Look Both Ways Read online

  “Canton, what you doing in here?” Mr. Munch asked, realizing he wasn’t actually… using the bathroom. And when Canton lifted his head up, Mr. Munch could see that he’d been crying. He could also see that Canton’s chest was pumping, heaving like it was hard for him to breathe. Like it would break open. Mr. Munch got down on the floor with him. Squatted beside him and talked him through some breathing exercises.

  “Come on, Canton. Count to ten with me. One, two, three…” And then, “Now let’s go back to one. Ten, nine, eight…” And eventually Canton could breathe. Could talk. Could stand. Mr. Munch walked him outside. When they made it to the corner, where Ms. Post was working, Canton wrapped his arms around his mother and squeezed. Held her so tight that she winced, her shoulder still a sack of broken bone.

  “Okay. I’m okay. You’re okay. We’re okay,” she chanted in his ear, trying to figure out how to get him to let go so she could do her job, but also not wanting to let him go because he was also her job.

  Mr. Munch patted Canton on his shoulder, but realizing there was no way this boy would let go of his mother, Mr. Munch decided he would take over for her, step into the street, stick his fingers in his mouth and whistle even louder than the whistle around Ms. Post’s neck.

  He put his hand up and yelled at the cars, “I’m tellin’ y’all right now, you hit me and I’m hitting you back!” And once the traffic stopped, he yelled for all the waiting students to “get on ’cross the street.” Then he turned back toward the stopped cars and puff his chest, almost bucking, daring them to move.

  * * *

  The next day, Mr. Munch met Canton outside of his last class of the day, Mr. Davanzo’s social studies class. In his hand was a big push broom.

  “How you feeling?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Still got the jitters?”

  Canton nodded, just slightly, trying to hide his embarrassment.

  “Wanna take a walk with me? I wanna give you something.”

  Canton and Mr. Munch sauntered the halls of the school, pushing dust, and hair that looked like dust, and coins and candy wrappers and a random sock and drawstrings and loose braids and who knows what else, as all the other students bustled around, eventually funneling through the double doors into the outside world.

  Pushing. Brooming. Mr. Munch, talking.

  “When my daughter, Winnie, went off to college, my wife got so nervous that she’d call Winnie every single day, multiple times a day. And whenever Winnie wouldn’t answer, Zena would just… lose it,” Mr. Munch started.

  “Zena’s your wife?”

  “Yeah.” Mr. Munch grinned. “Best person I ever known. Kinda gotta be to deal with a man that comes home every day smelling like bleach and urine. But she’s been through a lot. Seen a lot of the world when she was young, and it made her terrified for our daughter. Made her anxious about every step Winnie took away from us. What if something happens to her? What if she needs us? What if she’s in danger? Zena would go on and on with these kinds of questions, up all night, sick with fear all day.”

  “And what you say?”

  “Nothing. But what I did was buy her a dog.”

  “A dog?”

  “Yep.” Canton and Mr. Munch stopped at the custodian closet. The old man pushed the pile of middle school debris into the corner, then pulled out a million keys, flipping through them like pages of a book. “Not because she needed something else to care for—no dog can take the place of our baby girl—but I read this thing about emotional support animals.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, okay, first, I should clarify that my daughter called me and told me about them without my wife knowing, and then I read about them myself. Basically, it’s like having a dog to make you feel better.” Finally, he picked the right key and opened the closet door. “I mean, what’s better than a dog, right?”

  They went into the custodian’s closet, which was big enough to be an office. Pictures on the wall of Mr. Munch’s wife and daughter. And the dog. A small curly-haired thing with an underbite so ugly it was cute. At least Canton thought so. But besides its cuteness, Canton kept thinking about all the things better than dogs. To him. Like ice cream. And skateboards. And maybe a girlfriend one day. Or even a girl that’s a friend. And a good joke. Oh, and video games. Then, after all that… dogs were cool.

  “Mr. Munch, why you telling me all this?” Canton asked, done running down the better-than list in his mind. He was thinking maybe Mr. Munch was trying to be his emotional support dog, except not a dog. His emotional support human, and that all this was just a way to keep his mind off his mother and the fear of a school bus swiping her again.

  “Why am I telling you this?” He repeated Canton’s question. Then he opened a locker that stood in the corner of the closet/office. “Because I made you one.”

  “You… you made me a dog?”

  “Well… I mean… real emotional support dogs aren’t allowed in school, unfortunately. Plus, I couldn’t just buy you a dog. Your mom might not be okay with that. But I thought maybe this could help.” Mr. Munch reached into the locker and pulled out the head of a broom—the sweeping part—which he’d detached from the broomstick. The straw was curled and mangled as if Mr. Munch had been cleaning the sidewalk for, like, twenty years with it. He had drawn big black circles on one side like eyes. And an oval with a tic-tac-toe board in the middle of it, which Canton assumed was supposed to be the mouth. At the top, two small pieces of dustcloth, cut into ears and glued in place.

