Coach E-Book

Jason Reynolds

• Herausgeber: Knights Of
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: (Run)
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 272

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

In this companion to Jason Reynolds's award-winning and New York Times bestselling RUN series, meet Coach as a boy striving to come into his own as a track star while facing upheaval at home. Before Coach was the man who gave caring yet firm-handed guidance to Ghost, Lu, Patina, and Sunny on the Defenders track team, he was little Otie Brody, who was obsessed with Mr. 9.99 (a.k.a. Carl Lewis) and Marty McFly from Back to the Future. Like Mr. 9.99--and his own dad--Otie is a sprinter. Sprint free or die is practically his motto. Then his dad, who is always away on business trips, comes home with a pair of Jordans. JORDANS. Fine as fine can be. Otie puts them on and feels like he can leap to the moon...maybe even leap like Mr. 9.99 when he won the Olympic gold medal in the long jump. But one morning he wakes up to find his brand-new secret weapon kicks are missing--right off his feet! And Otie just might have a fuzzy memory of his dad easing them off as Otie was sleeping, but that can't be right, can it? Unless all the reasons for his dad's "gone's" are very different from what he's been told... Because now, not only are the Jordans missing, but so is his father.

Leseprobe

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COACH

Run: Book 5

JASON REYNOLDS

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for the future coachesvi

Contents

Title PageDedication12345678910111213141516AcknowledgmentsAbout the AuthorAbout the IllustratorRead the Rest of the Run SeriesAlso by Jason ReynoldsCopyright

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COACHviii

1

1

THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS: A Future World Champion Shouldn’t Bleed over Stank-Mouth Clowns, but It Happens

If I had all the money in the world, know what I’d buy? A time machine. And if I had a time machine, know the first thing I’d do with it? Fast-forward straight to the future. Not the faraway future, but the close-by future. Like five or six years from now. Pop up right at the end of the hundred-metre dash with a whole stadium of people cheering me on as I cross the finish line with my chest out and my arms wide like a bird on glide. My mum and dad waving all wild, watching with the whole world as I climb to the top of the podium with my shiny Olympic medal heavy around my neck. Gold.

And then you know what I’d do? 2Get right back in my time machine and rewind. Go back to the past. Not the faraway past, but the just-a-little-while-ago past. The just-before-Quentin-Carswell-cracked-jokes-about-my-hairline-in-front-of-the-whole-seventh-grade past. And you know what I’d do when I got there? I’d take my Olympic medal, the one I’d just won in the future, and smack Quentin dead in the face with it. Wham! Right across his stank mouth. Tell him to watch how he talks about the champion of the world.

Yep. That’s what I’d do.

But. I don’t have all that money. So. I don’t have a time machine. I don’t even know if they finished making them yet. So I don’t have no gold medal, either. Which means Quentin gets to keep all his teeth. He gets to be champion of the seventh grade, which apparently don’t take nothing but a few jokes. But them jokes get a whole lot of laughs. And them laughs come from a whole lot of people. Even the teachers. Even the janitor. Even the lunch ladies. And sometimes even me.

Especially when the jokes ain’t about me.

And they usually wasn’t about me. 3

Until they was.

And even though my eyes get hot when I think about Quentin and his jokes, I don’t all the way blame him for cracking them. I mean, some of the blame is on Mr. Flowers, the principal, who thought it was a good idea to have a talent show at lunch. Said he was thinking about making it an every-other-Wednesday thing, until the end of the school year. But it was already May, so thankfully we’d only have to suffer through one or two more before summer. Called it the Lunchtime Talent Show, which let me know he, in fact, has no talent when it comes to naming talent shows that take place at lunchtime. Also, he has no talent when it comes to making school more fun, mainly because it ain’t in school’s personality to be fun in the first place. Everybody knows that. Yeah, yeah, it sounds bad to say, but I don’t make the rules. School does. And the rules say fun is for places where there ain’t no grades. Or detention. Or textbooks. Or tests. Or lockers. Or principals with bright ideas. Or … Quentins. Which means fun ain’t for school.

