After Tupac & D Foster Read Online Free

said, looking off down our street. “I roam and they get me where I’m going.”
    Neeka looked at her, then leaned back and put her elbows on the stair above the one she was sitting on. “What’s your name?”
    “I go by D,” she said. “I don’t have no sisters, that’s why I’m asking about y’all.”
    “Well, I’m Neeka.”
    I told D my name and she sat down, a few steps below me and Neeka.
    “I guess I’m kinda like an only child.”
    I frowned. “Like? Either you’re an only child or you’re not. There’s no gray area.” I watched her for a minute to see if she understood about gray areas. I’d just learned it myself and was trying it out.
    “There’s gray,” she said. “If you don’t really know, right? If you have some idea but ain’t really sure.” D looked right at me again. I knew I liked her then, even if she did wear white-girl shoes. Mama was always saying I was a brain snob, that I didn’t like people who didn’t think. I didn’t know if that was snobby .Who wanted to walk around explaining everything to people all the time?
    “But you the only kid in your house?” Neeka asked.
    D nodded. “Yeah. Gets boring. So I roam.” She looked off down the street again. “This is a nice block.”
    “Dag, you lucky,” Neeka said. “I got about seventeen brothers and sisters. All running me crazy.”
    “She’s got four brothers and two sisters,” I told D.
    “Yeah,” Neeka said. “But you gotta count all the twins twice because they’re bad. By the way,” Neeka said to D. “Where is your house?”
    D kept looking out over the block. “Around the way. Gotta take a bus from here.”
    “Well, what made you take the bus from your house over there in some vague place you don’t seem to want to reveal to us,” Neeka said, speaking slowly—like English wasn’t D’s first language or something. “To our street on this day and at this time?”
    D smiled. I didn’t know then that it was her real smile, the way her lips only turned up a little bit, the way her eyes got sort of sad. I didn’t know that smile was gonna stay with me long after D had roamed on back out of our lives.
    “I saw the trees,” D said.
    “The trees, huh?” Neeka was making a slow circle with her pointer down by her leg—the down-low cuckoo sign.
    “Yeah,” D said. “I saw all the trees and got off the bus and just starting roaming over this way. That’s how I found y’all. So here I am.”
    “Yeah,” Neeka said. “Here you are. How old are you anyway?”
    “Be twelve at the beginning of October.”
    I stared at D. She looked older than me and Neeka because she was a little bit taller and already had some body going on.
    “But it’s only August, so you’re eleven like us,” Neeka said. “We’re gonna be twelve next May. And you get to take the bus and the train by yourself ? And ‘roam’ all over the place?”
    “Sho’ thang,” she said, and it took me a minute to realize she was saying Sure thing —saying it like the rappers be saying it. “Who’s gonna be taking them with me?”
    “Dag! How long you been taking the bus by yourself ?” Neeka asked, trying not to sound too jealous.
    “Forever and a day,” D said.
    Neeka gave me a look. We weren’t allowed to go anywhere by ourselves.
    “Flo works,” D said.
    “Flo your mama?”
    D nodded. “Kinda.” She stood up and brushed off her pants.
    Neeka rolled her eyes. “You got a lot of kind-ofs up in your vocabulary. You kind of vague.”
    D shrugged. “Yeah.” She looked up at the sky. “All I know is I been roaming all day. Figure I better get my behind home. Y’all want to walk me to the bus stop?”
    “Nah,” Neeka said, trying to sound bored. “I’m comfortable here.”
    “Me too,” I said. “Plus, we’re not really allowed to leave the block without permission.”
    D swung some of her braids over her shoulder. “Yeah, I met a lot of kids who can’t go nowhere. Their mamas be strict like that.”
    “You