I know there are nineteen of these houses from the crossing guard’s corner to my house.
My house is number twenty.
My house looks exactly the same as the others. It also has beige carpet inside. And a front room no one sits in.
Because of that, I don’t really have to pay too much attention to the houses. I can just count the signs.
SCHOOL CROSSING is the first sign. A picture of an adult and a child. I think. Weird, because kids cross by themselves.
Look both ways.
One-way sign. Right at the beginning. Always there. I still look both ways.
The speed limit is fifteen. There’s a sign that says so.
There are four stop signs. One at the end of each block.
There are five houses on each block. I don’t know any of the people who live in any of them. That’s the same.
I wonder if any of them see me walk past every day with this notebook. If they count me and say, same.
I wonder if all the houses are empty like mine. People have to work to pay bills. Graham cracker houses cost a lot of money, I think. So does green grass. And bushes. And people who cut that grass and trim those bushes. Difference: There’s a chunk of roses snatched out of House No. 8’s rosebush. Doesn’t look like a mistake either.
I’ve been counting cracks. I’ve learned to look up and down at the same time. Look both ways.
By the time I reach House No. 8, I have stepped over only six cracks in the sidewalk. Six big cracks. Big enough that if you don’t know they’re there, you will trip.
I meet Benni at the same place I meet her every day, the same place I met her months ago, doing what she does every day and was doing months ago. Singing.
Benni Austin sings old songs like they’re new songs. She also does old dances like they’re new dances. Wears old clothes like they’re new clothes. Fatima met her on her first day as a walker. Fatima’s mother and father had given her strict instructions on what to do and which way to go, easy instructions to follow because Fatima only had to go straight. One way down Portal Avenue. No stopping. No talking. Eyes up, looking both ways. Eyes up, which is why Fatima tripped on one of the six big cracks where the sidewalk split—a lightning bolt of a separation—one part lifted just enough to be annoying. And dangerous. Fatima stubbed her toe, then went flying but only after a few stumbles and bumbles and stumble-bumbles, like her mind was trying to convince her body to stay grounded but her body wouldn’t be held down, wanted to leap, wanted to catch air.
Her body won.
She took flight.
But only for a second.
Then she took… fall.
Fatima crashed onto the sidewalk, the skin on her knees scraping off into stinging red strips. It was the kind of fall that requires a person to lie still for a moment, let the experience wash over them like a wave of boiling water. So Fatima lay there for maybe six seconds, which were five seconds too many because a bus had pulled up and had stopped at the stop sign. And as Fatima heard the clacking sound of the windows on the bus lowering—clack, clack, clack, clack, clack—Fatima knew that fifteen miles an hour would be much slower than she’d thought it would be. That it was more like five miles an hour. No miles an hour.
“Wowwwww!” a boy from the bus yells. This was followed by a series of other cornball zingers involving eating it, biting it, and dive after five, even though it was just past three in the afternoon.
“Pay attention, or you’ll lose your life!” one kid yelled. All Fatima remembered about that kid was his lisp, that the “th” he put on “lose” made it sound like looth, and the spit that flew from his mouth, big enough for Fatima to see it. But it was the kid behind him who caught her attention even more. A boy who sat in his seat with the window up, thick ropes of hair sprouting from his head like antennae. He held a notebook up to his face, peeked over it at her, and she could tell that behind that notebook he wasn’t laughing. Not at all.
By the time the bus passed her, Fatima had started to get up. Her knees were buzzing, bloody, and each move, each step made her draw in short gusts of air.
And then she heard a long drawling voice, the kind of voice that was deep for no reason. The voice was singing. Singing in a tone that most would consider sanging, but it wasn’t exactly good. Or bad. But enthusiastic and better than the bus, that’s for sure.
“Get ready!” the voice, attached to a woman, sang-shouted. She was bopping up the street, pumping her arms as if banging on the biggest invisible drum set ever imagined. Offbeat. Not a big woman. Not too small either. Just somewhere in the middle, which was the only way she could’ve (barely) fit the blazer she had on. Green. A school patch sewn on the breast pocket. It was filthy. White shirt, wet with sweat. Soft pink pants with creases so sharp down the front that it looked like she could cut the air with each step. “I’m mad! That’s a fact. Get READY for the big payback.” And then in a higher tone she repeated, “The big payback!” Then… spin move.
Fatima, unsure of who this lady was or what she was about, jumped up, grabbed her backpack, and limped on. And the lady limped on too, right next to Fatima, and screamed again. “Get ready!” She noticed Fatima flinch.
And stopped.
Stopped singing.
Stopped dancing.
Stopped walking.
Just stopped, dead in her tracks in the middle of the sidewalk, her face becoming loose, sloshy.
* * *
That afternoon when Fatima’s parents came home from work, they were ready to ask about her first walk home but noticed her hobbling. Fatima had already cleaned the wounds with alcohol—yikes!—and put Band-Aids on both kneecaps.
“Why are you walking like that, Fati?” her mother asked as Fatima inched her way into her mother’s hug.
“I tripped on the way home. Landed hard,” Fatima explained, still a little embarrassed. “And there was a bus full of kids who laughed,” she went on, but she left out the part about the woman in the pink pants because she knew that if she told her mother, her mother would tell her father, and that would be the end of walking. That would be the end of a babysitterless life. Back to cheese-toast snack time and other coughy kids whining about what they want to watch on TV. And she didn’t want that because even though the first walk was rough, anything was worth trying again if it meant she could come home and be alone in her house, where she could microwave nuggets and pretend to be a flight attendant like her father.
A life jacket is in the pocket under your seat. To put it on, place it over your head. Clip on the waistband and pull it tight. Please do not inflate it while you are still inside the aircraft. An evacuation slide and life raft are at each door. Your crew will direct you to your door. Additional emergency exits are shown on the leaflet.
In case of emergency, oxygen masks will drop down in front of you. Please pull the mask down toward your face and place the mask over your mouth and nose. If you are traveling with a child, please attend to yourself first, then the child. Breathe normally.
She’d had that memorized since she was little. She’d heard her father say different versions of it through the years, whether it was, In case of emergency, the bath water is in front of you. Please pull your washcloth down toward your face and scrub over your mouth and nose. Or, Please do not poop while your butt is still in the underwear. An evacuation slide and life raft are at each door. And by that I mean, use the toilet. Then he’d do the two-finger point to the bathroom.