Chapter 9

"Get up Vanessa," she said quietly. In disbelief Vanessa stood but stayed tensed as if her mother would swing the belt like a whip and strike her across the body.

When her mother didn't move for a long time, Vanessa whispered. "I'm sorry mama."

Leelah wouldn't look at her. "Go get dressed and eat your breakfast."

Vanessa hurried out of the room with an understanding that she might have gotten out of a whupping but something had changed just now—and it probably wasn't going to be in her favor.

II

At school everybody thought she had gotten jumped because she was so messed up. Even when she said she fell and showed them the evidence of gravel in the heel of her palms they still didn't believe her. And at recess Jalissa took one look at her and began bawling like a baby.

"Scotty got you!" She cried. "When?"

"J, I fell," Vanessa tried to explain.

But Jalissa's tears was evidence enough for everyone that, as far as the sixth grade class of Winton Hills School was concerned, Vanessa White had been jumped by Tino's brother. And because she had survived it she was pretty bad-ass.

At lunch when it was time to go into the main building, Vanessa strained to catch sight of the older boy. She didn't always see him but today she did. He was walking with a gang of boys and he stood out because he was the only white person in the group. But he looked really cool. He was wearing cut off jeans and hightop Converse. He was also wearing a sleeveless Los Angeles Lakers t-shirt with Kareem Abdul Jabbar's name across the front.

His blonde hair flowed over his shoulders and his blue eyes twinkled with merriment as he laughed with his boys. Vanessa's breath caught in her chest at the sight of him. It seemed that the world had slowed. Scotty Tremont. Her eyes stayed glued to him until someone pushed her from behind.

"Move!"

It was Donald and she quickly moved out of his way. Some of the girls crowded around her when they saw Scotty and she appreciated the show of protection but she really wished that they would just believe that he hadn't jumped her, but she had just tripped and fallen.

Jalissa lowered her eyes and gulped as he passed them.

"Hi Scotty." Vanessa said quietly.

He glanced at her and then took a double take. The smile fell from his face. "Did you get a whipping?"

"No."

"Good deal." He nodded and continued on with his friends.

The girls looked at her incredulously. "You talked to him!" Rochelle said in awe.

Vanessa grinned and then regretted it when her lip stung. "See! I told you."

Jalissa looked so relieved that she looped her arm around her cousin's neck and walked with her to lunch even though she would probably get into trouble for leaving her own classmates.

After school Vanessa paced along the sidewalk but it was evident that she was going to have to walk home. Mama was late again. She looked up the long hill towards Garden Hilltop and sighed and began the long trek alone.

It was October and some people had hung paper jack-o lanterns in their windows. Nobody wasted money on pumpkins—not in the ghetto, not unless you wanted to wake up the next day with it stomped to smithereens and smeared all over your door and window.

As she walked purposely up the hill she saw some of the kids from school already outside playing hopscotch on the sidewalk and stickball in the street. These were not the kids that she wanted to play with. These kids were the ones that would taunt her or pull her hair or truly jump her in earnest. Not because she had hair that ran down her back but because she lived at the top of the hill and thought she was better than they were.

So she averted her eyes and just walked towards home. Soon she left behind the playing children and came upon the ugly complexes that had not yet been torn down. One building in particular was set to be demolished but still it stood with boarded up windows and doors. A few of those boards had been torn down and now lay scattered across the tall grass. People went inside that building; mostly teens. She didn't know why. Why would someone want to go into a building where a little girl had been found raped and murdered?

III

That spring every kid in school had talked about nothing else but eleven-year-old Yolanda Washington. She had gone missing one night, not returning home after the streetlights had come on. Some people said she was fast and ran wild, but even they didn't think that she would stay away for days. The police had been driving up and down the streets that spring, interviewing people, checking cars and had even taken the little girl's father to jail but had released him when they found no evidence against him.

One night when Vanessa and her mother were driving up the hill after a dinner at McDonalds she saw Tino leaving the vacant building. He was lighting a cigarette but once it was lit he kept his head down and quickly slipped around the back as if he didn't want to be seen. She remembered thinking that was funny. It wasn't as if the sight of his massive Afro and lighter than brown skin wouldn't stand out.

She had turned in her seat to stare at him wondering briefly if she would later hear that the building had burned down. If it did she wouldn't tell anyone what she had seen—just like she hadn't told anyone about Tino throwing the match into that car. She hadn't even told Jalissa because there were some things that you just didn't want to risk anyone finding out.

Two days later as they rode down the hill to school Vanessa saw police tape criss-crossing the building.

'Mama, what happened over there?'

'Baby they found that little girl,' her mother had sighed sadly. 'Someone killed her and that's where they found her body.'