Ghost Read online

  “Whatever, man.” I slipped from under his arm, laughing to keep from wincing. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Me, Ghost, a hero. Until social studies.

  I wasn’t really in the mood to learn about Alexander the Great, even though I did like the fact that he was called “the Great,” but what I was even less in the mood for was sitting in front of Shamika Wilson. Shamika was . . . big. Like . . . huge. She had to be almost six feet tall in the seventh grade. And she had a birthmark that covered half her light-skinned face in dark brown, like a comic-book bad guy or something. But Shamika wasn’t a mean girl. She was actually kinda cool. The only problem with her was that she was super silly, and she had a laugh as big as her body. But it was a real laugh. The kind that made her bend over. The kind that Coach was faking when I first met him. So when I sat down in front of her and bumped her desk, knocking one of her pencils on the floor, Shamika leaned over to pick it up, noticing my new and improved sneakers. And then came the thunder. It just came out of nowhere, and once she starts laughing, Shamika can’t stop. And the worst part is that she can sort of pass her laugh around the room to everybody, just because the sound of it is so outrageous. So if she laughs, everybody laughs. Imagine the sound a car makes when it’s trying to start, but can’t. Now, speed that sound up, and crank the volume high enough to blow out the windows in heaven. That’s Shamika’s laugh.

  “What’s so funny, Shamika?” Mr. Hollow, the social studies teacher, asked, unamused. “Would you care to share it with the rest of the class?”

  And that’s pretty much when I started to panic. When I had that doctor moment I was talking about, when they cut somebody’s arm off and then realize it was a bad idea—my shoes equaled that arm. And now Mr. Hollow was basically asking to see my surgical screwup. Oh. No. Please, Shamika. Don’t share it with the class. Don’t share it with the class!

  Shamika couldn’t get herself together long enough to even speak, so instead she just pointed at my feet. And that was all it took for like sixty other eyeballs, including Mr. Hollow’s, to laser beam me and my sneakers. I tried to cross my legs, then stuck my feet farther under the seat, then pull my pant legs down, but then my butt was out. There was nowhere to hide, and the next few seconds, with the whole class howling, felt a gazillion times worse than Brandon’s stupid jokes about my mom.

  Mr. Hollow finally shut it all down and went on about Alexander the Great, while I, Ghost the Worst, stared at the pages in my textbook, the stupid black words on the stupid white page all blurring together as solid black lines. I was literally shaking with embarrassment, like my insides had turned into ice. Ice that was cracking.

  I wanted to break the desk.

  Or flip it over.

  Scream. Something. Anything.

  Miraculously, the lunch bell rang. Everybody poured into the hallway, moving toward the cafeteria, some still talking about me, others playing and joking, slapping heads, jumping on backs, getting Mr. Baskin, the school security guard, all mad as usual, forcing him to leave his post to deal with the craziness. And knowing that Baskin wasn’t where he was supposed be, once I finally got to the double doors of the lunchroom, a lunchroom I felt was waiting to eat me, I just kept walking—more like a sore walk-run—straight out the front door of the school.

  I had never skipped class before. Never. I mean, I had my fair share of school problems, but I was never bold enough to just not go. And I definitely didn’t have the guts to walk out in the middle of the day. But now I didn’t have a choice. I had to get out of there.

  Once I was outside, I broke out in a full-on run. I mean, I straight-up jetted, and because I was so scared of getting caught, I couldn’t even feel the pain in my legs anymore. Adrenaline overload. I ran and ran, until I was far enough away from the school to not get caught. I turned down a busy street with a whole bunch of stores on it, just because it seemed like the easiest place to blend in. I almost went into a wig shop, just because I figured I might be able to grab a disguise. I mean, a wig would definitely do it. But . . . nah. Then there was the fish market. I looked in the window. Three short guys took huge fish—big like they were baby sharks or something—and hacked the heads off with giant knives. WHAM! That was wild, but somehow I could relate to the fish. Actually, I could kinda relate to the men chopping the heads off the fish, too. Then I came to a sporting goods store. That’s when the best idea ever popped into my head.