But Mr. Flowers was trying. Gotta give him that, I guess. 4

The deal was, whoever won the talent show got to have tacos after school (where the fun is) with three of their friends, which was enough to get everybody hype about it, get everybody signing up, which was just them writing their names on tiny strips of paper, balling them and tossing them into a paper bag Mr. Flowers was holding.

“We won’t be able to get to everybody,” Mr. Flowers said on the microphone, shake shake shaking the bag of names up. “But some is better than none.” He reached his hand in, pulled out the first name.

Contestant one was Rashida Boone. She sang Whitney Houston, while her sister Rashonda—who was a grade up but snuck into our lunch just in case Rashida’s name got picked—beatboxed behind her. High notes and spit all over the place. But they was jammin’.

Now, I don’t know if doing a handstand is a talent, but that’s what contestant two, Antoine Rogers, did. But he ain’t handstand like I be handstanding, which usually clocks in at around 2.1 seconds. Nah. Antoine handstood for a longtime. Too long. So long, all of us in the audience ran out of claps. And then we booed. And then 5we ran out of boos, too! And maybe because of all that—and the fact that all the blood in Antoine’s body had to have filled up his whole head—Antoine should’ve won. I mean, he risked his life for it. Mr. Flowers should’ve just ended the show right then and there. But, nope, there was another contestant eagerly waiting in the wings with a head full of mess too.

Name: Quentin Carswell.

Category: Snapping. With his mouth, not his fingers.

I won’t lie. Quentin started off pretty good. Did impressions of some of the teachers and joked about how most of them looked like cartoon characters in church clothes. He fired at Mr. Jefferson, who ain’t no easy teacher to make fun of because he’s definitely the coolest one in the school. But Quentin got him, too. Made Mr. Jefferson’s cool seem corny because shouldn’t no old person really be cool like that. That’s weird. And ain’t none of us supposed to really likea teacher. That’s even weirder. But not as weird as the laugh I let out. A little too snorty. A little too loud. And that’s when Quentin spotted me in the audience and showed his fangs. 6

“What you laughing at, Otie?” he snarled. “At least Mr. Jefferson can afford a haircut. Your hairline looks exactly like how I feel when I see it—sad.” Laughter from the lunch tables. “Matter fact, it’s even in the shapeof a frown.” More laughter. “Y’all, Otie ain’t got no shape-up. He got a shape-down!” Big laughter. “Now that I got a good look at it, it kinda looks like you drew it on yourself!” Bigger laughter. And a bingo! for me. Because thatjoke let me know why he was coming for me. Why he was chomping and chomping. He was jealous. Mad because of what had happened on Tuesday in art class.

The  assignment  was  simple:  Drawsomethingyouseeinyourmindthatmightactuallyexistoneday. He drew a TV you could hold in your hand and make phone calls on. I thought it looked cool, even though it probably wouldn’t happen until the year 2000, when cars are flying and aliens live next door to us. That’s when we’ll have something like that. But me? I drew what I was always drawing, what I knew the scientists and inventors were working on. A time machine. Some of them looked like closets. Some looked like refrigerators. Some looked like bathtubs. 7Some even looked like trainers, especially Jordans—the ones, twos, or the new threes. But this one happened to look like a school desk. And for whatever reason, the class liked my drawing better. And so did our teacher, Mrs. Tannerbaum. And the only reason that was a problem for Quentin—and became a problem for me—was because even though he was a class clown, he was also the best artist in seventh grade. Maybe even the whole school. And because of that … this:

“I mean, seriously … seriously, Otie, have you ever in your whole peasy-headed life been to a barbershop?” Quentin came to the edge of the stage so he could really lock in on me. “You even know what a barbershop is?”

