With me and Sean now alone, I decided to try talking to Sean about his trips.

  “Let me ask you a question,” I said.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I was watching television,” I started, making up stuff as I spoke. “On Maury this guy said if your best friend lies to you, then he’s not your best friend. You think that’s true?”

  “No.”

  “You ever lie to me?” I asked.

  Sean squinted hard at something out the window, making his lying move. “You bugging. You know that? You my boy.”

  “So yes or no?” I asked.

  “You gonna make us miss our stop, stupid.” Sean got up and slipped into the crowd getting off the bus.

  We walked to first period together, and I thought about being really honest with him then, but the timing felt off.

  “I’m handing back your tests,” our math teacher said.

  At our table, she handed me and Sean mine and his.

  “What you get?” I asked him.

  “Sixty.” When the teacher turned and walked away, he crumpled his test and stuffed it in his backpack.

  I got a ninety and was about to show him, but I felt bad for him because a sixty-five is passing. I couldn’t believe he failed another test. I wondered if I should drop confronting him about his trips, but by gym I didn’t care about the perfect time to talk to him because he ignored me when we walked in. He went straight to his seventh- and eighth-grade friends. That got me heated. At the start of class, I sat on the floor and watched Mr. K take attendance. I looked at Vanessa. She was tying her sneakers.

  I turned to Kyle and mouthed, “I need to speak with you. Don’t play dodgeball.”

  “What?” Kyle mouthed back.

  I made sure Sean wasn’t watching me. He was busy joking with the kid behind him.

  “Dodgeball.” I moved my mouth more slowly. “Don’t play dodgeball. Me and you need to talk.”

  This time, he got me and nodded.

  “Free play!” Mr. K yelled.

  Kyle and I headed straight for each other, but before we could talk, Sean ran up on us. “Where you going? You playing?” he asked, holding up the dodgeball.

  I tried biting my tongue and thinking of an excuse for why me and Kyle needed to talk before playing dodgeball. But . . . the words flew out my mouth.

  “Sean, how was Jersey?”

  “Fine.” He made his lying move.

  “You probably went to Jersey this time,” I said. Once I said those words, I felt more confident and everything next came out easy. “But that time you said your moms had friends over, you lied to me. She didn’t have friends over. Me and Kyle stayed up late in my room. We saw you and your mother sneak out.”

  Sean just stood there. He looked at me, then at Kyle.

  “So where you really went?” Kyle asked Sean.

  Sean’s face was surprised. Probably because he was used to Kyle minding his business.

  Kyle’s question shocked me too. I knew he was getting more and more tired of Sean lying, but I thought Kyle still would play the back role because he always wanted to respect people’s privacy.

  Sean’s eyes went back and forth fast between me and Kyle. He was stuck on stupid and didn’t know what to say.

  “Tell the truth now,” I said.

  Instead, Sean made his lying face, shrugged, stared away, and said, “I don’t even know what you two are talking about.” He began walking over to the dodgeball area.

  “Hold up,” Kyle said, putting his hand on Sean’s chest.

  “Hold up nothing.” Sean smacked Kyle’s hand away. “You both called me a liar. I’m a liar then. I’m out.”

  Me and Kyle hesitated at first and just watched Sean leave. Then we followed him.

  Two of Sean’s eighth-grade friends wanted to play dodgeball with us again. Junito and Tony. In the middle of the game, Sean OD’d and pegged this boy Chris up close. None of the sixth graders threw the ball at Chris because he sometimes got into fistfights. He was like a ticking bomb. He exploded at the tiniest thing, and he wasn’t afraid of Sean. He even flipped on kids who wanted to be his friend. That was why he had no friends.

  Anyway, he was two feet from Sean when Sean gunned the ball at his head. That ball hit Chris’s face so hard, his glasses flew off. The ball bounced back to our side.

  “You out!” Sean said.

  “Yo!” Chris yelled.

  Sean picked up the ball and pitched it at Chris again. Chris tried turning away and the ball bounced off his shoulder.

  “What?!” Sean yelled at Chris. “I’ll hit you again!”

  How come Sean was starting? And why with Chris? Chris wasn’t a punk. He was a real fighter.

  Chris rushed Sean and pressed his chest against him. He squinted, probably because he couldn’t see Sean good without his glasses. Sean twisted his lips and looked at the ceiling like he was bored and wanted Chris to throw the first punch. “Hit me so I can knock your teeth out like your alcoholic father.”

  “Don’t talk about my father,” Chris huffed hard.

  “Whatever!” Sean said. “Your drunk father, your drunk, dumb father, your bum, butt father.”

