Kick by Walter Dean Myers & Ross Workman

Author:Walter Dean Myers & Ross Workman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

Chapter 10

I closed Sergeant Brown’s car door and walked up the driveway. It was dusk. The sun had all but disappeared below the horizon, creating an eerie combination of shadows and light. I didn’t realize I would be putting Sergeant Brown’s job in jeopardy. I just wanted to help him. And Dolores. I thought Sergeant Brown would understand what I was doing, but now I was in trouble. Again.

Mom and Grandma were in the den, watching an old DVD of Betty La Fea, a Colombian soap opera. I could hear them laughing. I tried to sneak past the door. But my mother’s mom senses kicked in.

“So how was it?” she asked without even turning around.

“Fun,” I said, starting up the stairs. I wasn’t about to tell her Sergeant Brown almost lost his job because of me and I might be sent back to juvie.

“Come sit with us,” Mom said, making room for me on the sofa.

Living with two women was hard. All I wanted to do was go and play video games upstairs. They just didn’t understand me.

Reluctantly, I plopped down on the sofa.

“What did he say?” Mom asked, patting my back.

“He said that I was a bright athletic young man who would make a good police officer.”

“Is that all?” Abuela asked.

“More or less,” I said.

I wasn’t lying; I just wasn’t telling the whole truth. I thought it probably would be better to leave out the “reckless, loves to lie, sneaky, a car thief, and will probably spend the rest of his life in jail if he doesn’t get himself killed within the next few days” part.

There was an awkward silence.

Mom paused the DVD. “I know it’s been hard for you the past couple of years,” she said.

Betty’s face was frozen in the middle of her conversation, her eyes closed behind her thick-rimmed glasses, her mouth wide open, braces showing. It was no secret why the show was called Ugly Betty.

“Are you feeling a little bit better?” Mom said. “I still can’t understand why you stole that car. You’re not helping yourself by not talking to me.”

“Okay,” I said, and walked upstairs.

Later that night I lay looking up at my ceiling and the small vent centered above my bed. When I was little, I used to imagine that monsters were going to come out of that vent and eat me at any moment. My dad would run in and tell me it was all okay, never once getting angry at me. He even considered moving the vent, but then he’d have had to tear up the ceiling.

If only my dad were here now, I’d tell him everything that happened. He would have sorted things out. I know he would have. But it looked like I would have to get through this on my own. By trying to protect Christy, I was really hurting her. I bet that’s what my dad would have said. And my mom, too, if I told her.

I was slowly drifting apart from Mom and Abuela. I could feel it.

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