The Bad Kid Read online

  To my grandparents, who taught me how to live

  FINGERLESS BRETT

  The good ones I declare good; the bad ones I also declare good.

  —Lao Tzu, philosopher

  CACHINK! When the garden gnome smacked the bricks next to Fingerless Brett’s bedroom window, I ducked. Clunk. Clunk. On the dirty sidewalk, busted gnome chunks sparkled in the sun. My aim must’ve been getting better. This time he pushed back his curtains after the first pitch. I gave him the four-fingered wave.

  I’ve been trying to think up some new ways of describing my best friend, Fingerless Brett, besides that he walks around Brooklyn like a king penguin with a squinty eye and a missing finger. But that’s exactly what he’s looked like every day since he moved to the neighborhood a few years ago. It’s the perfect way to describe him. Okay: He wears shoes. He wears a T-shirt and shorts, except if it’s cold he wears a hoodie and pants. What else? He ain’t too fat but he ain’t skinny, either, which is why he’s a king penguin instead of a regular one. I’ll tell you something else if I think of it.

  “Claudeline!” yelled Mother Fingerless, and in a New York minute she was in my face with the gnome chunks and the yadda yadda. There wouldn’t have been any point trying to slip past her to get to Brett. She would’ve chased me upstairs with a salami and complained for a couple hours about kids like me and a life full of problems, and Brett and me never would’ve made it to the park. I’ve been down that alley before.

  “You tell Claudeline,” she said to Brett, who was coming up behind her, “she owes me a new statue. And if she steals it off our neighbor, I’m gonna know.”

  Brett took a gnome chunk from her hand. “He’ll live, Ma. We’ve got glue.”

  “Just had to toughen him up a little bit,” I said.

  Mother Fingerless tugged the neck of her pink, flowered muumuu to make a breeze. Her black eyebrows and curly black hair are the same as Brett’s, but her skin is olive-tan with beauty marks, and Brett’s is deep, dark brown. She kept looking back and forth between Brett and me.

  “What?” I said.

  She turned to Brett. “I am over this bad kid today. Okay? She’s got no supervision.” Then she lifted her chin and gave me the once-over, like I was a grimy sidewalk that needed a good hosing down. “I’m gonna teach you how to be a young lady, Claudeline.”

  Brett put an arm around his mother’s shoulders. “You tell her, Ma.”

  I stuck out my tongue at him.

  “You be home before it’s dark, Brett,” said Mother Fingerless as she headed inside. “Claudeline, too, because I’m not going out to look for her tonight. Brett, you help me craft later; don’t forget.”

  Brett blew her a kiss.

  I yelled, “See ya tomorrow, young lady. Take it easy on the bonbons!” Then Brett and me headed up Sixtieth Street. There’s more than one Sixtieth Street in New York City, and ours is in Sunset Park. Home of Brooklyn’s very own Chinatown, my favorite place in the world. Not that I’ve got much to compare it to. But who needs other places when you’re born into the best one on the first try?

  I nudged Brett. “Crafting, are we?”

  Brett smiled our private smile. “Stuffed animals, for the Sunset Park carnival.”

  The carnival is at the end of every summer. It’s in the parking lot of the basilica, this church that’s the size of a spaceship.

  “Stuffed animals?” I said. “What, like to sell?”

  “Yup,” said Brett. “She’s going to single-handedly save the life of Alma Lingonberry.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “That sick girl,” said Brett. “From the flyers.”

  “I don’t know any sick girl,” I said, “but I do know your mother has a lot of time on her hands. We should make her an online dating profile. ‘Sassy lassie lookin’ for love. Must like salami soup.’”

  Brett nudged me. “You’re feisty today.”

  “What’s ‘feisty’?” I asked.

  “Exuberant,” said Brett, “with a touch of evil.”

  “You flatter me,” I said. “Let’s stop at the bodega.”

  A cat lives in our corner store, and that cat is wacko. Some days it’s smacking packages of toilet paper down the aisles or knocking bags of yucca chips into the fan, and the owner is so busy yelling at it in a mix of Chinese and Spanish that he doesn’t notice if I help myself to his merchandise.

  Brett opened his Chinese philosophy book and started reading out loud. He turned onto Fifth Avenue, the opposite direction from our corner store.

