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“Dowling's class! Hurry!” I yelled, running into the gym office.

But Hendricks was the only PE teacher inside.

He looked me straight in the eye, and for a second I swore there wasn't anyone else in the whole world except him and me.

I ran back to Dowling's class, exhausted, pushing myself to keep up close on Hendricks's heels.

I got there right behind him, and saw Hendricks take a long look at Grandma stretched out on the floor. He kneeled down next to her, doubling up his palms on top of her chest, pushing down, again and again.

And what suddenly jumped into my brain was that speech Hendricks gave about his new “hands-off” policy.

Then Hendricks put his lips over Grandma's, giving her two long breaths.

Mom buried her head into my chest, crying, “Lord, don't take her!”

But my eyes were glued on them.

Hendricks kept repeating that CPR cycle. Finally, he checked Grandma's pulse, and then backed away, giving her room to breathe.

EMS workers came charging into the class with all of their equipment.

Then I watched Hendricks wipe his mouth off on the sleeve of his shirt, before he walked away without saying a word.

I didn't know if I wanted to run him down and hug him tight for what he did, or if I wanted to wrap both my hands around his throat and strangle the life out of him for who he really was.

Grandma was conscious again before the EMS workers carried her down the stairs on a stretcher.

“Stop fussing over me this way,” she said in a weak voice. “I'm all right now.”

I called my father on his cell phone to let him know that we were heading to the hospital. But his train must have been deep underground, because he didn't pick up and I had to leave a message.

“It's me. Grandma got sick! She passed out at my school and we're going with her in the ambulance to . . .
Mister
, where we going? . . . East Franklin Memorial. Get there as quick as you can, Dad! Please!”

The whole ride to the hospital, Grandma was squeezing Mom's hand with more and more strength.

“You had us so worried,” Mom told her, between a smile and a cry. “You're not allowed to do that to your family. Right, Noah?”

My insides had nearly gone numb. But without Dad around I knew I had to step up and act the man. And not be some scared kid.

“I'm the one who studied to get those good grades,” I teased her, raising my voice over the siren. “But it's Grandma getting all this attention tonight.”

Grandma's mouth and nose were covered by an oxygen mask, so she just shifted her eyes between Mom and me.

I could feel the vibrations from every bump and pot-hole we hit in the street.

And every time I shut my eyes to pray, all I could see was that scene with Hendricks breathing life back into Grandma.

The doctors in the emergency room told us that Grandma had suffered a heart attack.

“She's very lucky. Whoever administered CPR probably saved her life,” said a black doctor in a white lab coat. “But there's more to be done here. We need to perform a procedure where we reopen the blood vessels to the heart by inserting a tiny balloon.”

Mom's hands were shaking as she signed all the paperwork, and they took Grandma upstairs to get ready. I put both my hands on Mom's shoulders to hold her steady. But I kept looking behind me, too, praying that my father would show up soon.

Chapter
NINE

IT DIDN'T MATTER THAT THE DOCTORS SAID Grandma would be all right. Those few hours in that waiting room while they did a
simple procedure
felt like forever. I was wound up so tight I couldn't keep still, pacing back and forth till I memorized every magazine cover and stain on the couch cushions inside those four walls.

I looked around at all the other black faces of the patients and their families, and wondered what was the
only
difference between East Franklin Memorial, where Grandma was, and St. Luke's hospital in Hillsboro, where I got took. Was it just the neighborhoods they were in? Or did people in Hillsboro get better doctors because they owned their own houses and had more money to pay?

Then I started to wonder if I'd still be alive, or maybe some kind of brain-damaged vegetable, if I got attacked on the other side of Decatur Avenue and that ambulance had brought me here instead.

Mom was a wreck, sobbing almost the whole time.

And anybody would have believed it was
her
mother that was sick and not my father's.

Then Dad walked in and she buried her face in the shoulder of his blue conductor's shirt.

“Lord knows, this family's seen enough of hospitals in the last four months,” said Dad, who had to stay with his train till it reached the end of the line after he'd got my message. “But if I could, I would have sprouted wings to get here faster.”

I stood up straight, looking him in the eye.

He felt the wet patch of tears over my heart, from when I'd been holding Mom. Then Dad put his hand behind my head, pulling me in close.

 

By the time Thanksgiving came, Grandma was back on her feet, and to celebrate we had a big dinner at our house. Deshawna and Destiny Love were there. Deshawna's dad was invited, too. That was the first time we'd all mixed together around a holiday dinner table, like one big family.

I noticed that Deshawna's dad treated me better in front of my family than he did over at his house.

“Please pass me over those fried peas,” he said, proper. “Thank you kindly, young man.”

That's when I started to wonder if it was possible I could just talk to him over here on holidays and nowhere else.

Mom found an old picture book from when I was young for Destiny Love to look at. It had drawings of the pilgrims and Indians at the very first Thanksgiving. I remembered that book. When I got a little older I played cowboys and Indians, and I always wanted to be the cowboys. Then one day in sixth-grade history class it hit me how the Indians were just like black people. They got pushed off their land and shoved into places where white people didn't have to see them. After that, I never rooted for the cowboys to win again. Instead, I wanted to see them all get scalped.

“Come here, Noah,” Grandma called out after dinner, with the stripped carcass of a twelve-pound turkey in the center of the table. “You and I got a right to give special thanks for still being here. I guess God's not through teaching either one of us yet. We still have lots of blessings coming our way. Now grab on to the other end of this wishbone. Pull as hard as you can. Your grandmother still has some strength left in her.”

“Amen!” hollered everyone, almost all at once.

I didn't know what to wish for, and my mind couldn't focus on any one thing.

When that wishbone split in two, Grandma had the bigger half in her hand.

“Don't fret,” Grandma told me. “My wish had to do with good things coming
your
way, child. With lots of understanding for people.”

I needed it, too, because I didn't know how to look Mr. Hendricks in the face anymore. He kept that smug grill on all the time during PE now, like I should bend down to kiss his feet for what he did.

Everybody at school knew about him saving Grandma. And one day in the locker room, Bonds and me heard Spanky running his mouth to his friends about it.

“I hear Hendricks got himself a new housemaid,” cackled Spanky, from a couple of rows of lockers away. “That's the way it works, right? You save somebody's life and they owe you. It's like they're your personal slave now.”

My blood boiled inside my veins.

I slammed my locker shut, pretending Spanky's melon-head was between the door and the doorjamb.

“Better ask somebody for the address of the state pen!” barked Bonds. “You'll be visiting your fat-ass cousin there soon.”

“I should be able to get it from anybody that's black,” Spanky shot back. “Half their family's usually locked up.”

I just kept my mouth shut and let Spanky and his whole Hillsboro crew clear out of there before I finished getting dressed.

I had to deal with it at home, too.

“I phoned your gym teacher while you were at school today. The Holy Spirit just moved me to do it,” Grandma told me while I was trying to clean the mess of my clothes and Destiny Love's toys in my room. “Mr. Richard Hendricks. His private number wasn't listed, so I called him at Carver.”

“W-w-why, Grandma?” I asked through a stutter.

“It's only right, Noah,” she answered, short.

It took me a few minutes to get up the nerve to say what was really on my mind. But when I finally did, I let the words fly out fast so they wouldn't fall flat on my tongue.

“Don't it feel wrong to you that a racist from Hillsboro—'cause I
know
that's what he is—saved you?”

“Is that what's been eating at your insides?” she said.

“Noah, no matter what the world puts on us, or what we put on other folks, we're all God's children. Black or white, or any color in the rainbow.”

“Hendricks is just like those kids who split my skull with that bat,” I said, charged up. “He's no better.”