  “It’s… a… broom.”

  “But I cleaned it. Promise. And yeah, it’s a broom, until you do this.” He petted the wiry twine as if it were fur. As if he were scratching behind the ear of a Yorkie in desperate need of grooming. The straw popped back up when he was done, just like a dog’s would.

  “Why is the mouth like that? Is the… broom… dog angry?”

  “No.” Mr. Munch turned the broom head toward him, shrugged. “He’s smiling.”

  “Oh.” Canton squished up his befuddled face, decided to take Mr. Munch’s word about the smile, but was still unsure about everything else. “So, you really think this gonna help me?”

  “Can’t hurt to try?” A slick smirk crept onto Mr. Munch’s face. “I mean, the worst that could happen is you decide to clean up the street. So either way… everybody wins.”

  The next day, after school, Canton, with the broom dog tucked under his arm, slowly walked up to the corner to watch his mother—to guard the crossing guard. He leaned against the stop sign at the corner. And whenever Ms. Post had to step into the street, blow her whistle, raise her hand to stop traffic, whenever Canton’s chest would become an inflated balloon, he would run his fingers through the broom dog’s hair.

  Eventually, he named it Dusty.

  It’s strange, the things that work.

  * * *

  It’s been a year since Mr. Munch gave Canton the broom dog. A year since the first panic attack. A year and a week since the accident, and things have gotten better.

  The bell rings, and everyone gets up to leave Mr. Davanzo’s class.

  The big guy, Simeon, stands at the door, giving everyone high fives like he always does.

  “Up high,” he says to Canton as he approaches. Canton slaps his hand.

  “Don’t forget tonight’s homework. We’re talking geography. Write about place. Write about people. Human environmental interaction!” Mr. Davanzo shouted over the end-of-day clamor.

  Canton stops at his locker. Reaches in to grab Dusty, then heads for the door. He passes Ms. Wockley in the hallway scolding Simeon (the giant he’d just given a five), and Kenzi Thompson, the blue ball in his hand. Outside he walks past a kid he’d never seen before sitting on the bench by the door, wearing some kind of green suit. At the bench next to him was Candace Greene—his crush—who he never had the courage to talk to because she was always with her friends, Dumb Joey, Stinky Greg, and Cool Remy. And next to them on the third bench was this kid B
ritton Burns and his crew the Low Cuts, who were known around school for pocket pat-downs for pennies.

  “Wassup, Canton?” Trista, one of the Low Cuts and the toughest girl anyone had ever known, said. Canton waved, kept walking, passed Mr. Johnson moving the carpool line along. Had to get to the corner before the first cross. That was his thing. For a year and a week. And when Canton finally made it up to the crosswalk at Portal Avenue, there was his mother, Ms. Post, strapping on her vest and pulling the whistle attached to a black lanyard over her head like it was some kind of prestigious medal.

  “There’s my sweet boy,” she said, greeting him, arm winged. They hugged. “How was school?”

  “It was okay.”

  “Homework?”

  “A little. Ms. Broome wants us to imagine ourselves as a thing. And Mr. Davanzo wants us to record human environmental interaction.”

  “Which is… ?”

  “Which is what I’m gonna work on.” Canton made a funny face at his mom, and she made one back.

  “I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I feel like I’m probably an expert at it.”

  Canton chuckled. “I’ll let you know if I need your assistance.”

  “Deal. Well, get to it.” Ms. Post winked. Canton pulled a notebook from his backpack, along with Dusty the broom dog, then set the bag down against the stop sign so he could sit and have a little cushion. The broom dog rested on his lap as he scribbled words and phrases trying to describe the environment around him.

  Latimer Middle School.

  Corner.

  Portal Avenue.

  Cars.

  Classmates.

  Mom.

  Whistle.

  People stop.

  People go.

  People talk.

  People hug.

  People frown.

  People laugh.

  People go off.

  People go on.

  Canton glanced up as everyone gradually congregated at the corner, like water building against a dam, allowed to flow every few minutes. People turning and crossing, waiting and talking. The web of conversations. Gregory Pitts liked Sandra White. Satchmo Jenkins feared he might be eaten by a dog on his way home. Cynthia Sower was putting on a show at 3:33 p.m. Some banter on boogers, and everyone wanted to know what secret things Fatima Moss was always writing.

  He watched his classmates tap-dance with tongues, challenging one another, slipping and sliding from story to story. Watched his mother perform a kind of ballet. How she spun, stepped into the street like she was made of more. Blew her whistle. Put a hand up for a bus to stop. Put a hand out to wave the walkers through.

