It was a Monday today and I waited outside for Jazmine to come out of the house. I didn't plan to go to school late today because I miss all of the good parking spots whenever I'm late.
Then I have to park far from the school, listen to Jazmine and Riley complain about how far they must go. Both play sports during and after school, so they usually feel sorrowful and don't like to walk to the car.
Jazmine I don't have to worry about being late with, but it's always Riley. As much as I try to help him in the morning he still manages to be late. So lately I just started leaving him at the house and letting him catch the bus to school
At some point, he needs to learn I'm not playing, but Riley won't care, of course. He's still in that house fast asleep.
I decided to text Jazmine and tell her I'm outside so that we could head out. I had to get to the school early today because I had to show a new student around.
I didn't want to, but apparently, it was my turn to show the student around the school.
Right on time, Jazmine came out of the house with her brown lunch bag with her name on it. I still can't believe her mom packs her lunch like she's a little kid. But at least she's on time, unlike my brother.
She got in the car and closed the door behind her. "Morning Huey," she weakly said not in the mood. Why do I get the feeling she's upset with me.
Normally, I could care less and brush it off but I was going to be in the car with her for the next ten to fifteen minutes. Plus it would be rude if I didn't address her back: "Morning Jazmine."
I started my car, Jazmine and I were sitting in awkward silence. She would usually be in a chatty mood, but she was being very quiet.
Silence became uncomfortable at this point, so I looked over at Jazmine and asked: "Are you still upset with me?"
I know she still can't be upset that I turned her phone off. If she really wanted to text Austin all she had to do was turn her phone back on and respond. It wasn't that hard I think anybody could do it.
"No!" she answered obviously lying. "I'm sorry because I tried to get help from you, but knowing you; you don't get into anybody's business or situations," she apologized.
This surprised me because Jazmine never wanted to admit when she did something wrong. She knows when there's a situation where it involves me getting into others people's business she knows I pass it upon it.
"What?" she questioned. "I didn't expect you to know any of that stuff," I simply said.
"Okay, Mr. Freeman and Riley may not pay attention to your actions along with some of the others but I do, so I apologize," she told me.
That was true, my granddad, Riley, and the others never paid that much attention to me. The only time I would get shown attention is when they all thought I was bringing negative energy with me.
"Okay, I accept your apology!" I told her as she showed a relieved facial expression. I looked at my house to see if Riley was coming, but he never showed.
"Riley slow ass can just catch the bus," I mumbled driving off.
While I was driving towards the school I heard Jazmine loudly sigh indicating that she wanted to talk about something. Me being a good friend I decided to ask: "What's wrong?"
"Nothing!" she said of course lying. Why sigh if you don't want to talk about anything? "Come on Jazmine, I know whenever a girl sighs they want to talk about something," I exclaimed.
"Huey a bunch of girls come by you and sigh and you don't have any concern for them," she tried to defend. Damn, right I don't have any concern for them.
"That's because they purposely sit beside me and do it. They're trying to specifically get my attention which I show no interest in," I said. I found out about my sophomore year that girls had an interest in me.
It was pretty obvious when they would come up to me and try to flirt, but I would simply ignore them or turn them down. Once a girl got to really know me they didn't want anything to do with me.
"Okay, but a bunch of people from school is inviting me to their Halloween parties, even people I don't go to school with," she exclaimed.
"Then just decline all of them if you don't want to go," I simply replied. "I know, but I don't want to seem mean or rude to them," she said making me roll my eyes. "Then just ignore them as any other rational person would do," I said trying to give her the best advice.
Jazmine's one weakness was rejecting people or declining their offers. If you asked her to do something she wouldn't want to say no because she didn't want people to take it personally.
Like I said before Jazmine is a very likable person so it was obvious people were going to want her at their events.
"Yeah, besides me and the gang are all going to Cindy's house," she said. "To do what, have a big ass party and have the cops called, and then get grounded for a month," I guessed.
I remember last Halloween Cindy had a huge party and she invited almost everybody she knew in the area, which is a lot of people. She invited Ed and Rummy and knowing those two are always up to something they have no business doing.