Mr. Flowers, finally realising things were going south, was making his way back to the stage. But not quick enough to stop Quentin’s kill shot. “Let me guess,” Quentin aimed, “you probably think the barber-shop is where your mummybuys your Barbies at!”

“My mother don’t buy me no Barbies,” I muttered from my seat. The words were half chewed and spat mostly on myself. I wanted 8to slide off the bench and under the table. Mr. Flowers was snatching the mic from Quentin and sternly pointing him offstage.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Mr. Flowers started, but even his voice wasn’t strong enough to overpower all the yukking mouths. Mega-laughter from people I’d always seen as friends. As cool. Or at least cool enough to let me see their homework. Cool enough to share fries with. Cool enough to … not laugh, I thought. But now, cold.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Mr. Flowers repeated, louder. “We will not tolerate this.” People were laughing tears from their eyes. “Quentin will be disqualified!” Mr. Flowers yelled over the ruckus, which was finally coming down to a simmer. But it ain’t matter. Quentin already won. I already lost. Stuffed into my own shell, right there at the lunch table.

Now for some truth about my hairline: It hadgrown in. Quentin was right about that, despite being salty about his miniature TV-phone drawing. I think he called it Phone-o-vision, which, honestly, didn’t help. Quentin was also right about me never going to the barbershop for a cut. But that’s just because my dad cuts my 9hair. Been cutting it my whole life. I ain’t saying he’s as good as a real barber, but he good enough to keep me from getting dozen’d to death. Good enough for a regular, but I knew better than to ever ask him for a fade. Or a part. Did it before. Won’t do it again. It was for my fifth-grade class pictures, and let’s just say Dad ain’t really understand the fadepart. Or the partpart. And those pictures, which my mother still framed—because according to her, everything looks better framed—got me looking like there was a strip of rug with a random rip in it just slapped and glued to the top of my head.

So after that, I only asked my father for a regular. Cut it low and let it go. He good at that, plus it took less time, which made it easier on his back. He was always complaining about that, his back. Always ouching and sucking air through his teeth, reverse-hissing. And it always got worse when there was rain coming. Don’t ask me to explain what that means or how it works, but my dad always says it. Wemustbegon’getsomerain, he’d say, wincing and stretching like the storm’s moving through his body and has already shot some lightning in his spine. Guess the rain clouds 10be cussing them old back bones out. And I guess them bones be cussing right back.

So because of all that, Dad only cut my hair whenever he got good and ready. Which means … he’s also to blame for me getting joked to death at school—because of that saying, I’llcutitwheneverIgetgoodandready, despite how bad and ready I already was. Despite how bad and unready I was for the jokes. And not only was Dad not good and ready when I got home from school thatday, he was also gone. Been gone away on business for weeks. Work trip.

There was no way I could go back to school the next day with my hairline looking like it was melting. Not after everything Quentin said. Not after his insults echoed, bouncing off the walls of the cafeteria like there was five Quentins cracking on me.

So after school, I went in my parents’ bathroom and did the only thing I could do. Searched for my father’s clippers. I was gonna take care of my forehead fiasco myself.

I checked the bathroom cabinet. Checked the drawer Ma kept all her hair stuff in, figuring my father probably kept his in there too. Whoa!11It was like a grab bag of machines. Blow-dryers that looked like space guns, curling irons that looked like lightsabers, and all kinds of other weird things she’d said were meant to make her pretty, even though she already pretty. Stuff like lipsticks and paints and, my favourite, pencils she used to draw on her face. To make all the real things more real, she says. Like, lips become more lips, and eyes become more eyes with the help of these magic makeup pencils.

But, no clippers.

However, I did find the next best thing. A razor, plastic and pink. Looked kinda like a toy. She’d told me she used them to shave the hair off her legs, which I always thought was weird because what’s wrong with having hair on your legs? Dad never seemed to mind his. Or the hair on his chest.