  “The bodega?” I said, but Brett was too busy reading to answer me. Lately Brett had been carrying the philosophy book around everywhere. He was turning into one of those people who all of a sudden start going through life with a purse that has a dog in it, with its face sticking out, yapping at people. I was getting tired of looking at that book’s face.

  I found a half-eaten chicken wing to kick down the sidewalk. Guys and girls hung out in groups, yelling and laughing and typing on their phones. Buses and cars swooshed by. People came and went from diners and supermarkets. We passed the windows with the quinceañera dresses, which are like miniature here-comes-the-bride dresses for kids. We passed places that make copies for ten cents apiece and dollar stores with brooms in every color and strings of plastic roses dangling in their doorways. Sometimes junk skipped along with us for a few steps, such as deflated balloons with curled ribbons dragging behind them like tails; oily papers from hot dogs, tacos, and nuts; broken bottles. Now and then we passed a stringy sock or a stranded shoe or pieces from a smashed phone.

  We went up the hill to the top of the park. You can see the whole Manhattan skyline from the top of Sunset Park, the view people think about from postcards. It’s never crowded, seeing as how this part of Brooklyn is too far out for most tourists. Most New York City people don’t even know about this spot. I’m not one to go on about “Oh, what a lovely view!” But it’s something to look at.

  We sat on our bench. I observed that the people in the park all looked insane, from the lady wearing zigzags with the lipstick on her teeth to the oval-headed guy with the duct-taped eyeglasses. I mean, it was insane day, apparently. But it’s impossible to share your observations about life with somebody who’s reading a book—unless you’re the one who wrote it, which I wasn’t. Brett kept reading out loud.

  “‘Peace: to accept what must be, to know what endures. In that knowledge is wisdom. Without it, ruin, disorder,’” he said.

  I slumped. “Gotta hand it to my ancestors.”

  “Right?” said Brett, shaking his head like that was the most awesome thing he’d ever heard.

  I felt like I was back at Grandpa Si’s funeral. Dad and Skippy Chin yammering Chinese philosophy while red light from the stained-glass window spilled on the floor like a nightmare, and I counted the neck hairs of the guy in front of me. Counting neck hairs was the only thing that made sense with Grandpa gone. But the long-winded part of the ceremony was the part that had stuck with Brett, who’d been sitting next to me. And Brett cannot let things go.

  I felt in my pocket for this photograph I’d been carrying around since the funeral. It’s Dad when he was a kid in a group of gangsters with spiked hair. The one with the biggest gun is Grandpa Si. They’re in a dark room, but their faces are bright from the flash. They were visiting Fuzhou, the city in China where Grandpa was born. The picture used to be on the wall above my bed, but since Grandpa died, I couldn’t sleep under it anymore. Brett always had something smart to say about something, like how I always had something funny to say about something, so I knew he’d know what to make of the situation. But whenever I was about to bring it up, he interrupted me with another brilliant line from his book.

  After about forty-seven hours of story time
, the sun was so bright it looked like it was trying to scream. I stood and dusted bench dirt off the back of my white T-shirt and the butt of my black jeans. “It’s getting boring—­I mean, late.” I fake yawned. Then, for some reason, I fake sneezed.

  Brett squinted at me. “If my father had read books like this, maybe he wouldn’t have gone to jail.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “His brain would’ve short-­circuited. Your father couldn’t have robbed a rat drowning in a puddle on the subway tracks, let alone a jewelry store in midtown.”

  “Very funny, Claude,” said Brett.

  Then there were just sounds. Birds. Laughing kids. Tree branches, rustling. Last year, our language arts teacher said the sign of true friendship is when you can be silent together.

  This was not that type of silence.

  “So should we . . . ?” I said. “’Cause I’m kinda . . .”

  Brett stood. “Yeah, I should check in with Ma.”

  We started back down the hill. After a few more minutes of silence I heard clanging and thumping. Before I could yell, “DODGE THE DEATH TRAP!” I was yanking Brett out of the way of an overstuffed shopping cart that was gaining on us from behind. I swear nobody was pushing it. We watched it pass and roll into the street.

  “Anyway,” said Brett, “crafting could be cool. I’m gonna use it as a meditation exercise.”

