Darnell Rock Reporting

  “I was waiting for you to come by,” Larry said. “I thought we could get the chain for my bike.”

  “Okay, but I got some other stuff to do first,” Darnell said.

  Freddy Haskell waved as he went by. He was carrying a football.

  “Let's see the ball!” Darnell called.

  Freddy threw the ball. Darnell caught it and spun around as if he were the quarterback in a game. “Go deep!”

  Freddy started running, zigzagging around imaginary opponents, and headed toward the school buses. Darnell threw a long, lazy spiral and watched Freddy run under it and catch it in stride.

  “Man, he can catch a football!” Larry said.

  “That's because I know how to throw one,” Darnell said. “You got to put a spiral on it.”

  “He can still catch a ball,” Larry insisted as they watched Freddy get on one of the buses. “What you have to do?”

  “First we got to go to the supermarket and buy some pork and beans,” Darnell said. “Then we're going to interview Sweeby Jones. He's that guy I saw on Jackson the other day.”

  “I'm not going to interview him!” Larry said.

  “I got a tape recorder in my bag,” Darnell said. “We'll give him the pork and beans, and then we'll ask him the questions.”

  “Why you going to give him pork and beans?”

  “ ‘Cause he probably needs something to eat,” Darnell said.

  It was the first of the month, and the supermarket was crowded. They met Eddie Latimer, who was shopping for his grandfather, and then they saw Angelica Cruz.

  “Hey, Angie!”

  “Hi, Eddie,” Angie replied. “Hi, Darnell, Larry.”

  “Angie's one of my fly girls,” Eddie said.

  “You wish!” Angie said.

  “I'm trying to teach her how to kiss!” Eddie said. “But she won't take her glasses off and they get in the way.”

  “Eddie, why don't you grow up?” Angie said. “Either that or get back in your cage!”

  “Oh, man, she really dissed you!” Larry said.

  “That's ‘cause we're in public,” Eddie said. “If you guys weren't here she'd be throwing me one of them wet kisses.”

  “Eddie,” Angie said, pushing past them, “do me a favor and die twice!”

  Darnell found the pork and beans and said goodbye to Eddie. “I don't think you better mess with Angie,” he said. “She can put you down in a minute.”

  “I think she really likes me,” Eddie said.

  “Yeah, especially if you do her a favor and die twice,” Darnell said. “Later!”

  When they paid for the beans Darnell saw that Angie was in another line but she wouldn't look toward them.

  Jackson Avenue was bustling with people. A beer truck was double-parked on the street, and the traffic guard was arguing with the driver. Some older boys were standing on the corner, and Larry nodded at them.

  “I think they're in a gang,” he said to Darnell.

  They went down Jackson, looking for Sweeby, and finally found him sitting on a milk crate outside a used-appliances store. There were two other men with him—a thin, brown-skinned man and an older man who was dark and had white stubble on his chin.

  “We came to interview you,” Darnell said. He held out the beans. “For the school newspaper.”

  “What's this?” Sweeby asked.

  “Some beans,” Darnell said.

  “What you giving me this for?” There was a sharp edge to Sweeby's voice.

  “Thought you might like some,” Darnell said.

  “I don't want your beans,” Sweeby said.

  “What he give you? A can of beans?” the oldest of the three men asked. “What he think he is, the Salvation Army?”

  “Can I ask you some questions?” Darnell asked.

  “No!” Sweeby said. “Get out of here!”

  “I heard you could sing,” Darnell said.

  “Well, go back and ask your daddy the questions,” Sweeby said, standing.

  Darnell and Larry started down the street. Darnell looked back and saw that Sweeby was still standing, his hands jammed into his pockets.

  “What you going to do now?” Larry asked. “Were you supposed to interview him for the paper?”

  “No,” Darnell said. “Just something I wanted to do.”

  They went to the used-bicycle shop, and the owner, a short, dark man with a big stomach, gave Larry a chain he said he had taken off an old bike.

  “How much?” Larry asked.

  “You have a choice,” the man said. “One dollar or seventy-four dollars and thirty cents.”

  “I'll take the one dollar,” Larry answered.

  “How come I can't make any money in this business?” the man said.

  When they reached Darnell's house, Tamika was in her room, and his mother said to leave her alone.

  “What's wrong with her?” Darnell asked.

  “Her friend is sick,” his mother said. “You know Molly Matera?”

  “She's always sick,” Larry said.

  “Well, she's sick again.” Darnell's mother looked into the bag that Darnell had put on the table. “Your father told you to buy that?”

  “No, he bought it to give it to a homeless dude, but the homeless dude said he didn't want it,” Larry said.

  “Shut up, Larry!”

  “You did that?” his mother asked. “That was nice of you.”

  “Yeah, but the guy didn't take it,” Larry said.

  “Shut up, Larry.”

  “You going to help me paint the bike?” Larry asked.

  The bike already looked good, painted a glistening dark blue, almost black. They put another coat of paint on the handlebars and on the spokes.

  “Now all it needs is my name on the side/' Larry said.

  “Why don't you wait until tomorrow,” Darnell said. ‘Then let Tamika put your name on the side.”