  When everyone had gone, when all the Latimer students had walked off, headed home or wherever they went after school, Ms. Post stood at the corner, removed her vest. She slung it over her shoulder. Pulled the whistle over her head. Another day, job done.

  “Ready to walk?” she asked Canton, who had been working nonstop on his assignment.

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  Canton stood, the broom dog falling from his lap like he had forgotten it was there. Ms. Post picked it up.

  “Sheesh. This thing has seen better days.” She examined it. The mangled straw. The pieces of felt that were meant to be ears long gone. “You know, I know it’s supposed to be a dog, but if you look at it now, it kinda looks like a bus.” She handed it to Canton, then pointed out the similarities. “The eyes are like the headlights, and the mean mouth—”

  “It’s a smile,” Canton corrected her.

  “Oh, right. The smile… is like the grille. Funny.”

  Canton had never noticed that. The broom dog had just become a thing he had, a thing he knew was there if he needed it, but it had been a long time, he just now realized, since he’d actually needed it.

  “It’s all faded now anyway,” Canton said, grabbing his backpack. They stood on the corner, looked both ways before crossing.

  “Still want it?” his mother asked. Canton shrugged, tossed it up in the air. Caught it. Tossed it again. Caught it. Again, and loose straw separated from the bunch. Again. And more loose straw, falling down on them. And more. Ms. Post laughed. “Look at that. A school bus falling from the sky.”

  Canton smiled, knowing a school bus is many things.

  So is a walk home.

  “A FOOT LEAVES, A FOOT LANDS, AND OUR LONGING GIVES IT MOMENTUM FROM REST TO REST.”

  —GARNETTE CADOGAN

  More from the Author

  Lu

  Sunny

  Patina

  Ghost

  As Brave As You

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There are always people to thank because there are always people helping to make books come true, like dreams. People who help make the book a thing, and people who help make the stories.

  In the bookmaker category, I, of course, have to thank my editor, Caitlyn, who trusts me as much as I trust her. Means the world to me. My agent, Elena, who also trusts me as much as I trust her. Both of them dig me from the hole of doubt over and over again in this crazy business. I’m insecure and anxious when it comes to my work and I appreciate their patience and encouragement. To all of Simon & Schuster, let’s keep rocking.

  In the story-maker category, I have to thank my childhood friends, who actually fuel so many of my stories. To Oxon Hill; and Washington, DC; and Brooklyn. To Aaron, and Ms. CeeCee, the best candy lady ever. To my folks, and my siblings. To the dogs we ran from. The bicycles and bus stops. The ice-cream trucks, and parking lot carnivals. Corner stores, and barbershops. To all the colorful neighborhoods, and all the colorful kids making the journey home.

  I love you.

  I like you.

  I ask you:

  How you gon’ change the world?

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Author photo courtesy of Ben Fractenberg

  When Jason Reynolds walked home from school, he learned a lot of things. He learned just how fast Rottweilers are. He learned the shortcut to the candy lady’s house. He learned how to make his jokes dirty, and how to keep his sneakers clean. Most importantly, he learned how to tell a story. He’s written a slew of critically acclaimed and bestselling books for kids and teens, including All American Boys (co-written with Brendan Kiely); As Brave As You; the Track series; Long Way Down; and For Every One. Accolades include: a Newbery Honor, Michael L. Printz and Coretta Scott King Honors, two Walter Dean Myers Awards, the Kirkus Prize, the LA Times Book Award, the Charlotte Huck Award; and he was a National Book Award Finalist. Check out what else he’s up to at jasonwritesbooks.com.

  Visit us at simonandschuster.com/kids

  www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Jason-Reynolds

  A Caitlyn Dlouhy Book

  Atheneum Books for Young Readers

  Simon & Schuster, New York

  also by jason reynolds

  When I Was the Greatest

  The Boy in the Black Suit

  All American Boys

  As Brave As You

  Long Way Down

  For Every One

  The Track Series:

  Ghost

  Patina

  Sunny

  Lu

  ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Jason Reynolds

  Jacket and interior illustrations copyright © 2019 by Alex Nabaum

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS is a registered trademark of Si
mon & Schuster, Inc. Atheneum logo is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  Book design by Debra Sfetsios-Conover

  The illustrations for this book were rendered in gouache paint and digitally.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Reynolds, Jason, author. | Nabaum, Alexander, illustrator.

  Title: Look both ways : a tale told in ten blocks / Jason Reynolds ; illustrations by Alexander Nabaum.

  Description: New York : Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, 2019. | Summary: “A collection of ten short stories that all take place in the same day about kids walking home from school”—Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019010095| ISBN 9781481438285 (hardback) | ISBN 9781481438308 (eBook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Interpersonal relations—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Emotions & Feelings. | JUVENILE FICTION / Short Stories. | JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / New Experience.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.R33593 Loo 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019010095