  “Meditation,” I said. “That’s what cult leaders do, right? Sit cross-legged and hum?”

  Brett tugged me in the other direction so I wouldn’t step in dog poop. He gave me the penguin eye. “Meditation is when you try not to think unhelpful thoughts. You try not to worry about things.”

  “Who’s worried about things?” I said.

  He shrugged. “Maybe I can teach you.”

  “We shut our eyes for a few hours, occasionally your mother bangs a gong? Sounds like a blast,” I said.

  “Right,” said Brett. “I get it, Claude.”

  As we walked back to Sixtieth Street, there were the usual spicy smells drifting from Mexican restaurants and cars honking and buses screeching to their stops.

  But other people’s conversations filled the air when it should’ve been Brett’s and mine. We were all out of stuff to say to each other.

  Again.

  ME & PHIL THE BARTENDER

  The big lesson in life, baby, is never be scared of anyone or anything.

  —Frank Sinatra, musician

  My whole name is Claudeline Feng LeBernardin. My mother used to say that being part French, part Chinese, I’ve got a certain je ne sais quoi, which means “I don’t know what” in French and is a positive thing, apparently. Course, she hasn’t said that for a while. I’m eleven years old and I’ve got straight black hair that goes to my shoulders, green eyes, and freckles. Phil says I look like a short ex-convict.

  Phil is the bartender. I used to hang out at his old tavern in Sunset Park, the Wharfman’s Shore, after school. Phil would give me a glass of pineapple juice and a bowl of peanuts, and I’d wait for Dad or Grandpa Si to pick me up. That was back when Mom thought she was gonna become a hair stylist and spent her afternoons at beauty school with scissors and cowlicks. When Phil was too busy to talk, I’d spy on his customers’ conversations.

  But a year ago Phil boarded up the Wharfman’s Shore to take the job at Guillaume’s. Guillaume’s is not some dingy joint with sawdust on the floor and peanut shells in every nook and cranny like the Wharfman’s Shore. It’s a fancy-schmancy Manhattan restaurant, and customers never yell or get into fights there, which gives it a sophisticated touch. After Grandpa died, Phil got Mom a job as the maître d’, which at normal restaurants is just called the hostess.

  I was sitting on my regular stool at Guillaume’s, kicking the bar, while Phil poured my pineapple juice.

  “Why aren’t you out disturbin’ the peace with Fingerless Brett tonight?” asked Phil. “He go missin’?” Phil’s face is sharp and pointy, like one of those birds that snatches a raccoon in its beak, flies it to the top of a skyscraper, and gnaws it in private. His face is extra-wrinkly, and his tangled silver eyebrows make me think of frosty nests. “Don’t look at me,” he added. “I don’t got it out for your buddy!” Phil stabbed two maraschino cherries and a black olive with a toothpick and plopped the whole kebab into my pineapple juice.

  Phil had only met Brett once, when I’d snuck him into the Wharfman’s Shore without his mother knowing. We’d sat in a booth eating peanuts and playing checkers, and Brett had never wanted to go back. Apparently, some kids don’t wanna spend the afternoon in a pitch-black room that smells like wet dog hair when outside it’s a fresh spring day with butterfly sauce. Me, I’d never given it much thought.

  “Brett’s got double detention,” I said. Which wasn’t the only reason, but I didn’t feel like discussing the situa­tion.

  “Tough luck,” said Phil. He stuck one of those skinny straws that’s useless for sucking stuff up into my glass. I took it out and sipped from the side.

  “What’s double detention?” asked Rita the Producer. Rita was the only one of Guillaume’s regular customers who sat at the bar instead of asking for a table. She’s got short yellow hair, and wears diamonds that wink and whisper, “We’re not fake.” When she smiles, you can see her silver tooth, which looks very gangster to me. But Rita was more of a player than a gangster. She made television shows starring famous actors.

  “Every time Brett gets a detention from a teacher during the school year, Mother Fingerless gives him another one to serve at home over the summer,” I said. “It’s supposed to be double the punishment, to keep him out of trouble, but the truth is, Brett doesn’t mind staying home. He reads books, helps his mom, whatever.”

  “Why does Brett get detentions in the first place?” asked Rita.

