Free Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones Page A

were talking to?”
    “He’s in my class at school.”
    “How old is he?”
    “Eleven,” Tasha said.
    “Eleven times what?” Daddy asked over the clink of the turn signal.
    “I don’t know how old he is,” Tasha admitted. She didn’t know how old he
was
, but she was pretty sure how old he
wasn’t
. Was that enough to make it a lie?
    “Look Ladybug,” Daddy said, looking at her. They were at a red light. “Stay away from that boy. He ain’t nothing but trouble.
     I know you think I’m an old man, but I used to be a boy myself, so I know what I’m talking about.”
    “Okay,” Tasha said, hoping that her cooperation would end the discussion.
    Daddy said under his breath, “That boy’ll be lucky to see the other side of eighteen.”
    Tasha had heard him but pretended not to. She climbed into her yellow and blue bed with the air freshener in her hand.
    “What’s that?” DeShaun asked.
    “I thought you were sleep.” Tasha wished she had her own room.
    “I was. But what’s that you got?”
    “None of your business.”
    Tasha put the little tree inside her pillowcase and, inhaling pine, dreamed of Christmas.

    She got to school Monday morning with only seconds to spare. There was no time to run to the bathroom, unravel her braids,
     and smear Vaseline in all the right places. She paused a moment before entering the trailer. Would everyone take one look
     at her and know that she was somebody’s lady? Would they be able to tell whose?
    The jangle of the tardy bell ushered her into the room. She scanned the faces quickly. Jashante wasn’t there. That was disappointing
     but then, the day wasn’t over. He was known to come to school as late as ten o’clock.
    Eight girls were huddled around Monica, speaking in hushed tones like people do at a funeral. Tasha heard their voices but
     she couldn’t make out the words.
    “What happened?” she asked Angelite, who had a way of knowing everything about everybody.
    “Monica’s slumber party got canceled,” she reported with a giggle. “Her mama went out and got a cake and hot dogs and stuff
     but nobody came.”
    Tasha laughed a little bit too. “What happened?”
    Angelite lowered her voice. “Tayari’s mother called all of the other mothers and told them that the party wasn’t supervised.”
    “For real?” Tasha couldn’t believe it.
    “See,” Angelite explained, “Monica’s mama works at night, so they would have been there alone.”
    “Oh,” Tasha said. She was glad that she hadn’t been invited; her mother probably would have done the very same thing and Tasha
     would have ended up like Tayari, looking at her math book, trying not to cry.
    The group around Monica had swollen into twelve. Even people who had not been invited were offering condolences. Sherrie Evans,
     who had not even made Tasha’s list of alternates, said, “I don’t know why you invited her in the first place.”
    “I was trying to be nice,” Monica whined.
    “You just can’t
be
nice to some people,” Forsythia reminded her.
    Tasha suddenly realized that she hated fifth grade. The feeling of revulsion came over her in exactly the same way that she
     had abruptly realized that a song playing on the radio was absolutely horrible. She had been riding along, thinking private
     thoughts when this truly unbearable song had forced its way into her consciousness. She had no idea how long it had been on,
     but she could not stand another note. She had stretched her arm to reach the controls of the radio and pressed a button, switching
     to another station.
    “Hey!” Daddy had said. “I was listening to that!”
    But there was no button to press to take her out of fifth grade. She would have to remain in this class, with these same people,
     until June, when they would all graduate and go on to middle school. Tasha wished that she was smart like Ayana so she could
     skip fifth grade altogether. But what about Jashante? He had done fifth grade once already. How could