Free Flyy Girl by Omar Tyree Page A

you say?” Celena persisted.
    â€œI asked him to teach me to play football.”
    â€œWhy you ask him that?” Judy butted in.
    â€œI don’t know, girl.”
    â€œSee, I told you not to let them know that you like them,” Celena reminded her.
    Tracy was quickly getting annoyed. “Shet up, Celena, because I don’t even like him.”
    Celena backed down.
    Then Pam asked, “So why you go to talk to him then?”
    â€œâ€Šâ€™CAUSE I FELT LIKE IT!” Tracy snapped, squaring off in Pam’s face.
    They all teamed up on Tracy.
    â€œYou don’t have to get all mad at us, just because he don’t like you,” Judy said.
    â€œI don’t like him either!” Tracy shouted, balling up her fists in frustration. A gathering crowd pushed Pam into her. Tracy lashed out with a barrage of punches. She was a girl, but she played boxing with her dad, so she was good at using her fists.
    Tracy was suspended three days for fighting. Patti was furious that evening. She had received a call at work about her daughter beating up a girl at recess. Patti had just been telling her companions at work how much of an angel her daughter was. She lied and said that Tracy had fallen ill at school when she received the call. “It was probably an upset stomach or something,” Patti told them. She couldn’t stand being embarrassed. Her sisters had embarrassed Patti throughout her life.
    â€œWhat the hell is your problem, girl?” she huffed at her daughter once she had gotten home with her.
    â€œIt wasn’t my fault, mom, she was picking with me,” Tracy whined.
    â€œAbout what?”
    â€œI don’t know. She just doesn’t like me,” Tracy answered, lying herself. She held her hands in her lap, twitching nervously and refusing to look at her mother.
    â€œYou look at me when I’m talking to you!” Patti told her. Tracy looked up for an instant, hunching her shoulders in fear. “Now you’re telling me that this girl picked on you for no reason? Is that what you’re telling me?”
    â€œY-e-e-e-s.”
    Patti threw her hands to her hips. “Go on upstairs, girl, and do your homework. And you get no TV for the rest of this week.”
    Tracy was disappointed with all the trouble she had gotten into, just to find out why some “dumb boy” didn’t like girls. She hated boys even more, with reason. She wished she had never been curious about it. Aaron was immature after all. He was no better than the rest of the boys. Yet he did tell her “no.” No one had ever turned Tracy down.
    During one of her days home from school, Tracy played with her cousin Marcus while staying over at her Aunt Joy’s house. Marcus was two years old and fun to play with. After being with him, Tracy felt delighted that she would soon be having a little brother of her own.
    Tracy hadn’t seen some of her cousins for years. Their number had increased to ten. Tracy had only been with two of her four new cousins. They were all boys, except a baby girl that Marsha had had.
    â€œCan I help you, Aunt Joy? My mom lets me help her,” she asked her aunt inside of the kitchen. Joy’s older children were off at school.
    â€œNo, I’m almost finished,” Joy told her, stirring dark brown beef gravy. “So why were you fighting yesterday, princess?” her aunt asked her.
    â€œBecause, this girl was teasing me.”
    â€œShe was teasing you? What was she teasing you about?”
    â€œBecause,” Tracy said with a helpless grin. Her aunt was trying to get the truth out of her.
    â€œOh, I’m beginning to see now,” Joy responded.
    â€œSee what?” Tracy quizzed her.
    Joy smiled at her with shiny white teeth. “You were fighting over a little boy,” she said.
    â€œNo I wasn’t,” Tracy quickly responded, startled by it.
    â€œCome on now, Tracy, you can tell me. I won’t tell