  Me and Kyle ran up and squeezed in between them.

  Our gym teacher was nowhere to be found.

  Sean’s eighth-grade friends and a bunch of kids from the dodgeball game raced over too. Before I could tell Sean to chill, he mushed Chris’s face. Chris’s head snapped sideways. He got ready to hit Sean, but Sean’s troublemaker friends jumped in.

  “Touch Sean!” Junito shouted. “See what happens!”

  “Hit Sean and I’ll hit you!” Tony told Chris.

  Everyone thought they were about to see a fight, if not between Sean and Chris then between Chris and Tony or Junito. Chris got into fights sometimes but he wasn’t stupid. Tony and Junito were big eighth graders. If you saw them on the street, they could pass for high school kids. Tony was Mr. K’s height, and I once heard Mr. K brag how he was six feet tall. If Chris fought Sean, Junito and Tony would jump Chris and turn his face into chopmeat.

  Chris maybe got scared, because he walked off and shouted, “Where my glasses?”

  Some girl handed them to him. He put them on and went toward the other side of the gym and disappeared into a crowd of kids at the volleyball area.

  When Sean started to walk off with Tony and Junito toward the bleachers where the seventh and eighth graders were, I got close to him and grabbed his arm, soft. “You all right?”

  He snatched his arm, hard, and snapped, “Leave me alone.”

  He walked off and the crowd of kids broke up and got back into dodgeball. Here and there, different kids said things like, “Did you see that?” and “Chris almost got jumped.” It was just another school fight to them, but to me Sean mushing Chris was major. That was the closest I had ever seen Sean come to fighting.

  When I looked at Kyle, he just shook his head.

  Instead of playing we just kept watching Sean. When he got to the bleachers, Junito and Tony gave Sean pounds and slapped him on the back. Like he had just done something good by almost fighting. You could tell Sean’s cousin was giving him props too. They surrounded him and cheese-grinned as if Sean were The Man. Sean seemed to enjoy that too much. He was so into it that he didn’t catch Mr. K, a security guard, and Chris, the kid he mushed, quickly rolling up on him. Mr. K pushed into Sean’s circle of friends.

  “Sean, let’s go!” Mr. K said. His eyes were mean slits. Him and the guard led both Chris and Sean away.

  Sean was in trouble.

  “Sean told me some things about fighting,” I said to Kyle. “He said people fight when their feelings are hurt and that there are two ways of fighting: throwing hands and dissing. He said people who fistfight are dumb and can’t use their words.”

  “So why did Sean almost fight right now?” Kyle said. “He could’ve beat Chris with words.”

  “Maybe something is bothering Sean and has his
head messed up? Something from his last Saturday trip?”

  Kyle pushed his glasses up his nose with his finger and crossed his arms. “Like?”

  I was tired of trying to think about this with just Kyle. It didn’t get us anywhere. I was ready to ask Vanessa questions. If she didn’t know about Sean’s secret Saturdays, then getting her involved was smart, because her plus me and Kyle meant three heads figuring things out. Three heads were better than two people playing detectives.

  “Let’s go talk to Vanessa.”

  “Bet.”

  Before, I was scared she’d run back and tell Sean we were spying on him. Plus, I was mad at her for hanging up on me. Now I didn’t care. I knew Sean trusted her and she trusted him. Maybe Vanessa knew something we didn’t. Or maybe she could find out.

  Vanessa was on the other side of the gym shooting hoops with some girls. Our gym is maybe a block long and a block wide. It’s so huge, crowded, and noisy that Vanessa couldn’t have caught what had happened with Sean unless some kid had run over and told her.

  “Vanessa!” I yelled. When she ran up to us, I started telling her what had happened. Kyle jumped in here and there. Our lips flapped fast like fans until we had told her everything.

  “Wow!” she said real long. “Why didn’t you come tell me first, before you played dodgeball with Sean?”

  “Because,” Kyle said. “We . . .”

  “. . . we don’t know why,” I said, finishing Kyle’s sentence.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “Maybe you can talk with him later?”

  “Me?” She sounded surprised. “Why me?”

  “Because he’s feeling you,” Kyle said. Hearing that from Kyle made me believe it for real because he said something about somebody only if he thought it was true.

  As soon as Kyle said that, I checked for Vanessa’s reaction. She didn’t even blink. It was like she already knew Sean had feelings for her. I expected her to say “Ewww!” or be the way she’d been those times I’d mentioned Sean and her liking each other, but she wasn’t.

  “Justin, why you looking at me that way?” she asked me.