Virginia Hamilton (17 page)

“What’s that mean?” someone whispered.

“Attract attention,” was the loud whisper back.

They all listened, somehow knowing it was Thomas making himself clear through his brother.

“You’re to ride in twos,” Levi told them, “and keep to the side. Now we have to worry about cops noticing us and wondering what we’re doing.”

The boys looked upset that they had started out wrong. Most of them were still eager to please. But one or two looked belligerently at Levi. That passed quickly when they caught Thomas watching them.

“C-c-come on!” He wheeled his racer around in a cloud of dust and was fifteen yards away before any of them had made a move.

Justice and Levi were the first to react. They started up, getting the boys in formation as they went. There were eleven kids counting all, including themselves, and ten bikes. With Thomas gone ahead, it worked out even when Slick and his rider were centered alone behind Justice and Levi. Thomas in front and Justice and Levi riding behind him. Third came the single bike of Slick’s with Dorian hanging on the back. After them, the rest of the boys came on in twos to make it even at the end.

They sped across town, hugging close to the right side of the road. They were some out-of-town contingent in search of the local parade. But there weren’t a great many people at this hour around to see them. People were at work and sidewalks were empty. There wasn’t a police cruiser anywhere in sight as they came to the light at Xenia Avenue on its green signal. Without an iota of caution, they all saw Thomas streak through. They followed at breakneck speed.

The Quinella Road! She felt the air puff her hair like the bulging of a sail. Gathering such speed on the downward Quinella, they all did, that she created wind along the path of her rush-through.

I am flat-out and flying!

Levi with her, and the rest of the boys right behind them. But no bike could overtake Thomas on his. How could it be when they both had the same bikes—his and Levi’s—that his was fastest?

He had a head start, Thomas did. But his is always fastest anyway.

Justice was herself coasting dangerously fast on the downward road. Smack in front of a whole pack a
boys
she thought. All of them older’n me. And with my brothers, on the way to making The Great Snake Race.

Thoughts sang on the wind in her ears.

How do I slow down everybody, she wondered, so they can see me perform?

Justice had pictured it differently. She had imagined herself as somehow on high, doing her bike trick to perfection. The boys would be in a circle, looking up at her and wildly applauding when she had finished.

Now she knew better.

Break formation and I’ll cause the worst accident anybody’s ever seen.

She had a vivid picture of boys, unable to stop, crashing into one another. Bent wheels and tires going flat. Broken bones and blood!

She tasted disappointment. She was about to give up all hope of performing the trick she’d practiced all week when it came to her how it could be done.

She speeded up and cut fast diagonally, away from Levi, to the right side of the road. She was going down at really fast speed when she began to squeeze the brakes ever so gently. She was way to the side and out of the way of oncoming bikes. Startled boys gave her questioning looks as they raced by her. They didn’t break formation.

She had a fleeting glimpse of Levi straining to see where she’d gone to before he was engulfed by the armada.

“Justice!” she heard him calling.

“I’m coming last!” Yelling as loud as she could. It was not loud enough. She heard boys shouting to Levi: “She’s going to come up last, she says.”

“What for!” Levi again.

“She didn’t say!” Boys answering.

Justice brought up the rear, careful to keep her distance but not so far back that she would lose sight of them on the other side of a hill. She speeded again, with her mind on having the boys pass the flat place in the road and on to the fence just when she reached the flat place. Thomas would be furious at her for breaking formation and would probably say, “Justice, whater you doing?” He would stutter it—something like that, anyway. And then she would perform her trick, with all eyes watching. They, none of them, would expect it to be so expert and professional. Levi would probably say she was a true artist, she knew he would. And the boys would stare at her like they’d never seen her before.

Wind was in her hair, pressing in her face. She talked to herself in it. She felt it like a veil of coolness. She heard herself laughing, only it was the way she might sound when she was older. Then she quit laughing and talking to herself. She concentrated on the last hill and over, and the downward coast. Oh, it was so fast!