  “For completely different reasons than why I get ’em,” I said.

  Rita smiled with her mouth open. “Why do you get detentions?”

  Phil counted the reasons on his fingers. “Stealin’, mouthin’ off, destroyin’ property. I’ve known Claude since she was a six-pound ball of drool. She’s a natural deviant. Unlike my angel niece, who’ll put you to sleep with the unicorns and scratch-’n’-sniff stickers, but that’s another story.”

  “Brett ain’t into disorderly conduct,” I said. “At least not just for the fun of it.”

  “So what’s Brett into?” asked Rita.

  “Fingerless Brett’s problem is he cannot let things go,” I said. “How do you think he lost that finger?”

  Rita scrunched her nose. “Something tells me I don’t want to know the answer to that.”

  “Take last summer,” I said. “Brett decides we’re gonna hold up traffic on Fifth Avenue with a banner that says SLOW DOWN. I tell him he’s a lunatic, but the longer we protest, the better it gets. Who knew some adults feel perfectly okay yelling stuff like ‘Outta the street, ya lowlifes!’ at a couple of kids?”

  “Somebody called you lowlifes?” said Rita.

  “So inappropriate, right?” I said. “And then, this red-faced guy in a Yankees cap with a nose all round like a doorknob? Jumps out of his Ferrari and chases me with a tennis racket all the way to Bay Ridge! Leaves his car running with the door wide open, right in the middle of the street. Lucky for us, this Ferrari’s got a bullhorn strapped on top because it just led the Fourth of July parade. So Brett slips into the driver’s seat and makes an announcement. ‘ON THE COUNT OF THREE, BROOKLYN, EVERYBODY’S GONNA SLOOOOOW DOWN!’”

  Rita snickered. “Wow.”

  “Course, I hear about that later,” I said. “Tennis-racket guy and me are busy having a dance-off at the falafel shop. Soon hundreds of people are dancing in the street, blocking traffic. And everybody’s yelling, ‘SLOW DOWN!’ The owner of the falafel shop posts the video online, and it goes viral in less than two hours.”

  “I think I saw that,” said Rita.

  “Everybody did,” I say. “In fact, before she goes to bed, the mayor’s wife gets an e-mail.
From her son. Forwarding her the link. He helps his parents do their jobs by keeping them up to date with the trends and whatnot. And when the mayor’s wife sees us dancing, what does she do, Rita?”

  “She forwards the link?” said Rita.

  “No,” I said. “Well, yeah, she forwards it to the editor of the Daily News. But first she cries. The mayor’s wife cries buckets. And when the mayor comes home and sees his wife tucked in bed, surrounded by buckets of her own tears? What’s he gonna do?”

  Rita leaned on her elbow and swirled the ice in her glass. “Lower the speed limit?”

  I nod. “Just how Brett planned it.”

  “Brett’s a sophisticated guy,” said Rita.

  “Sophisticated is Brett’s thing,” I said.

  “So how does that get him detention?” asked Rita.

  “Yeah, right, okay,” I said. “Here’s another one, just a short one, about detentions. Social studies with Mr. H. Mr. H.—nice guy. Tired a lot, though. One day Mr. H. yawns, and rubs his beard, and smacks his lips, and says, ‘Key facts about Columbus’s landmark voyage. Name one, anybody.’ And Brett says, ‘Why do we still have a holiday for that murderer?’ Mr. H. thinks about interrupting, like he did the day before that, when Brett went off on Columbus Day, but he decides it’s too much work. Instead he puts on his headphones and starts writing detention slips, bopping his head to his favorite song while Brett just keeps on talking. ‘According to Columbus’s own diary, the people living in America welcomed him as an honored visitor from the sea, and to say thank you, Columbus captured, enslaved, and slaughtered them.’ That’s when me and my girl Lala Ramirez invent a contest of who can do the shortest, loudest scream, and our pal Andy Money deals cards in the back. Kids jump in, screaming short and loud and pulling out their money, stomping on chalk.”

  “Why are kids pulling out money?” asked Rita.

  “Exactly!” I said. “Those kids never learn. You don’t play cards for cash with Money. Money always wins. That’s Money’s thing, Rita. Making money.”

  “But wait,” said Rita. “Why are they stomping on chalk?”