Read Online No Laughter Here by Rita Williams-Garcia - Free Book Online Page A

mad, mad, mad.
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    Tuesday Victoria and I walked to school together without saying a word. We sat at the hopscotches and stared out past the balls bouncing and the kids running and tagging each other and yelling.
    In class we took our seats but did not volunteer to be class monitors or to bring the attendance sheets to the office. Victoria answered one question in math, one in science, and one in language arts. Not me. I couldn’t raise my hand to call out a quotient, or share my knowledge about sharks, or identify one of the parts of speech. I couldn’t talk about these silly things when anything could happen to a girl against her will. Against her knowledge. Against her body. Instead I did what Victoria did when she first came back. I let all the balls fly and the hands shoot up around us.
    Once she told me, I felt like I was standing in the pot of fire with her. It didn’t matter that her mother made the doctor put a needle in her arm so she would sleep while he cut her. And what if her aunts had held her down while her grandmother cut her body in their home?
    I had to turn off my mind. I couldn’t let my thoughts go flying off. I couldn’t let myself imagine any more.
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    Wednesday Victoria and I were sitting by the hopscotches doing what we’d been doing for the past month. Except now we weren’t just sitting in silence. We were making a statement. Depriving everyone of our girlness.
    Jerilyn was looking for extra players for Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. I wasn’t in the hand-clapping, foot-stomping mood, so I shook my head no. Victoria did also. Jerilyn wouldn’t take no for an answer. She had only five players, and she needed at least one more so everyone would have a partner.
    â€œJust one game, just one, just one. Please?”
    Her mother still does her hair.
    â€œI said no .”
    â€œBut y’all never play,” Jerilyn wailed. “Y’all just sit there.”
    I felt so much older than Jerilyn. Older than everybody. All they had to worry about was finding another set of hands to clap Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.
    She gave up on us and went to Ida.
    As soon as we got rid of Jerilyn, Juwan came over bouncing a basketball. I tried to stare past him, but he took up my view in his big, striped shirt. He knew we were ignoring him, but he kept bouncing his ball closer. So close the ball missed Victoria’s foot by inches. She didn’t react. Her hypnotic trick was amazing. Unfortunately I didn’t have the art of ignoring knuckleheadsdown to a science. I reacted for her.
    â€œHey. Watch it.”
    â€œOr what?”
    â€œYou know what.”
    He stood there, threatening us, bouncing his ball. Bam, bam, bam.
    â€œSpeak, mummy, speak.”
    â€œYour mama’s a mummy,” I said.
    He kept bouncing, but Victoria wouldn’t give him any energy. That made him mad. Bam . He was too close, with his big stripes and big head. Bam, bam, bam. I could see the dust from the ball as it hit the ground. Bam, bam, bam.
    â€œShe went to deepest, darkest Africa and they turned her into a mummy.” This time he missed her shoe by a centimeter.
    â€œShut up, you big fathead.”
    Then he started doing a stiff walk around us. We ignored him. That made him even madder.
    â€œI bet if I hit her, she won’t move. Know why? She’s a mummy. A dummy mummy.” Then he bounced the ball and it hit Victoria square on the toe of her shoe. Bam! I jumped up and hit Juwan as hard as I could in the gut. He hit me back, so I hauled back to China and let him have it, right on his nose. I got him good because my hand and his face were bloody. By this time kids swarmed around us, shouting, “Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!” Then Mrs. Anderson, the recess aide, separated us. First we’d have to go to the nurse’s office to clean up. After that, the vice principal’s office. As we left theplayground, I turned back to see if Victoria