Spread out below were all of the boys, with Thomas, way in front, turned in the road to wait for them. But he seemed to be looking beyond the boys toward Justice coming down the last unbelievably fast hill.

She released the handlebars and folded her arms across her chest. At such speed, she had to hold her feet exactly even, rock-still on the pedals all the while, steering with the lower half or her body. She was leaning slightly forward, but remained rigid, sort of a post, leaning. She was in complete control and kept her sight on that flat, empty place in the road where she would perform. It was coming on fast.

The bike armada had passed the place in the road and was gathering where Thomas waited in front of the fence at the field. As Thomas went on staring beyond the boys, they turned in unison to see. They all watched, puzzled, as Justice sped down.

All this happening in the green, dusty stillness of country in seconds; and Justice knowing they were all watching. She saw boys suddenly pull their bikes off the road. Did they think she would perform right in front of them and not in the flat place just above them? Actually, the place was a slight hollow or depression in the general incline of this part of the Quinella Road before it became flat and uneventful.

Justice was nearly there.

Ready!

She gave a careless glance to the side, reasonably certain that nothing was coming down the hill. She thrilled to see the empty, forward road. Nothing, not one car coming on. She saw boys jerking their arms to the left, telling her to get out of the road. She was intent on her performance and paid them no mind.

The wind was in her hearing; it grew loud.

Set!

Down at the base of the hill, there was less of an incline. She definitely lost speed. Grasping the seat beneath her, she took her feet off the pedals. She stretched her legs stiffly up and forward until they rested on the handlebars.

Boys were yelling at her. She thought to smile for them. Levi looked stricken, his mouth open.

Don’t worry, Levi!

Thomas was walking back toward the boys. His face looked startled, staring at Justice—no, she noticed, he was looking beyond her.

She was in her graceful couch pose, ready to make the slight lean that would start her bike turning in clean circles. About to let herself Go! and be Spectacular Justice, to loom in the minds of her brothers and the other boys as better than The Great Snake Race. She was holding herself so tight together, and yet so relaxed. Her heart beat fast and steady against her chest.

A horn, blasting, split her eardrums. The sound of it tore through her, blaring and bending its tone in a mournful wail. She lost her balance. Speeding away, the car blasted her dream.

Justice spun off the bike and toppled on her side. Her own momentum swept her over onto her hands and knees. Her riderless bike sailed on past the boys and Thomas. It hit something at the edge of the road. It lifted and plunged into high grass, leaping toward the fence, where it stopped on impact and fell over.

Somebody had her under the arms. Her hands were stinging and throbbing. Her knees felt like they had holes of pain. She must look like an idiot, she thought.

Levi lifted her up.

“Oooh … ooow …” There were shivers of pain in her legs and down her side.

“Justice, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

She limped around, shaking her head to let Levi know she wasn’t hurt badly. But she
was
hurt. She imagined blood where a knee was scraped, it hurt so, and refused to look again. She kept her face turned away from the boys, standing quietly with their bikes.

“Honest, I thought you were going to get killed. What were you trying to do?” Levi asked her.

“Wait till I get my bike and I’ll show you,” she said, her voice unsteady. She was still stunned and shaken from the sudden, screaming blast of the car horn.

“Look,” Levi said, his voice low so the others wouldn’t hear, “I told you to stick with me. Now, I mean it! No more tricks—was it a trick you were trying to do? Do you want Tom-Tom to get started on you and me, too?”

She was silent. The last thing she wanted was to cause Levi some trouble. She covered her palms with her fingers. The palms were bruised and tender, hurting enough to make tears come to her eyes. She imagined her knees had deep gashes running with blood that was seeping dark and wet through her jeans. She flexed her knees. They hurt and were probably bruised.

“Come on,” Levi said to her, whispering. She divined by the whisper that Thomas was watching and waiting.

When she turned to face the field, she saw him standing at the flat of the road, one hand on his hip and the other holding her bike by the seat.

Slowly, she went over to him. She didn’t want to look at the boys, all watching, and she didn’t want to meet Thomas’ gaze. Never mind Thomas. He wasn’t even looking at her, but at a point on the hill above her. He let his gaze travel up and over the hill and beyond.

