“Them who?” I protest.

“RaShawn. Kutter.” Wisdom pronounces the names all solemn, like she’s reciting a memorial for fallen friends. “Maybe a couple of others.”

“You out here snitching on your peoples?” Tafrica blurts out and stops short to measure my response. “Makes it hard for us to trust you if you out here running game on your peoples.”

“I. Ain’t. Snitching. On. No. One. And I’m about tired of having to defend myself. You know me. This whole neighborhood knows me. I’m as true as they come. I’m just out here, minding my own business, not in anybody’s mouth.” I half snarl, aiming the comment at Tafrica. We all have a code that we choose to live by. I’m no snitch, but I’m not going to hide whenever I see something wrong. One way or another, I’m going to figure out what happened and make sure the right person gets in trouble. “Just doing my do, chilling with Nehemiah. Next thing I know, suddenly I got beef with everyone. Got the principal bumping her gums at me. Mrs. Horner. Mr. Blackmon. You two. Kutter.”

“No need to get all excited.” Tafrica backs down, sounding somewhat pleased with how heated I got.

“You so combustible,” Wisdom echoes. “We just needed to hear you say it.”

“And look you in the eye when you did it.” Tafrica starts walking again.

“I know who’s behind all my troubles,” I announce.

“Who?” Wisdom asks.

“Marcel.”

Tafrica sucks her teeth. Then spits.

“Hate much?” I ask.

“We just don’t have much love for Marcel.” Wisdom hitches her backpack higher on her shoulder. One of her blond braids falls into her face and she brushes it back.

“She too wretched. Thinking she better than everyone else,” Tafrica snaps. “She walk like she bowlegged and pigeon-toed.”

“Bowlegged and pigeon-toed? That don’t make no sense,” I say.

Tafrica squats down to imitate her version of Marcel’s walk. She circles us a few times, like a person with their knees on backward.

“The way the park always be jumping, someone had to have seen something,” I say.

For some reason, Tafrica gets it in her head that Marcel’s walk resembles a duck. So she lowers even more, tucks her arms in, and flaps them while quacking. Wisdom ignores Tafrica as best she can, waiting until she waddles almost out of earshot. “Someone did see something.” Wisdom avoids my eyes. “You know who you need to talk to?”

Tafrica quacks.

“Who?” I ask.

“Jaron.”

“Why Jaron?”

Tafrica quacks twice.

“That’s on you. Assuming you really aren’t out here snitching.” Wisdom swats Tafrica on her passing behind. “Quit it. You too foolish.”

“Stanky booty,” Tafrica says.

“You fried, too.”

Having instantly lost interest in me, the girls dart off, caught up in their own arguments. I mull the name over. Jaron. Judging from the jarring shoulder bump at recess, Jaron has no love for me. He may be still too raw from music class a couple days ago. But Jaron and Nehemiah were boys from way back, and I realize that I can’t do this alone.