  “Welcome to Everything Sports,” a lady greeted me at the door. Her name tag said TIA. She was wearing sweatpants and a basketball jersey with the store’s name on the front. She didn’t really look like she played sports, though. Patty looked like an athlete, but this girl . . . not so much. I mean, she had on makeup and had her hair all done. “Let me know if you need some help finding anything,” she said.

  “Um,” I hummed awkwardly. I tried not to look her directly in the face, just because I didn’t want her to say nothing about me not being in school. Plus I felt weird about being the only person in the store. “Y’all got track stuff?” I asked. Then, trying to be more clear, I added, “Like, shoes?”

  “Yep. Right over here,” the girl, Tia, said, leading the way.

  The track shoes at Everything Sports were amazing. Neon green and gold, shiny black and electric blue. They looked like they were full of power and speed, like just wearing them could get me closer to Usain Bolt’s world record. They were just like Lu’s.

  I picked up one of the shoes, a silver one. Flipped it over to see the price. Then put it right back down. Yikes! Then I looked at a mean bright orange one, looked at the bottom.

  “Want to try any of them?” Tia asked. She had been standing behind me the whole time.

  I put the orange shoe back—they were even more!—and turned to face her. “Um . . . the silver ones, I guess.”

  “Size?” she asked.

  “I don’t really know, I think an eight? Maybe eight and a half.” The truth is, I had no idea what size I wore. I couldn’t remember. When me and Ma went to get my last pair, the ones I was wearing, the ones that now had their heads chopped off, the reason we went in the first place was because the sneakers I had were too small. I think I was a seven then, and we had to bump up to an eight. But I just couldn’t remember. Tia eyeballed my feet, and even though I knew she was trying to guess my shoe size, I couldn’t help but think she was looking at my chewed-up dogs like, What the?

  I was hearing Shamika’s booming laugh ringing in my ears again when Tia finally chirped, “I’ll bring a nine, too.”

  I took a seat on one of the benches and looked around at the boxing gloves and soccer balls and every other kind of sports equipment. There was a man working in the store too. He was standing next to a rack of jump ropes, tossing a basketball back and forth from hand to hand, and occasionally spinning it on one finger, but only for like half a second. He probably wasn’t no athlete either.

  A few moments later Tia came back out with two boxes. “Okay,” she said, setting the boxes down on the floor in front of me. “I got an eight and a nine, but no eight and a half.” She popped the top of the first box. “Let’s start with the nine.”

  She pulled the silver shoes from the box and set them down in front of me. I untied my frayed shoestrings—I had to cut them, too—and slipped my sneakers off, tucking them under the bench. Two more people walked into the store. Tia and the other guy greeted them; then Tia encouraged me to put the shoes on. “Walk around, jump up and down or whatever. Take your time and get a feel for them.”

  I put the shoes on. The nines fit perfectly. After I laced them tight, I stood up and bounced up and down a few times like Tia suggested. They felt amazing, almost like I didn’t have any shoes on at all. I stepped in front of the mirror to check myself out. Man. It looked like I was wearing spaceships on my feet. Or silver bullets! “How are they?” Tia came back over to check on me.

  “They’re good,” I said, still staring at my feet in the mirror. I felt like they had some kind of power in them, and that pow
er was pumping into me. The kind of power that shut down all laughter. I repeated, now looking at her, “They’re good.”

  “Perfect.” Tia nodded and went to talk to one of the other customers. And that’s when I made my move.

  At first I wasn’t going to do it. I mean, when I went into the store, it was a thought, but only a thought. Not even like a real, real thought either, because I knew that I could just ask my mother to get them for me, and she would because she felt like this track thing was gonna keep me out of trouble. But when I saw how much they cost . . . I just couldn’t ask her for them. I just couldn’t. But these were “shut-up shoes.” Nobody would have nothing to say about me with these on my feet. And that’s when the thought became real.

  I took the shoes off, and when Tia moved to the other side of the store to show the baseball gloves to one of the people who had come in, and the other guy who worked there had run in the back to grab something for the other customer, I slipped the silver bullets in my backpack. I put the top back on the box and put the empty shoe box under the other one—the eights. Then I put my sneakers back on as fast as I could. I slung my bag on my shoulder and headed for the door. Then, as I got there, Tia called out, “No good?”