Telling her to go home, she was sure of it, and she lost her courage to be the only girl to keep up with them. Ashamed of herself, she reached for the bike. Thomas let go of it before they would be holding it at the same time.

So mean!

She caught the bike as he turned away. He never said a word to her.

“The dumb car,” she told him, only for him to hear. “I had this trick—”

It was no use talking. He was headed for the boys. Swaggering away from her, he was smart to ignore her. Smart not to talk and stutter, which would have weakened the effect of him as their commander.

The boys laid their bikes down in the same formation, next to the fence, as Thomas gestured to them to follow him. They slipped through the fence and on into the high weeds toward the Quinella Trace. Dorian half turned, seeking out Justice, his expression respectful, kind. Justice hung her head and Dorian went on with the rest.

Levi headed for the fence. He paused, turning to her. “You sure you’re going to be all right?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Well, if you want to come, come on,” he said resignedly. And then: “Nobody else had to do a trick and risk hurting themselves and everybody else, too. Can’t you let him have his day?” Meaning Thomas. “Don’t try so hard. You’re with us, it’s okay. And don’t cause any more trouble.”

Gingerly, he eased his way through the barbed wire while she stood, huddled and small, holding her bike. She knew so much about Levi. Knew he didn’t care about The Great Snake Race the way Thomas did. Probably if it had been up to him, he would have stayed home. But, for some reason, he had to be around when Thomas commanded the boys. Or maybe—yes—he had to keep an eye on Thomas for some reason.

Justice’s legs trembled from the exertion. She felt slightly sick to her stomach.

Even Levi, she thought. He’d rather I stayed home. I always try too hard.

For an instant, she had a desperate feeling of being abandoned, as though she were lost forever from all that was dear to her.

From Mom and Dad, too?

From your mom and dad as well.

Some part of her mind seemed to answer. It stood separately, in order to survive after she was lost.

Justice’s eyes welled with tears; a lump ached in her throat. Somewhere inside herself, she was small and deserted, with the day grown strange, and huge with mist around her.

But the dismal sensation disappeared as mysteriously as it had come. Justice heard sounds of the day again. Trees along the road, some slight sound of branches and leaves in a faint flutter of motion. She heard boys along the Quinella Trace and she could see some of them over there.

Best to go home, I guess.

Yet it didn’t surprise her that she calmly took her bike over and put it in formation with the others, right next to Levi’s. She laid the bike on its side, letting it touch Levi’s.

If you’re staying, get on in the field.

She went through the fence and into the weeds which felt steamy and smelled of wet rot.

This is not a good day.

She stayed away from the boys along the river, whom she saw bending and straightening as they rushed around. Justice stayed on the far side, with the great shade trees between her and the boys at the Trace.

Means to follow lines, she thought. Trace.

She followed an invisible line in the lonesome mist on the far side of the trees. The boys would find it difficult to see her there unless they were looking hard. Moving cautiously, she kept her eyes on the ground and gathered herself inward. Justice was certain she left only a slight trace of herself.

Knowing she must walk among snakes and begin her hunt. She came out of the trees just before the place where the Quinella Trace made a bend to the west. It had been parallel to the Quinella Road and was now perpendicular to it. It flowed away into the distance of land reaches, weeds and thick undergrowth. It definitely became less of a river and more a clogged stream full of crawdaddies and mosquitoes. Justice wouldn’t follow it that far. She came out into the area between the deep shade of the trees and the Trace, just below the river bend.

Snake beds all around, she felt numbed, less aware of boys close at hand. Snakes quivered and scurried if she moved at all quickly. By standing still for seconds on end, then carefully moving and standing still again, she could come quite near writhing clumps, as she had on her first snake hunt.

Justice saw thin, young-looking snakes, all intertwined. Boys were grabbing snakes whenever creatures loosed themselves a bit from the clumps. She saw boys, even Levi, stuffing snakes into peanut-butter buckets.