Age:
Middle School
Reading Level: 3.4
Chapter One
It was the last day of summer vacation. I woke with the strange feeling that it was gonna happen today.
The morning began much earlier than I wanted it to. I planned on sleeping until noon, just because I could. That would be taken away when school started in the fall. I would have to catch the bus at the end of the street by 6:45.
All that boring summer of 1968, I kept waiting for something different to happen. Nothing exciting occurred in Cranston, Rhode Island.
I had turned fourteen in April and felt that I was finally shedding the stigma of being unlucky number thirteen. I mean, everybody makes a big deal out of becoming a teenager. What they don't mention is that thirteen is the lowest form of it.
Besides being a popularly unlucky number, you don't just suddenly become a card-carrying member of the teen world. Somehow, I'd expected to be able to do more than I had before. I mean, "teen" would now be hooked onto the end of my age for the next six years! Freedom, right? Not a chance.
Getting a driver's license was a long three years away. My parents still gave me the same old nine o'clock curfew. Most of the older kids still ignored me. It's not like the zits on my face were some terminal disease.
Even worse, I didn't even grow much taller. Only one girl in my class spoke to me like I wasn't gum on the bottom of her shoe. Beautiful Janice Rodriguez still had me by at least two inches. I was definitely in love with her, but how can you ever ask a girl who looks down on the top of your head to dance?
Anyway, turning fourteen and going into the eighth grade was going to be different. My face was clearing up. I had actually grown an inch or so. Hopefully, I thought, Janice's growth spurt was over. School started Monday, so I wouldn't know until then.
Meanwhile, I scarfed down my second bowl of Wheaties, the Breakfast of Champions™, and thought about what to do on my last day of vacation.
Chapter Two
I decided to call my best friend Leon. I was going to talk him into finally hiking up to Skeleton Valley. We talked about doing this when school let out last June.
But every time I called him, Leon had another excuse. I knew he was mowing several neighbors' lawns. He also babysat his little sister while his mom worked.
But there was something else. Leon had changed. I still couldn't figure out why. This was the first summer that we hadn't hung out together.
Leon and I had been friends since kindergarten. We connected the very first day of school, probably because neither of us could sit still for more than five minutes. We loved the sand table. Our teacher Mrs. Baker, gave us a free pass whenever our squirming became distracting. We'd been, like my mom said, "Two peas in a pod," ever since. Except this summer.
I guess I should point out that Leon's Black, and I'm White. Not that it should matter, but back in 1968, it was not very common to see a friendship like ours. Neither of us ever noticed this, though. We were too busy pushing toy bulldozers through the sand back in kindergarten. It wasn't until, I guess, the third grade that this difference was brought to my attention.
I was headed outside to meet Leon at our fort in the woods. I had just snuck a half loaf of Wonder Bread and a jar of peanut butter into my knapsack. Then, I heard my mom's voice coming from the hallway. I knew she was talking to her friend Judy. Her voice always dropped to a whisper and then was followed by a mass of giggles.
As I stepped through the screen door, I heard her say something that made me stop. "No," she said, "I can talk longer. Timmy's headed out to play with his little colored friend Leon."
I was so shocked. I almost let the door hit me in the head. Little colored friend? I was truly confused. Leon was colored? Like crayons? Was I also colored? Did Leon's mom tell her friends that he played with a colored boy? I thought about this on my way to meet him. Exactly what color was he?
I remembered my big box of crayons that had the built-in sharpener. Leon was a bit like the color brown. Then again, I thought, he wasn't really. Maybe more a mixture of burnt umber and brown. Then, I had it. He was like the same color as YooHoo, my favorite drink. Kind of a warm, caramel color. Then, I stopped and looked at my arm. What color was I? Kind of a reddish tan.
I don't remember ever mentioning my mom's words to Leon. Like most eight year olds, we were more focused on having fun. All we knew was we both loved playing in our forts together. We would spend hours building them. We'd then tear them down and start over. We had the most fun defending them against terrifying armies. Of course, they only existed in our imaginations.
I thought again how different this summer had been from the others. My friendship with Leon wasn't the same.
I think it all started in April. My family had just finished dinner. My dad, as usual, turned on the TV to watch Walter Cronkite. He never missed watching Walter give the nightly news. I was heading out to the garage with a big bag of garbage.
I stopped when I heard the famous newsman's voice grow somber.