  I was stunned but shook it off and played it cool. “Um . . . they’re amazing. I—I love them,” I said, trying not to look her in the face. “Maybe I’ll come back for them later.” I pushed the door open. As soon as I stepped through the doorway, I took off.

  I pounded down the street, waiting to hear someone yell, Hey kid! or Thief! Somebody stop that kid! Like they do on TV. But no one did. At least, I didn’t hear none of that. The streets can be noisy with cars, and people bumbling around, not to mention when you’re running scared, like I was, the only sound you really hear is the sound of your own heart banging like a scary soundtrack to the chase.

  I turned the corner, still looking over my shoulder for the police, but I stopped running, because if a cop saw a random kid running down the street in the middle of a school day, might be a sign the kid’s up to no good. And I was that kid, so I tried to throw off any potential cops by walking. But that felt cocky, so I did a weird don’t mind me, I’m just doing my old-lady power walk thing. I knew it was only a matter of time before the police came out of nowhere, charging at me, ready to take me to jail all because I wanted some dope shoes to be a better runner . . . to be a better basketball player. Be better so nobody could say . . . anyway. The cops never came. I didn’t stop, though. Too paranoid. I almost jumped into a trash can when a police car with his sirens on zipped past me. But he wasn’t looking for me. Nope, he was looking for a real criminal. And I wasn’t a real criminal. One with a real rap sheet.

  Of course, after about five or six minutes of not quite running, not quite walking, I had to stop and figure out exactly where I was going. Didn’t want to head home. I mean, I could’ve. It would’ve been safe. But I just didn’t want to go there. When I’m there by myself for too long, the house becomes some kind of time machine, teleporting me back three or four years, listening to my mom and dad fight and scream every night. Taking me back to all the bad stuff. So that was out. There was only one other place I thought was safe enough to go—Mr. Charles’s store.

  When I got there, Mr. Charles was talking to a deliveryman. He signed a piece of paper—one of those three-in-one papers—and a guy in dusty blue overalls ripped the pink one from the bottom and gave it to Mr. Charles. Then the guy grabbed his metal carrier thing on wheels and rolled out.

  “Castle?” Mr. Charles said in his loud voice. He folded the pink piece of paper in half and tucked it somewhere behind the counter. He turned the TV down, then checked his watch, clearly confused about why I wasn’t in school. But instead of just asking, he asked the usual. “Let me guess, sunflower seeds?” He snatched a bag off the wall. I wasn’t even really thinking about sunflower seeds, but I did skip lunch, and since he brought it up . . .

  “Let me guess, a dollar,” I replied, as usual, digging into my pocket for a buck.

  “Nope. Ten dollars,” Mr. Charles said, pulling the seeds back off the counter.

  “Ten dollars?” I snipped. “What you mean, ten dollars?”

  “I mean, sunflower seeds cost you ten bucks from now on, until you tell me why you’re not in school.” Mr. Charles held his hand out, waiting for me to put the ten dollars I didn’t have in it. Then he shrugged and put the sunflower seeds back up on the hook.

  “Mr. Charles,” I moaned. “Are you serious?”

  “Serious as a heart attack,” he said, so predictably that I could’ve said it for him.

  I looked at him for a second, y’know, trying to give him my best puppy-dog face even though I wasn’t sure I even had one.

  “Won’t work,” he said.

  I leaned against the glass of the big fridge Mr. Charles kept the deli meats in. “Okay,” I huffed. “I left after social studies because kids were laughing at me.”

  Mr. Charles came from behind the counter, propped himself up against the ice chest. “Come again?”

  “I said I left after social studies. Kids were laughing at me.” This time louder.

  “Laughing at what?”

  I didn’t say nothing. I just hiked my pants up and let my shoes do the talking. Mr. Charles looked down at my mangled kicks and dropped his mouth open.

  “What’d you do?” he asked, stepping back to get a better view.

  “I cut them,” I said flat out, letting my pants drop back down.

  “I can see that. But . . . why?”

