Read Online 145th Street by Walter Dean Myers - Free Book Online Page A

Short skirt. Beautiful teeth. Nice boobs.
    “We’ve got one chance in a million,” the coach said. “We’ll go with the thirty-four play to Tommy. Jerry inbounds the ball to Tommy and everybody else blocks out their man the best they can.”
    “Good choice, Coach,” I said.
    Jerry inbounded the ball or, at least, he tried to inbound the ball. A Carver guy knocked it away and it came to me. I picked it up and saw Tommy sliding inside. Two huge dudes from Carver came after me. I needed to get the ball to Tommy and threw it over their outstretched fingers. The ball went up, and up, and up. The buzzer went off as the ball went down and the referee pointed to it. The last shot of the game. Only it wasn’t a shot. It really wasn’t a shot. It really, really,
really
wasn’t a shot even as it came down through the net.
    They carried me off the court and, to tell the truth, it felt pretty good. But I had blown my one chance with Celia.
    The next day in school everybody was talking about how I had won the game and everything and how cool I was with it. What I was waiting for was my new streak to begin. So I’m walking down the hall and who’s coming down the hall with two of her girlfriends but none other than Celia Evora, Her Loveliness.
    “Nice game,” she says to me. Her teeth are like sparkling and her eyes are like flashing and my heart is beating like crazy but I know the score.
    “It was luck,” I said.
    “My mom told me you called,” she said.
    “Just wanted to see how you were doing,” I said. “Your mom said you had an allergy.”
    “Yes, and I wanted to talk to you about something,” she said.
    “What?”
    “You going with anybody to the junior dance?” she asked.
    “I hadn’t thought about it,” I said.
    “You want to go with me?” she asked.
    “Sure,” I said.
    “I
knew
you would say yes,” she said. “I just knew it.”
    “You did?”
    “Sure. This is my lucky week. Figure it out. The hospital finally figured out what I’m allergic to, and I passed every test I took in school. Then, just after my mom said I couldn’t go to the dance because she didn’t trust any of the boys, you called to find out about my allergy and she said you had to be the nicest boy in the school and if I went with you I could go. Am I lucky or what?”
    “It sounds like you’re on a streak,” I said.
    “I hope it never ends!” she said. “Pick me up early for the dance.”
    Celia turned her head, flashed those dark eyes at me, and danced her way down the hall.
    Froggy saw me standing in the hallway leaning against the wall.
    “What happened?” he asked. “You okay?”
    “I just figured out that the whole world is on a streak,” I said.
    “What does that mean?” Froggy asked.
    Froggy went on about what the word
streak
meant. I really didn’t care anymore. It was all good.

T he Tigros hit the ’hood gradually, like the turning of a season. First we saw some tags scrawled on the wall near the Pioneer Supermarket. Then we heard that a kid on 141st Street got stabbed and they arrested a member of a gang called Tigros.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” Fee asked. “What’s a Tigro, anyway?”
    I didn’t know. I didn’t even want to talk about gangs. Some people said—okay, it wasn’t some people, it was my uncle who runs the barbershop—Uncle Duke said that I had a bad attitude about Harlem.
    “You’re so anxious to leave you’re not even giving your homeland a chance,” he said.
    “Africa is my homeland,” I said.
    “That’s the easy answer, isn’t it?” he said. He was sweeping the floor of the shop. “Like running away from the neighborhood.”
    He was right, really. Fee, who is my main man, said that I had black skin and white dreams, that all I wanted to do was to get away someplace and be with white people.
    I liked a lot of things about Harlem, especially the block, which was how we talked about 145th Street. There were good people on the block, but what I wanted was to