Razor in hand, I went back to the other bathroom. The one in the hallway, across from my room. Stared at myself in the mirror. Brushed my hair to see if I could lay it down some before shaping it up. Tried to imagine where the actual line was supposed to be. Where the bars were. The boxed corners. I held the pink blade up 12against my forehead exactly how I saw my dad do with the clippers whenever he got goodandready. That’s not true. I never actually sawmy father do it, I just felt him do it. Heard the buzz of the motor in my ears. But a haircut and a shape-up are two separate things.

Whenever he was actually giving me a cut—like a cutcut—I’d feel the clipper guard comb  through  my  knots,  chopping  them down like overgrown grass. But a shape-up was different. Felt different. He used a different kind of clipper. The one that looked less like claws and more like … a razor. Which is how I knew a razor would work! And he would start with gentle taps with the blade—taps that would sometimes sting—before scraping it across my skin.

So, I did the same. Held the razor to my forehead, did a few taps first, and then raked it across. Once. Twice. My goal: to shave off the newborn hair and create the corner, because everybody knows the corners gotta be crispy. And I got excited, because I could hear the hair being erased, and I could feel the sting, too, so I knew I was making a path to what was going to be a joke-free tomorrow. 13

But then.

The sting went from normal to not-normal.

And then from not-normal to burn.

And then from burn to sizzle.

And then from sizzle to wet.

And when I pulled my hand away, what I saw, instead of a new, good-looking me, was something else. Something completely else.

Blood, blooming before a drip. And then, a drip. No, not a drip. Drips. So many. So bad.

Bad, bad, bad-looking.

Somehow, I’d shaved a square of skin clean off my forehead. My left eyebrow, gone right along with it.

Gone, gone.

14

2

THE M ORAL OF THE S TORY IS: Even a Future World Champion Can’t Go to the Barbershop by Himself, Because His Mother’s Afraid His Ears Work Too Well

I dropped the razor.

The shock of it all felt like an actualshock. Like the worst kind, sent from my eyeballs, down my neck, down my shoulders, stinging my elbows before shooting down to my hands and making my fingers flimsy, making my grip come loose. Electrocuted by my own face, I dropped the razor. Dropped it, and, in a panic, yanked and yanked at the toilet paper roll, wrapping it around my hand until I’d mummified it. Then I slapped the mummy mitten over my eye (and the piece of raw skin above it), like covering it would make it all go away. 15

But it didn’t. Not even close. And soon I bled through it and had to wrap fresh tissue to replace the now wet, red wad.

Honestly, as bad as it looked and felt, I wasn’t really trippin’ about the cut. I’d been cut before. I’d busted my tail on the track enough times to know what it is to have knee burns and track rash and scraped elbows, pieces of my brown left in the lane. It was the eyebrow that got me.

“No.”I shook my head. “Please, no. Please, please, please, no.” I went from whisper to whine, each noand pleasea prayer that this wasn’t happening. I took my hand down, looked at myself straight on. It was happening. Tilted my head as if that would help it look better. But, it was happening. Squinted my eyes as if thatwould help it look better. It was still happening. Raised my brows—my brow—as if thatwould help it look better. Dabbing blood. Dabbing blood. It was all happening.

Then there was a knock at the door. A jiggle on the handle, but I’d been smart enough to lock it.

“Otie?” my mother called. I ain’t even 16hear her come home! “You good in there?”

She knocked harder.

“I’m … fine.” Might’ve been the biggest lie I ever lied. Because I wasn’t fine at all. So far from fine. So I fixed the lie as fast as I’d lied it. “Actually, Ma, you still there?”

“Yeah, I’m here.” Amazing how mums know not to leave. Not to walk away. It’s like a radar for ridiculousness.

I unlocked the door, opened it slowly, my hand a human eye patch.

“What in the world …” She stepped into the doorway, looked at me, then over my shoulder. Saw the drops of blood in the sink. And on the sink. And soaking into the ashy white veins between the square floor tiles. Saw the razor. Her face rippled like a disturbed puddle. Mine, just on the brink of becoming one. “Otis Raymond Brody Jr., what did you do?”

