Free Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson Page B

at your school, I said to Sean. Why even bother with hearing ones.
    Sean looked away from me. I know that, he signed, getting annoyed like it was my fault those girls were walking away.
    So why do you get all excited when the hearing ones try to talk to you. You know it’s going to end up stupid.
    Sean shrugged, still looking away. I wondered if he was just ignoring me. But when he started signing again, his hands moved real slowly, like he was trying to make sure I understood.
    Remember the bridge?
    I shook my head.
    You know. When we were sitting at the window that day and I said what if we could build some kind of bridge from every window.
    I nodded, slowly remembering.
    It’s like that, Frannie. The hearing girls are the bridges. They’re the other worlds. They’re the worlds I can’t just walk across and into, you know.
    Kind of.
    I mean, the deaf girls, they’re my world—we don’t even have to talk and we know each other. But I don’t just want my world. I want everybody else’s world too.
    But they’re just some dumb old girls.
    That day, when I said it, you just kind of looked at me like I was crazy. And you know why? Sean looked at me and waited.
    Yes, I signed. Because I didn’t understand what you were talking about.
    Yeah. Because you already have both worlds, Frannie. You can walk wherever you want.

14
    When Trevor came back to school on Monday, he’d written NY KNICKS all over his cast and wouldn’t let anybody write anything else.
    “You ain’t messing up the Knicks!” he said, standing in the school yard like he was the king of it with his broken-up arm all crossed and all.
    “Knicks already messed up,” Chris said. “Even the Cavaliers beat them.”
    “Yeah—for the first time in history,” Trevor said.
    “Still got their butts beat. I’m trading all my Knicks cards for Cavaliers. You got any?” Chris took a stack of basketball cards out of his pocket and held them out to Trevor.
    Trevor scowled down at the cards and said, “Man, you better get out of my face.”
    Lots of people had been mad when the Knicks got beat by the Cavaliers. Even though it was the first time in the history of basketball, people lost their minds. Sean read every single sports page he could get his hands on.
    Everything is changing, he’d said, looking a little lost.
    It had snowed all weekend and the school yard looked like something out of a picture. Over where the little kids played, the jungle gym and slide and everything was all covered in white. Later on, they’d come outside and their tiny little feet would leave dirty prints everywhere. But now, it was just beautiful, the sky so bright over everything you had to shield your eyes. I stood there looking up at the sky, thinking about what Sean had said that morning. When we got to the place where he turned off to go to Daffodil, he punched me gently on the shoulder and signed, I don’t care about those dumb old girls. But he was lying and we both knew it. I watched him walk away, all dressed like a Black Panther but looking a little bit smaller than when we’d left the house that morning.
    I didn’t see the Jesus Boy come into the school yard until he was standing right near us, his hands in his pockets, his pale face turned up toward the sky, his long hair hanging all curly down his back. He saw me looking and waved. Samantha waved back.
    The pocks on my palms itched. Whenever I scratched them, I thought about the sign for Jesus—the middle finger of one hand brushing over the palm of the other.
    Maribel came over to us and stood next to Samantha. I rolled my eyes. She was wearing a new pair of platform boots—the shiny leather kind with the buckle. When I’d asked Mama if I could get them, she’d given me a look and said, You can’t even walk right in flat shoes!
    “A penny for your thoughts, Jesus Boy,” Maribel said.
    When me and Samantha didn’t laugh, she said, “Well, that’s all that boy seems to have. He came in with some more on