  “What she doing now?”

  “You heard my mom say not to mess with her,” Darnell said.

  “I can't wait until tomorrow,” Larry said.

  “Then mess it up now,” Darnell said. “You know you going to mess it up because you can't paint as good as Tamika.”

  “Yeah,” Larry said. “Okay, you ask her if she'll do it right after school tomorrow. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  When Larry left, Darnell did his homework, and then he wrote down what happened when he talked to Sweeby. When he had finished he looked at what he had written. Then he thought about what Miss Seldes had said about putting himself in the place of the person he wanted to interview. It wasn't the questions that had bothered Sweeby, it was the can of pork and beans.

  Darnell looked at what he had written, tore it up, and then started writing again.

  In the morning they had some firemen come into the school and talk about safety in the home. Four classes at a time went into the library. Darnell had already given his story to Kitty. She hadn't read it, just put it in her notebook and smiled at him. He had a feeling that she liked him. Anyway, she was always smiling at him. Darnell was thinking about her when he heard Angie's voice from the back of the library.

  “Oh, Eddie,” she called out, “what's that on your nose?”

  Everybody turned around to look at Eddie Latimer. He had his head down, but you could see that he had the biggest zit on his nose that Darnell had ever seen.

  “Nothing!” Eddie said.

  “Nothing?” Angie called out. “It's so big and red I thought it was a traffic light!”

  Darnell made a mental note never to get in an argument with Angie Cruz.

  “Why don't you shut up!” Eddie said.

  “If you had it pierced you could wear an earring in it,” Angie said.

  Some of the kids started laughing, and Eddie sat down and put his hand over his face. It was good he had big hands.

  “You could be growing a new nose,” Angie said.

  The fire department guys seemed really cool. They were all young, and two of the
m had actually gone to South Oakdale when it had been a high school. But they talked about smoke detectors, and they talked about them in a boring way. Even the way their voices sounded was boring, and most of the kids started looking out of the window or passing notes to each other.

  “Can I ask everybody here one question?” one of the firemen asked. “How many people here think smoke detectors are boring? Raise your hands.”

  A few hands went up.

  “Be honest,” he said. “How many of you think this whole talk was a little boring?”

  Most of the hands went up.

  “That's the problem,” the young fireman said. “Most people think the subject is boring, and it is. But when you have a fire in your home, and it catches you by surprise, it's really exciting! And when somebody gets hurt, or somebody dies, then that's exciting, too. And all because smoke detectors are … what?”

  Somebody said “boring.”

  “How many kids are not too bored to go home and .? check their smoke detectors today?”

  All the hands went up.

  On the way out of the library Miss Seldes stopped Darnell and asked how the interview went.

  “Not too good,” he said. “He told me to go away.”

  “Your mistake or his?”

  “Mine,” Darnell said.

  “Then you'll be better the next time,” she said. She had a pleased look on her face.

  The day went slowly. Darnell got his math test back and found that he had failed it. He had gotten 50 out of a possible 100. Tamika got 70.

  “That's ‘cause I'm smarter than you,” Tamika said when she saw him after class.

  “What's wrong with Molly Matera?” Darnell asked.

  Tamika turned and walked quickly away.

  It wasn't until the last period of the day that word reached Darnell. There was a note on all the bulletin boards in the school that if anyone wanted to answer his editorial they had to do it before the end of the week.

  “What editorial?” Darnell asked Mark.

  “The one that's on the bulletin board,” Mark said. “I thought it was pretty good.”

  Darnell went into the hall, and went to the bulletin board. There was the notice from Kitty.

  If anyone wishes to write a reply to the editorial that appears below and will be in the next issue of the South Oakdale Gazette, please have the reply neatly-typed and in the Gazette office by Friday.

  —Kitty Gates, editor in chief

  Under Kitty's note was what he had written the night before.

  Everybody is talking about how to help the homeless and how to solve the problems that our society is facing. The homeless don't want to just be given things, they want to have dignity and to help themselves. Instead of turning the old basketball courts into a parking lot and messing up the environment even more by having more cars on the road, why not turn it into a garden where the homeless people could raise vegetables that they could eat? That way they could help themselves and we would make better use of the courts.

  —Darnell Rock

  ‘That's a dumb idea, Darnell.” Linda Gold was looking over Darnell's shoulder. “I don't think so,” Darnell said. Linda just shook her head and walked away.

  For the rest of the day Darnell was excited. At least a dozen kids came up to him to talk about the article on the bulletin board. He felt proud of it, in a way, and scared, too. It was the first time he had had so much attention.

  Darnell didn't see Tamika until he got home.

  “Hey, you see my article on the bulletin board?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Tamika said. “It was nice.”

  “How you feeling?” Darnell could see that Tamika wasn't doing too well.

  “Okay.”

  “You hear from Molly?”

  “I spoke to her this morning before I came to school,” Tamika said. “She's got a problem with her kidneys or something.”

  “She coming back to school?”

  “She thinks so,” Tamika said. “I sure hope she's going to be okay. It's scary having someone so sick they could die or something.”

  “She could die?”

  Tamika nodded.