Ma reached for my hand, peeled it away from my face, exposing my missing skin and brow. The worst peekaboo ever.

“Oh no!” she gasped, shocked mainly by the fresh wound, but her face stopped rippling, so I could tell she was also relieved it wasn’t 17deeper. And like a reflex, she quickly opened the medicine cabinet, grabbed cotton balls and a jug of rubbing alcohol I hated to see coming. “What … how … why …?” She didn’t bother with where and when. Instead she just kissed her teeth, turned the alcohol bottle down to dab the cotton, then told me to bite hard on the webbiest part of my hand, that gummy pocket between thumb and pointer.

“Just like you’re eating an orange slice,” she instructed. “Because this gon’ hurt.”

Then she touched the cotton ball to the wound. She tried to be soft, but it ain’t matter because it sizzled anyway. Like bacon in the frying pan. I bit, chewed, gnawed, ahhh’d, and tried not to bite through the skin of my hand, because I ain’t want to have to do this all over again.

Then came the plasters. And as my mother was pressing them on my head like Halloween stickers, she turned her focus to my missing brow.

“What were you thinking, baby?” she asked, lining up the third plaster.

“I was just trying to give myself a shape-up, and—”

“A shape-up?” she interrupted. “With 18a razor?” I could hear the head-shake in her voice as she picked the razor up off the floor. She set it on the sink, then took a seat on top of the closed toilet, pulling me in close. “Why were you even trying to do that in the first place?”

“Because I can’t keep waiting on Dad. I know he on his trip, but while he tripping, I’m tripping, because at school they tripping on me! Especially this one kid, Quentin. Snapped on me from the stage at the Lunchtime Talent Show.”

“At the what?”

“The Lunchtime Talent Show,” I repeated. “He said my hairline looks like the hill Jack and Jill ran up.”

For a split second, the split of a split, I thought I saw my mother’s mouth turn up. Saw some giggle sprint over her top lip. But then it was gone.

She cocked her head. “What I tell you?”

“I know what you told me, but, Ma, I can’t just ignore him when he got a microphone.” “Sticks and stones may break your bones,

but words can break your spirit,” she said. “Is your spirit broken?” She asked this because she knew the answer and was just trying to 19remind me to remember myself. Mum tricks.

“Nahhh. My spirit ain’t broken.”

“You sure?” She leaned in closer, got right in my eyes to see if she could get a glimpse of my spirit. And if she did, she’d be able to tell it wasn’t broken. Bruised, maybe. But not broken.

“I’m sure.”

“Good.” She leaned back. Then added, “Well, what should we do about …?” Ma chin-pointed to my disappeared brow.

“I don’t know.” I shrugged, wiping leftover streaks of blood from my face.

“I mean, you could go to school like this.”

“I cannotgo to school like this,” I replied, trying not to put my foot down, because foot-down-putting was for parents. But still. “You think somebody like Quentin is all of a sudden gonna take it easy on me? Think he just gon’ let this slide?”

“What’s his problem with you anyway?”

“He mad because Mrs. Tannerbaum liked my drawing of a school desk time machine and said it might actually be the perfect cover for the seventh-grade yearbook, and Quentin thinks he the best artist in the school. And, honestly, 20he really is a good—”

“One of your time machines is gonna be on the cover of the yearbook?!”

“One of my drawingsof a time machine mightbe on the cover. I don’t have a real one. But I wish I did.”

“I know, I know. But … that’s great, Otie!” She acted like she forgot what we were doing here. Like I wasn’t just bleeding and sizzling and freaking out.

“Ma …” I pointed to my eyebrow.

“Okay, okay.” She backed off. “Going to school like this is off the table. Got it. So then maybe we … add some more plasters. Cover everything up.”

