Cynthia held the envelope out. The one that she’d stuffed with the paper she’d written the bird joke on. The one that she’d simply written her own address—which was his address—on. Nothing else. Grandpa took the envelope and set it on the table. Cynthia knew that later he would open it, read it, then forget he’d read it, and believe he wrote it. And the next day he’d tell her to try a new joke in Mrs. Stevens’s class. And she’d tell him she would, then come home and tell him his jokes were working. His jokes were still cracking people up. And he’d say things like, “We a good team, ain’t we?” Or, “Like father, like daughter.” And Cynthia would kiss his cheek and nod.
Cynthia headed back toward his bedroom door. Before leaving she turned and asked, “What was the other thing?” Cinder looked confused, so Cynthia continued. “The joke. You said you were thinking about something else.”
“Oh, just this thing I was kicking around. But I don’t think it’ll work.”
“What was it? Tell me.”
“Okay.” Cinder steadied himself. Looked his granddaughter in the eye. “What would happen if a school bus fell from the sky?”
Cynthia thought for a second, a smile creeping onto her lips. “I mean… is it coming from Ookabooka Land?”
Silence.
Just that thought between them. Cynthia looking at her grandfather, her Cinderella, her cinder block. The man who taught her to perform. Taught her that life is funny most of the time, and the times it ain’t funny are even funnier. And there ain’t no forgetting that.
He looked back at her. And in a way that only grandfather and granddaughter could do, together Cynthia and Cinder split open and laughter poured out of them. A laughter free enough to make the bottle (of giggles) on the table rattle.
HOW A BOY CAN BECOME A GREASE FIRE
GREGORY PITTS’S friends love him so much that they told him the truth. And the truth was, he smelled dead. Like, rotten. It wasn’t that he was rotten, but just that he smelled like his body had mistaken its organs for garbage and that he was essentially a walking, talking trash can. And on this, of all days, that smell just wasn’t going to cut it. So in an act of service and sheer desperation, Remar Vaughn, Joey Santiago, and Candace Greene—Gregory’s crew—decide to help him out. Because today was a day of romance.
“Before we get going, you sure you good, Candace?” Joey asked. “I heard what happened to Bryson.” Bryson was Candace’s cousin. He’d gotten jumped the day before.
“Yeah, it’s cool. Bry’s a tough kid,” Candace said. “Plus, we walking that way, so as soon as we get done with lover boy here, I’m gonna stop by and see him.”
“Cool, well… first thing we need to do is get you smellin’ right,” Remar, who they all called Remy, said to Gregory. They had all met up by the benches in the front of the school.
“You got the stuff, right?” Candace asked Remy.
“You know it.”
“What is it? And why y’all talking about it like it’s…” Gregory caught himself. “Know what? It don’t even matter as long as it works.”
“Oh, it’ll work,” Joey said, bouncing his eyebrows.
Remy dug around his backpack and pulled out a can of body spray. “Now, Justin gets this stuff from the gas station. He says it’s basically deodorant for your whole body.” Justin was Remy’s older brother, and he was always right, let Remy tell it. He popped the top off the canister. “Close your eyes.”
And then… pssssszzzzzzzzzzz. He sprayed Gregory from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. A spritz or two even got in his mouth, sending Gregory gagging and coughing.
“Hold still!” Candace ordered, while Remy spun Gregory around and sprayed all down his back. It smelled like… it smelled like… a combination of burnt flowers and burnt rubber. But that was better than Gregory’s normal smell, the smell of all-day fownk.
“No spraying!” Ms. Wockley yelled, pointing at Gregory and his friends. “You know the rules. Go away if you want to spray!” Ms. Wockley’s frustration came from the fact that there was always someone spraying something in the hallway. Always a perfume or cologne that was supposed to help but ended up taking stink up to stank. But this was a special case. Either way, Ms. Wockley’s outrage was hilarious to Gregory, Remy, Joey, and Candace, so the four of them cracked all the way up.
“Go away if you want to spray!” Candace repeated with a hoot. “She a poet and she don’t know it!”
“A rapper that look like a napper!” Remy followed.
“A spitter way too bitter!” Joey came in third.
All their jokes matched the corniness of Ms. Wockley’s non-joke, which made them laugh even harder, Gregory half choking because laugh plus spray equals choke.
They started walking, but they weren’t walking home like they normally did. They lived in the Southview Apartments, but decided today that they would walk over to Rogers Street because that’s where Sandra White lived. Gregory had been trying to work up the courage to tell her that he liked her and wanted to know if maybe they could be boyfriend and girlfriend even though he hated the way that sounded. Sounded… trash. Together was what he preferred to call it. He had told Remy, Joey, and Candace that he wanted to do this, and they were in full support and along for the ride. Not to mention, Candace was the only one who knew where Sandra lived. She and Sandra were closer when they were younger, but they were still cool.
Even though they were all in support of Gregory shooting his shot, they also told him that he’d need to prepare. He’d need to make sure he was ready, and to put his best foot forward, first and foremost, he needed to not smell like a… forward foot. He needed to smell better than the lunchroom. Better than the locker room.
“Yeah, so I just hit you with the ooh, and now you ready for some la la,” Remy said. He was always saying corny stuff like that, mainly because he swore he was some kind of mastermind when it came to approaching girls—thanks to Justin—even though Candace told him every chance she got that he wasn’t.
“I think you hit him with too much ooh. Like… smells more like eww,” Candace joked, curling her top lip up under her nostrils. But it was better than before. And since the smell part was worked out, it was time for her to explain the importance of moisturizing.
“Now that you don’t stink, we gotta make sure you ain’t dry.” Candace pulled a bottle of lotion the size of a shoe out of her backpack. Gregory’s eyes widened, and his brows furrowed, leaving him with a look of astonishment. And… fear.
“What the… ? Where you get that?” he yawped, slowly relaxing his forehead.
“Found this in my mother’s bathroom,” Candace explained as they walked up to the corner, where Ms. Post, the crossing guard, stood. Ms. Post blew the whistle, and they all walked across the street and to the left, heading down Portal Avenue.
“Hold up so I can do this,” Candace said. “Can’t walk and lotion at the same time.” The boys held up while Candace pumped the lotion into her hand, jamming the plunger down over and over again until she had enough to turn sidewalk to Slip ’N Slide. “Let’s start with them paws,” she said, reaching out for Gregory’s right hand. She began with his fingertips, then worked her way up, making sure to give extra attention to the webbing in between, which made Gregory snicker. Then on to his wrist, up his forearm, and then she stopped. “Elbows are important.”