Free Hush by Jacqueline Woodson Page B

He was disappearing. Sitting at the living room window, but disappearing. The papers Mama had brought home were piling up beside his chair. She had opened them to the want ads. They lay there, right where she had left them. Untouched.
    Mama looked at her watch and told us to finish eating and get our coats. She got up from the table and went over to the bookshelf for our Bibles. Anna chewed her bacon slowly. She put her finger to her lips.
    “Hush,” Anna said. “Just hush.”
    I half-smiled, not sure what she was trying to say. But her eyes were serious.
    Anna leaned across the table. “Make believe none of it ever happened,” she said. “Hush. Make believe we never were. You and me, li’l sis, back to the dust.”
    Daddy looked over at us, lifting his bowl toward us like an offering. Anna sucked her teeth, got up and took Daddy’s bowl to the kitchen.
    Outside, I looked up at Daddy’s window and waved. His hand lifted into the air absently.
    I bent my head down against the cold and walked a little bit behind Mama and Anna. Our Bibles are green with HOLY SCRIPTURES written on them in gold lettering. When I held it away from me and squinted, it became a mountain in Denver.
    Anna turned and saw me. “God, you’re such a freak!”
    I stared at her but didn’t say anything. Does it matter what I am, I wanted to scream, if I’m not anyone?!
    As Mama led us through the neighborhood, I watched people watching us and wondered who they saw.
    Curl your toes into the soft pine of your floor-boards. And do remember me.

PART THREE

17
    THE COACH IS TALL AND SKINNY. HE TELLS US we can call him Leigh. When he looks at my permission slip, he nods and asks if I’m related to Anna.
    “She’s my sister,” I say, looking away from him. It is Tuesday. Late afternoon. The school hallway is quieter than anything. My mother thinks I am getting tutored in science, because she wouldn’t approve of track. Not now. Not as a Witness. Her new motto is Acade mics and the Bible. So what if your body went to hell? Your soul and brain would be fine. When I asked her about getting tutored, she said Why can’t Anna help you? and Anna rolled her eyes and said Because I’ve already forgotten the stuff she’s just learning.
    This is the first big lie I’ve ever told her. It came easily.
    “I teach geometry, also,” Leigh says now. “Anna’s one of my best students. Is she not a runner?” He smiles at me. One of his front teeth overlaps the other in a nice way. His running shoes look old but like a long time ago they were decent.
    I am wearing my new ones and dark blue running pants with bright green stripes down the side. The white T-shirt I’m wearing used to say DENVER MIDDLE SCHOOL, but the letters are so bleached and faded, Mama had okayed me bringing it to this place. The shirt is soft and still smells faintly of our old house.
    “Nah. She’s not really into sports.”
    “Well, let’s see if you are.”
    I follow him into the gym, where four girls are running in a line, one behind the other, passing a silver baton back and forth. When the one behind calls “Stick!” the one right in front of her throws her hand back. They do this a bunch of times, their motions smooth as water.
    Above us, a line of girls are running around a track. The track rail circles the whole gym. I can hear them breathing. Their feet pounding together sound like two huge feet instead of many. My own heart speeds up. Everyone seems to be connected to one another, in unison. I feel myself wanting this so hard, I have to bite my lip to keep from screaming out.
    “You ever run track before?” Leigh asks.
    I shake my head.
    “Well, you’ll need a pair of running shorts, spikes and flats—those are shoes for the track, you can get them at any good sports store. You’ll also need—”
    “We . . . I don’t know if my parents can afford to—” Leigh nods and blows the whistle hanging around his neck. The other girls stop running and begin to jog over