“Then I’m gonna look like I had brain surgery!”

“What’s wrong with brain surgery? Based on your decision-making, you might need it.” She bounced her eyebrows. Both of them. Which made the joke worse.

“Ma …” Again.

“I take it back.” She kissed the top of my head. “How about we …” Ma stopped short, yikes’d her mouth, which worried me. 21

“What?” I searched her eyes like she did mine, but got nothing. “We what?”

Ma pulled me in close again, this time even closer than before, to run her thumb over where my eyebrow used to be, and where my other eyebrow still was. She lingered there. Closed one eye.

“I got an idea but you not gonna like it.” She stood, opened the cabinet again, which, by the way, I always called the secret portal because it’s weird that there’s a cabinet behind the mirror that everyone calls a medicine cabinet, which makes me always think there once used to be magic potions in there or something, and pulled out a velvet bag. Like a potion bag! And in that bag … my father’s clippers. Both kind.

I would’ve never found them.

The clippers buzzed alive with a growl. The shape-up ones.

“What you ’bout to do with those?” I asked, leaning away.

“You only look weird because you got one eyebrow, Otie,” she explained.

“I know! But it’s not like we can put the other one back on, so what you …” And then it 22hit me. “Wait … no. No, Ma. No!”

“It’s the only way,” she pleaded, followed by, “We’ll come up with a story. A reason.”

“What reason? Like, why would anyone do this?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll figure something out.”

Did I want her to cut off my other eyebrow? No. I definitely did not. But I knew deep down she was right. Knew there was no other way. And I also trusted that we’d come up with a good story to explain what was about to happen, what would’ve already happened by the time everyone saw me at school tomorrow, holding me at joke-point until I delivered a good excuse.

“What you think?” she asked. “Should we do it?”

I nodded.

And she did it.

Shaved my other eyebrow off. Clean.

And once it was gone—gonegone—I realised the original problem was still a problem. A problemproblem. I still had a conflicted hairline, on top of which, now, I also had a bald face. 23So, no brows. And … a hairline that looked chain sawed. Double the jokes.

I asked her if she could just take me up the street to the barbershop, just this once. And you would’ve thought I asked her to buildme one, which, by the way, I would’ve built myself if I had all the money in the world, which … I don’t. But if I did, I’d build me one. My own. Right after I bought me a time machine. Matter fact, I would’ve kept my time machine in my barbershop. My gold medal, too.

“Oh, the cut on your forehead must be deeper than I thought. You must’ve cut your brain,” she snapped. She always said stuff like this when I brought up going to the barbershop.

“But, Ma—” I protested. The barbershop was right there, close enough for a strong wind to blow shaved hair through our living room window. And even though no barber could fix my over-the-eye baldness, they could at least fix my hairline.

“I can’t take you down there,” she said, more calmly. “You know that. When your father gets home, maybe he’ll take you. Or maybe we’ll find a better one, somewhere else. But I’m just 24not comfortable—”

“What if I just go by myself?” I interrupted.

“You too young.”

“I’m twelve,” I said, which, by the way, is almost grown. “I mean, if you scared something’s gonna happen to me, remember, I’m the fastest kid in Glass Manor.”

“I know.”

“Future World Champion.” “I know.”

“Ain’t nobody catching me.”

“I know that, too,” she said. “But that ain’t what scares me.”

I felt my chest puffing up. “Well, then what is it?”

“First of all, yes, your body’s fast, but your mind don’t always move at the same speed.” She knocked softly on my head. “And second, even though your ears never seem to hear a word Isay, something tells me they’ll be turned up and tuned in, in there. And them men be talking grown. And you ain’t grown. So …?” Ma looked at me like I was supposed to read her mind. And I did. I read it forward and backward and what was on it ain’t change. So I sighed and worked up just enough nerve to say the unsayable. 25

“Ma,” I said, staring at my naked face in the mirror.