"On this day, April fourth, at six o'clock Eastern Standard Time, Dr. Martin Luther King was shot dead. The most famous Negro in America was standing on the balcony of his motel."
I remember dropping the bag of garbage on the floor and hearing my mom cry out, "That's just horrible! What is happening to this world!"
I quickly scooped up the trash. I went outside and put it in the metal garbage can next to our garage.
I thought of my friend Leon.
He had written a report on Martin Luther King that year. He looked so proud when it was his turn to read it to the class. I remember Leon looking up at everyone at the end of his report. He had this big grin on his face.
He told us that Dr. King just won the Nobel Peace Prize. He explained to us that this great man preached non-violence. Dr. King did this even though Black people were treated badly in many places.
I felt proud, too, knowing that I went to school in a place where everyone was treated the same. Leon was one of only half a dozen Black kids in our school. In my thirteen years of experience, I hadn't seen anyone treat him differently. I don't think I ever did . . . or maybe I wasn't paying very good attention.
He was just Leon, my best friend.
Remembering this, I decided right then to hop on my bike and go to Leon's house. I yelled to my parents that I'd be right back, and took off.
Chapter Three
Leon only lived about a mile away. It was a short ride across the small river from where we lived. I never noticed how much smaller Leon's house was than mine until that day.
I rode up his street and saw about five cars in front of his one-story, ranch-style home. There must have been twenty people gathered around his front door.
My first thought was, no way can all those people fit in that house! I knew because I'd been in it many times. His mom always greeted me with a smile and a hug.
Leon's little sister, Mary Beth, always wanted to hang out with us. We allowed her to for a short time. Then we always headed outside to our secret fort.
I got off my bike, leaned it against a tree, and looked around for Leon. I spotted his mom talking to a few people by the front steps. She gave me a small wave and turned back into the house.
A few of the people by the front door looked my way. They seemed to scowl at me. Huh?
"Everybody's pretty broken up about Dr. King," a soft voice said behind me. Mary Beth had somehow quietly come up behind me, as she usually did. She was no longer the little kid who used to bug us so much. Even though she was two years younger, she was almost as tall as me.
She always greeted me with a laugh and a "hey Shorty!" It was our private joke because I always called her "Shrimp."
Only this time, there was no twinkle in her big brown eyes. I saw only sadness. She looked like she had just gotten over a good cry.
"I heard," I said. "Where's Leon?"
"He's in his room. Been there since Aunt Jessie called with the news. Best not to bother him." Then Mary Beth looked at me. She whispered, "In fact, no offense, Timmy, but I don't think you should come around here for awhile."
She saw the shocked look on my face. "It's not anything you did wrong, Timmy. It's . . . it's just that you're a . . . White person."
"What!"
Mary Beth said one more thing to me before she walked away. "A White person killed Dr. King."
I don't even remember getting back on my bike and riding home. I knew how much Leon loved Dr. King. He must have practiced his oral report on me ten times. I mean, I could have given the report. I recalled all his hard work doing research.
Martin Luther King was a minister. He led the 1955 Bus Boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. Black people refused to ride the city buses. They did this until they were allowed to sit anywhere they wanted. This was an example of a non-violent protest.
I remember being amazed that Martin Luther King was really smart. He even skipped the ninth and twelfth grades. He went to college, even though he really didn't graduate from high school.
I knew I wasn't that smart. Leon and I laughed about how funny it would be if he and his friend Shorty showed up at college at age sixteen.
"Yeah," he said."Can you see us dancing with all those pretty college girls?"
I also remembered this one line that Leon quoted. It was from Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech. It was something about how he dreamed that his four little children would not be judged by the color of their skin. He felt they should be judged by what kind of people they were.
I remember, then, feeling strange. I felt like there were so many things I didn't know about the real world.
I watched the news.
There were riots in a lot of the big cities. Black people were angry. It was horrifying seeing the police beating Black people and knocking them off their feet with fire hoses. For what? I guess I was too young to understand it all.
My parents would just shake their heads. They'd remind me how lucky I was to live in such a peaceful town.
Sometimes, I wished that Leon and I could just sit in our little fort in the woods forever. We found safety behind the old stick and plywood walls.
Now, with the death of Martin Luther King, our sheltered little world had changed. Leon didn't come to school for a few days that spring. The teachers in school avoided talking about the murder.