  Darnell went into his room, put his radio on, then turned it off and looked at his homework. He thought about starting it and getting it all done, extra neatly. He knew he could surprise everyone if he did. He looked at the math first. Triangles. He had never liked triangles. Even when the teacher talked about how triangles were so important in the building of the pyramids, he hadn't liked them. He closed his math book and told himself that he would do the homework later. Then he opened it again and told himself that he knew he wouldn't really do it later. Then he closed it again, and said that maybe he would.

  When he heard his father come in, he went out to see him.

  “Hi!” Darnell slid into the overstuffed chair near the window.

  “Humm!” his father grunted.

  “I got an idea,” Darnell said. “What you think about having homeless people grow their own food?”

  “They won't even walk to the supermarket for their own food,” his father said. “How they going to grow it? That's hard work, man.”

  “Oh,” Darnell said.

  His father turned on the television, clicked through a few channels, and settled on a program in which cops were making a drug arrest.

  Darnell thought about the article on the bulletin board and wondered if he should mention it to his father again. There was still that thing going on, his father's being a little mad when Darnell talked about Sweeby or homeless people.

  When Darnell got to school the next day, Mr. Ohrbach, the math teacher, was putting up a poster on the bulletin board about scholarships.

  “We're not even in high school yet,” Darnell said to him. “We can't get scholarships.”

  “That's right,” Mr. Ohrbach said, stapling the top of the notice to the board. “But you can get an idea of what they give scholarships for.”

  Darnell looked at the notice and saw that it was a scholarship for math and science students. That figured, with him being the math teacher.

  During the lunch period an announcement was made that all the band members had to make sure they had their permission slips if they were going to the tristate music festival. Benny Quiros and Colin Rigby started their imitation of a jazz band, and both of them were kicked out of the cafeteria. Then Freddie Haskell, who played trombone in the band, said that Benny and Colin were immature. Chris McKoy went out into the hallway and told Benny and Colin. Then Colin came back into the cafeteria and punched Freddy. This was more or less the way that Colin got suspended for a day, which was the first time in almost a year that anyone outside of the Corner Crew had been suspended.

  EIGHT

  “Hey, you're in the Journals!” Tamika knocked over the container of milk on the table, sending a stream of the white liquid toward her father.

  “What?” Her father jumped up, knocking his chair over backward.

  Mrs. Rock grabbed the milk container with her right hand and wiped most of the milk up with one swipe of the dishrag in the other.

  “I'm in the paper?” Mr. Rock asked.

  “No, Darnell is,” Tamika said, spreading a copy of the Oakdale Journal on the table. “Listen to this: ‘Mrs. Estelle Joyner spoke at the City Council meeting last night, asking them to continue their plans for building a parking lot at South Oakdale. She said she had heard that they had seen an editorial in the school newspaper that had influenced them. The editorial was written by Darnell Rock, a seventh-grader. The Council put off a decision on the parking lot until the next meeting’ ”

  “You were down to the City Council meeting?” Mr. Rock was picking up the chair.

  “No,” Darnell answered. “I don't even know what it is.”

  “‘It's where the city does its business,” Mrs. Rock said. “They pass laws, decide on what taxes they're going to have, and determine how the city is going to spend its money.”

  “Somebody must have s
ent them your article,” Tamika said.

  “You're going to find out when you get to school,” Mrs. Rock said. “I'm anxious to find out myself. This is the first time anybody in the family has been in the paper.”

  “I was in the paper,” Mr. Rock said. “When I went into the Army they had me in a list of all the guys that went in from our neighborhood.”

  “Sweeby, too?” Darnell asked.

  “I guess so,” his father answered gruffly.

  “You guys better get out of here before you're late.” Mrs. Rock took the bowl of cereal from in front of Tamika.

  “I'm not finished,” Tamika said.

  “Yes, you are,” Mrs. Rock said as the phone rang.

  “I bet that's somebody who read about you in the paper,” Tamika said.

  She beat her mother to the phone and answered it. All eyes were on her as she answered. She shook her head twice, then said that she would “see if he is in.” All the time she was pointing to Darnell and at the newspaper.

  “It's somebody from the newspaper!” she whispered as loudly as she could as she handed the receiver to her brother.

  Darnell felt a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He didn't want to talk to anybody from the newspaper.

  “Hello?”

  “Darnell Rock?”

  “Yeah?” Darnell looked at his mother. She was drying a dish and looking at him with wide eyes.

  “My name is Peter Miller, and I'm going to be at South Oakdale this afternoon to interview the principal—I think his name is Mr. Baker—about the parking lot thing. I wonder if you'd be available at lunchtime?”

  “Yeah,” Darnell said, “I guess so. But I don't know how the City Council got my article.”

  “Some mother saw it when she came to school to bring her kid's flute for band practice,” Peter Miller said. “Her husband's on the City Council, and she gave it to him. Anyway, I'll look for you at twelve. Okay?”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  At school everybody had either read the article in the Journal or had heard about it. Two kids he didn't even know waved copies at him, and a sixth-grader asked him for his autograph. Most of the kids were saying that turning the parking lot into a garden to feed the homeless was a goad idea.