“Uh-huh?” She rinsed the sink, using her hand to spread the water around.

“Just … do it.” Tap off. Eyes on my reflection.

“Do … it?” She needed confirmation. I nodded.

“Shave it all off.”

“Bald?” More confirmation needed.

“Bald.”

Now, she turned to face me. To make sure I was sure. I was sure.

“Clean?” It was happening. It was all happening.

“Clean.”

26

3

THE M ORAL OF THE S TORY IS: Principals Are the Real Aliens, and They Will Never Understand Future World Champions Like Best Friends Do

We could say this happened because I took a time machine to the past to when I was a newborn, and my eyebrows and hair hadn’t grown in yet, and when I traveled back to today’s time, there had been some kind of glitch in the warp portal thingy and my eyebrows and hair were never restored. Lost in the time jump.

That’s what I told my mother. To be fair, it was my first suggestion. Hadn’t really warmed up yet. I’d grabbed the broom and dustpan from the hall closet, then came back to the bathroom to start sweeping up the hair and finish my point.

“I know we can’t afford a time machine, 27but don’t nobody know that.” Point, finished.

“Hmmm.” A hmmm is sometimes better than a denial. But I still knew a no was coming.

“You right.” I got ahead of my mother’s response. “Time machines don’t even exist yet.” And in that moment I thought about how if they did, I would’ve time-traveled my father home from his work trip, because he would’ve probably had a much better suggestion. He was good at coming up with stories to explain things he ain’t feel like telling the truth about. Like one time, he spilled beer on the floor, and when Ma asked him about it, he said it wasn’t beer, it was tears. And when she asked him why he’d been crying, he said because he was sad the beer was all gone.

“Who knows,” Ma replied to my time machine ramble. “The government probably has one. My guess is they keep it wherever they keep the aliens.”

She wiped hair from around the outer rim of the sink. The bigger clumps she knocked onto the floor to be swept up.

“Aliens!” I had a brain spark. “Maybe we’ll say I traveled here from the future, and in the future no one will even have hair because … 28you ever seen an alien with hair? Nope.”

“Okay … but what if someone asks to see your time machine?”

“I’ll tell them it’s right outside my house, but that it looks just like a regular car.” I’d drawn so many versions of that over the years. Limousines, and buses, even my mother’s Honda, which was as regular as regular could be.

“So, you think everyone’s seen Back to the Future?” Ma asked, knowing which example of a time machine was my most favourite to draw.

“Uh … definitely,” I confirmed, because … it’s true. Everyone has seen Back to the Future, but no one has seen it more than me. It’s my favourite movie of all time—and all times—because it’s the best movie ever made, which makes it the world champion of movies. Came out three years ago, and I begged my father to take me. I’m talking on my knees with one hand squeezing the other hand, begging. And when we got to the theater, I begged some more, but this time for a large popcorn with extra butter. He told me I only needed a small, but I begged for a large anyway. He was right. I barely ate a single corn because the movie was that good. Better than butter.

29I’m sure you’ve seen it (because everyone has), but in case you haven’t, it’s about this kid, Marty McFly, and his weird scientist friend, Doc. Doc turned a car—a DeLorean—into a time machine, and he and Marty go back to the past so that Marty could help his parents fall in love again. I ain’t really care too much about the falling-in-love part, but the time travel? I wanted in. Still do.

I mean, I be dreaming about it.

I be daydreaming about it too, especially at school.

I even be thinking about it when I’m on the track, imagining myself running so fast I break the plane of time and space.

And I was thinking about it right there in the bathroom, searching for a good explanation for why my head suddenly looked like it was part of our solar system.

“Okay, so you think your classmates are gon’ believe you’re Marty McFly?” Ma asked.

“No. They gon’ believe I’m Otie Brody, the second Marty McFly.” To that, Ma just nodded in amazement at my brilliance.

“But … aliens?”

30“Yeah.” I paused my sweeping. “They ain’t got hair.”