WHAT DO THEY call criminal records? Not criminal records. They call them something else. Rap sheets? Yeah, that’s it, rap sheets, which is such a dumb name because it makes me think of rap music, like maybe a rap sheet is what rappers write their rhymes down on. But yeah, rap sheets. I got one of those. Not a real one, though, one that real criminals have, nah. I got a school rap sheet, but in school they call it a “file.” I got a file. And even though I’ve never actually seen it, it has to be pretty big, because I’m always being sent down to the principal’s office, or put in detention, or suspended for shutting people down for talking smack. Oh, Castle, why your clothes so big? Why your pants so small? Why your name Castle? Why you always smell like you walked a thousand miles to get here? Why it look like somebody tried to cut your hair with a butter knife? And my response would be . . . well, let’s just use the schooly terms—“not exemplary behavior.” But I’d made a decision that there would be no more entries added to the file. The file would be closed forever, because now my new career in track, which was really my soon-to-be career in basketball, was at stake. All of a sudden I had too much on the line. There would be no more “altercations.” That’s the word Principal Marshall always used on the phone with my mother. Altercations.
And I was altercation free . . . for seventeen hours and two minutes. Two of those hours were spent watching one of those corny, romantic, mushy-mushy movies with my mom. She loves those things, and every night when we’re eating dinner, she sits on our couch in the living room and watches one while opening mail and clipping coupons. I always spread all my blankets out on the floor—three or four to make what Ma calls a pallet—which is where I eventually doze off. She takes the couch. We haven’t slept in our rooms since . . . Dad. It’s too weird for her to try to sleep in the room they slept in, and I got this thing about being as close to the door as possible, just in case we have to get up and run again. Plus, now that I’ve gotten older, I just want to make sure I’m near her in case I gotta protect her.
So, yeah . . . that was two hours (9:00 p.m.). Then I was sleep for ten hours. I’m grumpy when I don’t get at least eight. Some people would say I’m grumpy even when I do, but they don’t know nothing (7:00 a.m.). Snooze (7:05 a.m.). Snooze (7:10 a.m.). Cas, get your butt up for school. I’m not playing! (7:20 a.m.). Lay there looking around the living room. Up at the light in the ceiling. The glass thing that covers the bulb has dead bugs in it. Under the couch there are toys that I don’t ever remember playing with. Look at the pictures on the wall. Me at nine. And at eight. And at seven when Ma was experimenting with giving me a Mohawk. But no pictures of the family. Then, finally, it was time to get up (8:00 a.m.). Ten minutes spent in the shower, ten minutes getting dressed, and ten minutes eating breakfast—toast with peanut butter and honey (8:30 a.m.). Seventeen minutes walking to school (8:47 a.m.). Homeroom dismissed (9:10 a.m.). Forty-five minutes in English class, where we were reading Lord of the Flies, which, by the way, is a crazy book (10:00 a.m.). Then forty-five minutes in math class, which was basically forty-five minutes of Maureen Thorne raising her hand every single time Mr. Granger asked a question so that she could go up to the board and write the answer. Such a show-off. She’s like the geeky girl version of Lu. So yeah, that happened (10:50 a.m.). And then there was social studies class, which I usually call nap time because we never study nothing social. Like . . . I don’t know, social media. Or social events, like parties. All social studies is is a stupid way to say “history.” It’s like the “rap sheet” of history. Or something like that. Anyway, I would usually snooze through it, but it was a new day and I was turning over a new leaf, so I stayed awake. Didn’t really focus too much on nothing being said, but my eyes were wide open (11:40 a.m.).
And then lunch. You know who ate lunch the same time I did? Brandon Simmons. Jack from Lord of the Flies. A power-hungry dummy and the single most annoying dude in the seventh grade. He owned that record, a record that’s really hard to own because there are a lot of annoying dummies in the seventh grade. Trust me, I know. But none like him. Brandon was a year older than everybody, because he stayed back a year. Dude was as dumb as dirt, and that wouldn’t have been so bad if he was at least cool, but he wasn’t. Plus he was taller than most of us, so he treated everybody like chumps. Especially me.
Just made it to the cafeteria (11:44 a.m.). Got in line. Brandon came in after me, bumped me, and then, seeing that I ignored him, decided to step in front of me.
“Shack,” he said. Shack was what he called me as his lame way of making fun of the fact that my name is Castle. “You don’t mind me butting in front of you, right? I mean, it’s not like you haven’t had cafeteria food before. You probably had some last night, right?” He shrugged and hit me with another one. “Right?” The only reason Brandon even knew about my mother is back when we were in the fourth grade—yes, I’ve known him that long—my mother thought it would be a good idea to come speak at Career Day. And Brandon has used it as fuel ever since. He grinned, then looked around to make sure other people had heard him, which was always the most important part of his jerkness. Then a few more. “Right? Right?”
I sat at the table (11:50 a.m.). The same table I sat at every day with my two friends Dre Anderson and Red Griffin. I met Dre this year, and we hit it off because he’s a ballplayer too. Plays for the Boys and Girls Club, and he told me I should’ve played, but I missed the tryouts. On purpose. Thing is, Boys and Girls Clubs don’t ever really cut nobody. Everybody can just sign up and play, but who wants to be on a team with a bunch of pity-players? I didn’t wanna bust Dre’s bubble because that ain’t cool. But for me, I’m too good to play on a team like that. I mean, I didn’t really know that, but . . . I knew that, y’know?
And Red, well, I’ve known him for a long time. We’ve been cool since fifth grade, mainly because even though we’ve never really talked about nothing bad, we both kinda knew something bad had happened to us. Like, for me, the best way to describe it is, I got a lot of scream inside. And I could tell Red did too. He was a white boy with red hair who everybody was friends with mainly because people were scared that he was crazy and it’s better to be on crazy’s good side. Jessica Grant said her mother said the only reason people have red hair is because they’re red on the inside. Red like violent. But I got black hair, so does that mean I’m black on the inside? Anyway, Brandon came and sat next to Red at the table. He usually sat farther down by the other gas-mouths, but not today. Today he sat right next to Red, and right across from me and Dre.
“Yo, Red, you ever been to Glass Manor?” Brandon asked while chomping on a chicken drummy.
“Nope,” Red said, dry, just before taking a sip of his juice. He wasn’t paying Brandon no mind.
“Oh man, you should go. It’s something to see,” Brandon said, now looking right at me. We caught eyes for a second, but then I darted mine to my french fries and ketchup. Dip, then bite. Dip, then bite. Don’t look up. Don’t pay him no attention. Dip. Then. Bite. Brandon continued, “You really get to see where they got the name Glass Manor from, because dude, everybody who lives around there is freakin’ shattered.”
Dre let out a big sigh, like a here we go again sigh, and Red glanced at me because he knew I lived there. Everybody knew I lived there, and even though I wasn’t the only kid at school from that neighborhood, it seemed like I caught the most mess about it. At least from Brandon. Red looked back at Brandon, disgusted, then went on eating. What a dumb joke.