Perspective and Assumptions Theme Analysis

There was a hole in the screen door that had been there for years. TJ’s foot had done that. He said sometimes his feet get mad and do things like kick or stomp or run. Don’t blame him, he’d say. And Jasmine would laugh because his jokes were always funny even though she knew they were almost never jokes.

But the Low Cuts don’t take just take to be taking. They don’t steal for fun. Actually, they don’t even like doing it. But they do it because they have to. At least they feel like they have to. Before they named themselves the Low Cuts, they were part of another set that they had no choice but to be down with. The free-lunchers.

“I hate that sound. Matter of fact, I’d be a school bus that could fly. That way I ain’t gotta hit the brakes and make all that noise.” Bit looked over at Trista. “How ‘bout that?”

“All I’m gon’ say is, I could totally see you, a school bus falling from the sky.” Trista laughed to herself, but just loud enough for Bit to hear.

“Well, at least then I’d be a rocket.”

“Do I want to know what y’all up to?” she asked, and they just looked at her like she hadn’t asked it. Like she hadn’t said anything. So she acted like she hadn’t said anything either. “Wait right here.”

The other Low Cuts watched Bit the hustler, Bit who could turn ninety cents into nine bucks—into ice cream—turn into a son. A son who was scared. A son who loved his mom.

Pia felt that same itch when she saw Marcus and the boys yesterday. When she saw the knots at their throats and felt a knot in hers. Because she knew Marcus. She knew where his mother’s black eyes were coming from. Where her swollen jaws and forehead lumps were coming from. Because that same day Pia sat under the dryer two years back, after her wash and before the French roll was put in, she heard her mom ask Marcus’s mom when she was going to leave Marcus’s father.

50. I look both ways.

Difference: Then I think about Ms. Broome’s assignment. What could I be? What do I wish I could become to change the world? I think about telling Benni I might want to be wet cement to fill the cracks in the sidewalk. Not to hide. But to stop someone else from tripping. Or maybe I’d be an umbrella to keep rain from someone’s head. Keep someone dry in a storm. But I don’t say none of that to Benni, because I don’t think either of those things would change the world. So I tell her I don’t know.

I don’t know. I don’t know how to change the world.

Then I ask her if she’d maybe let me borrow one of her instruments to play.

“Am I? I think Slim is. Matter of fact, I think all y’all are.” Bryson pointed at all the jokesters. “Like my father always says, ‘Those that scar you are you.’” He checked their faces, and it wasn’t hard to tell that they had no idea what that meant. He looked at Ty, and Ty’s face looked no different. A gem dropped in the mud. “The point is, I don’t like boys. Not like that. But I like Ty.” He patted Ty on the back. “Matter of fact, I like him more than I like y’all, and for real for real, I don’t see what the big deal is. A kiss on the cheek? That’s what all y’all roasting him for? A kiss on the cheek? Really?”

She turned and added, “When you two grow up, I really hope you become more than horse and jockey, because people lose a lot of money betting on horse races.”

“Not if they bet on us,” Simeon zapped right back at her.

“Plus, I want to be a lawyer,” Kenzi said, trying to control the sting in his throat.

A kingdom full of princes, like Kenzi and Simeon, princes no one ever bet on anyway.

Guess he was ready now. And not for a small one. Not for a furry football. But for a big, husky thing that looked like it was mixed. Some German shepherd. Some Labrador. Some rottweiler, some monster that Satchmo wasn’t sure was there or not, but decided it was so.

That was all he needed to start devising plans. Escape routes.

That’s all Say-So ever wanted. A love thing with her mother, the way her grandfather had with Miss Fran—through laughter. And since her mother was too busy to break, well then, anyone would have to do. A smile is a smile. A ha is a ha. So every day she’d rattle off her jokes at the end of class, bathing in her classmates’ crack-ups.

“What would happen if a school bus fell from the sky?”

Cynthia thought for a second, a smile creeping onto her lips. “I mean…is it coming from Ookabooka Land?”

Silence.

Just that thought between them. Cynthia looking at her grandfather, her Cinderella, her cinder block. The man who taught her to perform. Taught her that life is funny most of the time, and the times it ain’t funny are even funnier. And there ain’t no forgetting that.

Gregory’s hands started shaking, the paper vibrating like dry leaves in the wind. He looked down and started reading his note of compliments again.

Halfway through, he glanced up. Sandra was smiling. And Gregory thought maybe it was the kind of smile that came just before laughing.

Then Gregory thought, But maybe not.

“It’s…a…broom.”

“But I cleaned it. Promise. And yeah, it’s a broom, until you do this.” He petted the wiry twine as if it were fur. As if he were scratching behind the ear of a Yorkie in desperate need of grooming. The straw popped back up when he was done, just like a dog’s would.

Canton shrugged, tossed it up in the air. Caught it. Tossed it again. Caught it. Again, and loose straw separated from the bunch. Again. And more loose straw, falling down on them. And more. Ms. Post laughed. “Look at that. A school bus falling from the sky.”

Canton smiled, knowing a school bus is many things.

So is a walk home.