Street Pharm Read Online Free Page B

classes, cut out to make a delivery, and came back for English. This school was supposed to be all that with its big alarmed doors and guards, but I knew its weak spot: the door behind the cafeteria used by the lunch workers.
    English class was in a hot room in the basement with no windows. Ms. Amullo tried to make it brighter by putting posters over puke-yellow bulletin boards and fake flowers on her desk. Too bad it didn’t work.
    During the silent reading time, I put up my hand.
    Ms. Amullo stopped beside me. “What can I do for you, Tyrone?”
    “This play is mad boring. Don’t you have something better than Shakespeare?”
    “I’m afraid you’ll have to live with it for the moment because it’s required reading. But if you finish ahead of the class, you can use your silent reading time for something more interesting if you like. Do you see what Alyse is reading?”
    Alyse, two seats ahead of me, was reading The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison.
    “Is Toni Morrison another dead white guy?”
    “Quite the opposite. She’s a black woman, and very much alive.”
    “Hmm. Can I bring my own book?”
    “That’s fine, as long as I approve it first.”
    “Deal.” I was gonna finish the play fast, then use the class time to read something good.
    Before our reading time ended, I got through the first act.
    Ms. Amullo said, “I’m handing out a poem by a British poet named Cameron Elsmore. I’d like you to analyze it in pairs. Alyse, will you work with Tyrone and show him how we analyze poetry?”
    Alyse turned around. I winked.
    Ms. Amullo went on. “Later I’ll have a representative of eachpair tell the class what you thought the poem was about, how it made you feel, and what stylistic devices you found. Now get started.”
    I moved my stuff to the desk behind Alyse, and she turned her desk around to face me. When Ms. Amullo put the paper between us, we both leaned over to read it, almost bumping heads.
    She said, “Why don’t you just read it to me, so I can get a first impression?”
    “A’ight.” I cleared my throat and read the poem, throwing in a little drama at different places.
    “That’s a beautiful poem,” she said when I finished. “It has a lot of imagery. Thunderous skies. Wet, slippery grass.”
    “I know what you mean.” Truth was, I was paying more attention to how I read than to what I read, so I didn’t have a clue what the poem was about.
    I reread it. “I like the part about the empty swings. Kinda like he misses being a kid, you know?”
    She wrote that down. “Yeah, it was a good metaphor. There was a simile in there too. Something about the crash of thunder.”
    “ ‘Thunder crashes, like cymbals clap.’ ”
    “That’s it.”
    I rocked back in my desk. “Go, girl. You dig this stuff?”
    “Sure. I like to write free verse. You write poetry?”
    “I been known to drop a rhyme.”
    “For real?”
    “Uh-huh.” I leaned closer to her. “You a brain. How’d you end up at this school?”
    She sighed. “I . . . I been turning tricks for two years. I wanna get out of it. Make a new start.”
    I blinked. “You playing me?”
    She burst out laughing. “I hope I don’t look like a ho!”
    “That was grimey.”
    She stared straight into my eyes. “I could ask you the same question, Ty. You wanna tell me what got you here?”
    “Nah.” I had a feeling that Alyse was the one girl in this school who wasn’t gonna give me props for being a hustler. She was a square chick.
    “Okay, so let’s not swap stories about how we got here. Let’s just make the best of it.”
    I nodded. “I like your style.”

SPEAKING OF STYLE
    A t 11:36 p.m., I got a call.
    “Ty Johnson, my dog! Guess who’s in town?”
    I didn’t have to guess. I knew.
    Keron Maxwell. To rap fans, K-Ron—the biggest rap star to come out of BK since Jay-Z. Twenty-one years old and daddy of three (with three different babies’ mamas), he was a hardcore gangsta rapper who made Lil Wayne look like a