  I wanted to rip open my backpack and say, To make them more like these! But I didn’t. Because then Mr. Charles would’ve wanted to know where I got those dope kicks from and all that, and the next thing you know, he would’ve jacked the price of sunflower seeds up to a hundred bucks.

  “I’m on a track team now. And they all got good shoes. Low-tops. And you can run better in low-tops.”

  “So you hacked half your sneakers off?”

  “Pretty much,” I said, cool. “And today at school, when some of the kids noticed, they laughed. So . . . I left. Please don’t tell my mom.” I’d been saying that a lot lately.

  Mr. Charles sighed, then went back behind the counter. He took the bag of seeds back off the hook and set them in front me.

  “Okay. This one’s on me,” he said. But when I reached for them, Mr. Charles wouldn’t take his hand off the bag. “But no more running outta school. Especially just because people are laughing at you. People are always going to be laughing at you, Castle. Trust me.”

  “You been laughed at?” I asked. I was willing to bet that he never got made fun of. I mean, there was the whole You look like a white James Brown thing, but I wasn’t sure if anyone else noticed that or if it was just me. And then there was the almost-deaf thing, but I figured that was just because he was old. No big deal. Other than that, what could anyone tease Mr. Charles about?

  “Ha!” he hooted. “Of course I have. I get laughed at all the time, son. Listen, I come from a family of Einsteins. My brother’s a doctor. My sister’s a big-time college professor at one of those smarty universities. Both my parents were lawyers. And me, I sell you sunflower seeds.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” I asked. Shoot, having your own store seemed like a sweet deal. You ain’t never gotta pay for no groceries.

  “Nothing is wrong with it. Not to me and you. But to them? Oh, they look at me like some kind of letdown. You know what they call this place? Charlie’s little store,” he said, his voice now more serious. “Little. Don’t ever let someone call your life, your dreams, little. Hear me?” I nodded. He continued, all fired up, “Because while they’re out there sniffing their own butts, I get to hang out with a big man, like you. A future World’s Greatest. And that’s cool.” Mr. Charles smiled big. Warm. “So we got a deal? No more skipping school?”

  “No more skipping school,” I agreed all quick.

  He lifted his hand from the bag, but before I could take it
, he slapped his hand back down on it.

  “You’re not just saying that to get the seeds, are you?” he said, now glaring.

  “Nah, man. For real. No more skipping school!”

  He let go of the sunflower seeds, and I snatched the bag before he changed his mind again.

  But I didn’t breeze on out of the store like I normally do. I was still kinda paranoid about being busted by the cops, slammed up against the wall, searched, caught with fancy running shoes in my backpack, and thrown in jail where the cafeteria food is worse than my school’s and the hospital’s. So I just hung around the store eating my seeds while Mr. Charles went through inventory. He had just gotten a drop-off of new stuff: sodas, chips, cleaning products, cereal.

  “You can’t just hang out here, Castle. I mean, you’re my guy, but you see that sign?” Mr. Charles pointed to the one on the window. NO LOITERING.

  “Ain’t nobody loitering. You don’t see me just spitting seeds on your floor or nothing like that,” I protested. I opened my hand so he could see that I had been spitting them into my palm.

  “No, not littering. Loitering,” Mr. Charles said, ripping open a box. “Means you can’t just stand around.”

  “Oh, well, you want me to help you with some of these boxes?” I asked, hoping he’d say yes, because the only other place I could go was the bus stop, and that was too out in the open. Either that or the track, but I was going to end up there later anyway, and after yesterday, I wasn’t down for another double practice. Plus, if the cops were out looking for a kid who stole track shoes, they might show up where the kid might be using them. So it was best to not be out there in the middle of the day, alone.

  Mr. Charles studied me for a moment, then thrust a box of cat food in my arms. “Here, help me unpack this.”

  The process was simple. There should be five of everything, everywhere, which was really just a weird way for Mr. Charles to keep the store looking neat and organized, and also an easy way for him to know if people were stealing from him. So for instance, in the fridge, there should be five of every soda. Five of every juice. On the cereal shelf there needed to be five of every kind of cereal, even the nasty ones that taste like dirt until you put sugar on it. Same went for chips and cookies. So my job was to look around the store and let Mr. Charles know what was missing.