They bought alcohol and drugs and almost everybody there got fucked up. Then one of the neighbors called the police for noise complaints, so they went to Cindy's house to see what happened, and they found alcohol and drugs.
They would have taken Cindy and the rest of the gang to the police station but they had a lot of people in jail so they were waiting until all their parents arrived. I was home with Grandad that night, and we pretended that we weren't there because he was too cheap to give away candy.
When Grandad was called by the police he was mad at Riley. Then Jazmine's parents were disappointed with her and when I walked in she was crying, Ceasar's mom kept constantly slapping him upside the head, Hiro's dad had scolded him, and Ming's parents had blamed Cindy for the cause.
"No, we're all going to dress up and watch some scary movies at Cindy's house," she smiled and started to excitedly clap her hands. "But you're scared to watch scary movies," I reminded her.
Jazmine was not the type to watch scary movies alone or with somebody. A couple of years ago, Tom let Grandad watch Jazmine, and we were all in the living room together and he let her watch a scary movie with us.
We all watched Child's Play, and knowing Jazmine she thought that was a kid's movie, but really it was a movie about a creepy doll killing people. She screamed, covered her eyes, and at one point she ran out of the living room and went to go hide under my bed for some odd reason.
After that when she got home she threw away all of her dolls. I felt a little bad that she had to let go of things by watching a scary movie.
"I'm not that scared, I've seen Scary Movie, it's pretty funny!" she said.
"Jazmine I don't think they are watching Scary Movie the movie, they're most likely going to watch actual scary movies," I corrected her. Knowing all of them they weren't going to watch the Wayne Brothers on Halloween.
"Oh," she said with her tone changing from happy to sad. "Yeah and plus why wasn't I invited?" I all of a sudden asked. Why did I ask that?
I never care too much about where they're going. The only time I care is when their lives are on the line. "Well we all thought that you didn't want to come," she said. "You didn't ask," I remarked. "But you say no to all the stuff we ask you," she had a good point.
"Like what?" I asked. "Well there was when we were planning a school fundraiser, we left to a music festival, went to the community pool, went to see a couple of movies, make some videos for our pages, etc," she named. "Wow, you guys did a lot of stuff without me," I said a bit surprised.
"Huey we always ask you if you want to come with us, but you say no all the time. Then it just started getting to the point we stopped asking you about it because we thought you didn't want to be bothered," she clarified.
"You're not wrong about that, but I got told by the guidance counselor that I need to start enjoying my life," I said mimicking a lady's voice.
I know what you're thinking, a guidance counselor, how did you end up there? It was September 11th and I was in social studies, my uneducated teacher started talking about how 9/11 was unplanned, but I argued that the government was lying about it.
Then he sent me to the office because I was disrespecting a sad day in history. The principal thought I was being too strict on my life and he looked at my background. Then he thought I needed to talk to someone because he thought I had issues.
I tried telling him that I didn't have issues, but he didn't listen and decided to try and give me the closest therapist by my house. When my Grandad saw it he said he wasn't finned to pay for an expensive ass therapist.
I didn't blame him, I wouldn't spend $200 an hour to talk to somebody. I proudly went back to school and told them my Grandad couldn't afford it. The principal didn't take no for an answer so he said that I was going to go talk to the guidance counselor every other day during the week.
Usually, when I'm there I don't talk about much. We just both sit there in silence till it's the end of the school day. She tells me I can talk about anything such as school, family, relationships, people I don't like, etc.
"Since when did you start going to the guidance counselor?" she asked getting interested in the topic. "Since the teachers have been complaining about me," I answered. My social studies teacher wasn't the only one who complained about me there were others.
"Well it's good that you are taking the guidance counselor's advice," she smiled. I know she was a little excited about that. "So will you be my date to homecoming?" she asked. At that moment I wanted to answer with a 'no' and tell her why I didn't want to go.
Homecoming to me was like one of those corny high school movies everybody got excited for. I never saw the point in going. You pay money, you dance, and then you leave.
"What about Austin?" I asked to see how she would respond. "Well, you kinda ruined that, so this could be your way ass a makeup," she said trying to guilt-trip me.
