Miles Morales Suspended: a Spider-Man Novel by Jason Reynolds

Author:Jason Reynolds
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
Published: 2023-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Miles wrote this on his paper in response to the question. Then added,

And is it the banana’s fault that it has aged this way?

COACH HOLT BLOWS HER WHISTLE

Tells us to pause.

Tells us to get up.

Tells us to stretch.

Arms out. Rotate clockwise.

Then counterclockwise.

Then arms down. Touch

our toes. Then arms up

over our heads.

Reach. Reach.

* * *

Miles glanced back at Alicia, who had reached forward while stretching, gently touching the middle of Miles’s back, and was now reaching above her head, chewing on her smile, a sliver of stomach exposed, her navel almost identical to the knots in the cherry wood, winking at him.

“Y’all can say a few words to each other,” Coach Holt said.

But no one uttered a syllable. Not even Miles. Not at first. But then Alicia, now arms down, said, “Is it true?”

At first Miles thought she was talking to him. But he quickly realized she wasn’t. She was talking to Tobin.

“Is what true?” Tobin replied, his thick brows meeting like caterpillars kissing.

“That you in here for stealing books?” Alicia asked.

Tobin didn’t answer. Just sat back down in his seat. Picked up a pencil, began tap-tap-tapping.

“What he do?” Brad eavesdropped.

“Yeah, what he do?” Miles followed.

“I heard he was stealing books from the library and destroying ’em,” Alicia said.

“Destroying ’em?” Miles was confused.

“Yeah, they found hundreds of books under his bed. No pages. Just spines.”

“You got books right in front of you,” Tobin said about Alicia’s stack. He stretched his neck. “Baldwin. Bambara. Baraka. Who else?”

“I checked them out a long time ago.”

“So, they’re overdue?” Tobin asked.

“Don’t matter. I’m glad I kept them so you couldn’t destroy ’em like you did the others,” Alicia said.

“They had bugs in them, Alicia,” Tobin said. “Poisonous ones. But no one would believe me, so I had to take care of them myself.”

“So you tellin’ me Tripley, a woman whose husband we all know is an exterminator—”

“I love those commercials! If you see one, there are one thousand more!” Brad imitated the man on the commercial. His funny voice and serious face.

“Right. And he wants us to believe she didn’t believe him, and that they punished him for doing the right thing, which sounds like bull,” Alicia said. To Brad. About Tobin.

“Isn’t that what you’re here for?” Tobin replied. “For doing the right thing?”

Alicia nodded, reluctantly. He had a point.

“So, Tobin E. Rogers, attorney-at-law, is basically… a hero, too!” Brad razzed, starting the slow clap but ending it immediately once he realized no one was with him.

Miles turned to Tobin, who forced a smile and continued tap-tap-tapping,

tap-tap-tapping,

tap-tap-tapping.

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