When Stacia and I had become friends, we’d mostly played together outside. Mama wasn’t a fan of the Buchanan family, but she never told me that I couldn’t play with her. Once Stacia started coming to the square, Mama peeked out at us more often, just to make sure Stacia was on her best behavior.

We nodded our heads fast and panted, answering Mama’s question, and sat shoulder to shoulder, knees pulled up to our chest, because the hallway was too skinny to stretch out our legs. Mama sat across from me and Tonya. She asked her, “What’s your name?” but her voice echoed, and Tonya jumped. I saw her judging Tonya too, her eyes taking in dirty shorts, dusty gym shoes, filthy brown hair. I got so nervous, I tried to answer the questions for her.

“Her name’s Tonya,” I said. Mama shot me a look that said Be quiet and let her talk. Meechie looked bored. He picked at a hangnail for a while, then he rose up and walked away from us.

“Meechie!” Mama said, her voice tight.

“Bathroom,” he said, with too much bass in his voice. We watched him until he disappeared. The shots seemed to stop, but we sat there listening to him pee, then flush the toilet and wash his hands. When the door opened, we all looked at him until he sat down again. Stacia shocked us all when she started talking to Meechie, like they were good friends.

“We in war with the Low End! I bet them Hooks came running down State Street, and we started bussing at them!”

“Stacia?” Mama said, horrified.

“Huh?”

“Honey, he doesn’t need to hear this.”

Meechie frowned at Mama, and Stacia’s face went blank.

Mama turned to Tonya and asked, “What’s your number? I want to call your mother and tell her you’re okay.”

“We ain’t got no phone,” she said.

I saw Mama’s reaction to the word ain’t. She cleaned up the wrinkles right away, though, and crawled into the kitchen to get the phone. I heard her leaving a voice mail for Gail, Stacia’s mama.

Stacia’s head snapped up, and she looked over at me and asked, “How your mama know my number?” I hunched my shoulders, and curiosity wrinkled my face too.

Mama came back to the hallway and asked Tonya, “Won’t she worry?” Tonya shook her head from side to side.