"Yes, I will love to go with you to the dance," I lied trying to force a smile. It was kinda hard showing my teeth. She started laughing at me which caused me to scowl at her because I hated being laugh at.
"It's okay Huey, you don't have to go if you don't want to go, " she covered her mouth trying to contain her giggles. I sighed in relief and just rolled my eyes as she was being childish. "I'll choose not to go because I hate dances," I said adding my explanation as I pulled into the school parking lot.
"Okay Huey, next time when you ask me for something; I'll make sure I purposely say: no!" she said cheekily smiling at me. "Good with me, I don't ask much from others," I smirked. I parked my car and then I turned the engine off. I got out of the car along with Jazmine and we both started to walk to the school.
At some point we parted ways, she went towards the dance studio while I went to the front office to go show this new kid around. I bet he or she isn't even here. They always show up when everybody's in class.
I walked into the front office of course ready to get this over with so I could go about my day. I saw the lady in the front typing on her keyboard and I was standing there waiting. "Can I help you sir?" she asked not even looking away from her computer screen.
"Yeah, I need to know where this new student is at so I can show them around the school," I said a bit irritated. "Have you tried looking behind you?" she rhetorically asked as I turned around to see a black girl properly sitting up straight in her seat.
"No, but thank you!" I said making my way over to her. She looked so serious and was ready for anything to hit her. "Okay, hi my name is Huey Freeman and I'll be showing you around Woodcrest High School," I simply said introducing myself.
"What's your name?" I asked trying to sound interested. "Aaliyah Williams!" she answered. As I observed Aaliyah; she was a brown skin girl with dark brown eyes, tiny curly hair, she was wearing glasses, and she was toned. She most likely does some type of sport like track in fields or basketball.
"Okay Aaliyah follow me around and I'll tell you all about the school," I said leaving the front office as she followed behind me.
Where should we start, I don't know what to tell her? I don't have anything nice to say about the school because it was a piece of shit to me.
I started by the easiest places which were the gym and bathrooms. "As you can see by the signs this is the gym. And both the girls' and boys' restrooms are nearby so if you don't want to be in the locker rooms then you can just go there," I said.
"Okay, I think that was a bit obvious but keep going," she awkwardly said.
"Let's see, you're most likely going to be on the third floor because you are a junior, right?" I asked to make sure as she nodded. I stopped for a second and started to think about where else should I take her.
All of a sudden I heard her ask: "This is your first time isn't it?"
"Not exactly, I just don't have anything good to say about this school," I truthfully told her. "I don't blame you, I already looked up this school and all on what you guys do before I came here," she said laughing a little.
"Thank you at least somebody finally gets it," I mumbled under my breath as I heard her laugh once again.
I glared at her as she laughed again. She seemed to notice my intense glare and she stopped laughing. "My apologies, you're just so funny," she said as I relaxed my face. I find that hard to believe, no one here thought I was funny. I wasn't even trying to be funny.
"Moving on, what are your personal interest? You like sports, academics, any specific clubs you'll like to join?" I asked as she thought about it.
"I not sure if you guys have this club because I didn't see it on the website, but do you have a club for African Americans where you sit and discuss important topics like freeing our people?" she asked trying to break it down for me.
Okay, I'm starting to have a little respect for this girl. I can barely find people around here who want to join the club. "As a matter of fact we do, I'm the leader of a club called A.F.R.O Association where we take action and try to help our people start over," I exclaimed causing her to smile.
"Oh my God really?" she rhetorically asked as I nodded my head because I just told her. "Yes!" I simply answered trying to seem nice.
"Okay, well, how do I sign up?" she asked. "I'll tell you when we get back to the office because they're going to ask you questions to see if I actually showed you around," I said placing it on hold.
"Okay, I can wait, but maybe this school isn't as bad as I thought it would be. I actually thought this was a school full of white kids that were races and didn't respect the black community," she said relieved.
"Trust me, you're going to meet some of them, but for now I'm going to tell you about Woodcrest High School," I said trying to keep us on track. After a while of explaining everything about the school, she was able to tell the people in the front what she learned and also sign up for the club.
I now have an 11th member!
Thank you for reading!