Trailed by the twins, Nehemiah and I push through the crowd. RaShawn’s sister’s loud voice cuts through the chatter of the neighborhood. Her skinny body gestures and postures with much fury in exaggerated anger.

“Where he at? Where’s the little bully?” she yells. Pink flip-flops match her sweatpants, the word “Juicy” bedazzled across her butt. A large set of lips paint her T-shirt like a giant, overlipsticked woman had kissed her chest. The girl towers over Moms.

“Get out of the street before you get hit. You know these fool drivers don’t slow down around that curve.” Moms prowls about the yard, her mere presence alone keeps everyone backed onto the sidewalk or edging the street. She remains unimpressed by all of RaShawn’s sister’s antics. Still, it’s a good thing it’s too early for her to have picked up my baby sister, Ahrion, from her school. It’s harder to pull off being intimidating with an eight-year-old clinging to your leg. “There aren’t any bullies around here. You need to calm your narrow behind down, coming up into my house like you got no sense.”

“You need to get your hands out of my face.” The girl steps backward. Her left hand on her hip, she raises her other hand to finger wag. The roar of the bus driving off draws her attention. “Look, there he go now.”

I stop, my heart thumping in my chest, when I trace her gaze to Nehemiah. He often hangs with us after school until his mom, grandma, or whoever was staying at his house that week got home. Moms considers him a second son, which is good since he’s like my brother. Moms took to him immediately. I don’t know—it was something in his eyes, the same way you can find a puppy and know it had been hurt in the past. She understood that they may try to be the best puppy they could be, but something might set them off and remind them of the bad times. Her “adopting” him also had a downside since most folks don’t realize just how protective Moms is of her children.

“I’m going to say it one more time: there aren’t any bullies here.” Moms is still in control, but I can tell she’s reaching the limits of her . . . politeness. Like an engine revving into the red, each word spills out of her mouth pronounced with an edge. She might not want to admit it, but she’s a lot like Nehemiah. Moms may be older, with a longer fuse, but once lit, she could go off like a Roman candle.

“He got in a fight with my little brother.” The girl clutches RaShawn, waving him about like a prop doll. His sister is many things, concerned is not one of them. That girl can’t find a maternal bone in a cemetery of mothers. This doesn’t seem like a “no one messes with my brother except me” thing. She simply needs something to justify her storming around the neighborhood, an excuse to shout and remind everyone who she is.