Chlorine Sky Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2021 by Mahogany L. Browne

  Cover art copyright © 2021 by Kgabo “Saint Rose” Mametja

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Crown Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Crown and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Browne, Mahogany L., author.

  Title: Chlorine sky / Mahogany L. Browne.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Crown Books for Young Readers,

  [2021] | Audience: Ages 14+. | Audience: Grades 10–12. | Summary: Picked on at home, criticized for talking trash while beating boys at basketball, and always seen as less than her best friend, a girl struggles to like and accept herself.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020035685 (print) | LCCN 2020035686 (ebook) | ISBN 978-0-593-17639-9 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-0-593-17640-5 (library binding) | ISBN 978-0-593-17641-2 (ebook)

  Subjects: CYAC: Novels in verse. | Self-esteem—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Sisters—Fiction. | Basketball—Fiction. | Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. | African Americans—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.5.B774 Chl 2021 (print) | LCC PZ7.5.B774 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9780593176412

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  Penguin Random House LLC supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to publish books for every reader.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Me & Lay LI Ain’t Talking

  & This Is Why I Think

  & Lay LI Stay Grinning

  Lay LI the Sun

  Like That Time We Skipped School

  Lay LI Smile at Curtis

  Okay, So Boom. This Is How Lay LI & I Met.

  Two Years Later & Lay LI Bathing Suit

  I Put a T-shirt on Top

  Basketball Drills #1

  After My Drills

  I Can’t Imagine

  Don’t Nobody Want to Call It

  On the Way to My House

  Lay LI Laughs

  I Move

  Snitches

  A Week Later

  The Next Day at School

  Basketball Drills #2

  On the Weekend, I Go to the Mall with Essa & Inga

  We Pull into the Parking Lot

  She Points to the Group

  My First Time Out with Clifton

  The Rules Are Easy

  So, When Clifton Asks to Use the Bathroom

  Here I Go

  Shawn Wants to Know About Curtis

  But Curtis Let It Be Everybody’s Business

  I Ain’t Never Been Good at Lying

  Anyways, Like I Was Saying

  But I Know Bad Game When I Hear It

  When Kids Have

  After Fourth Grade

  My Big Cousin Inga Asks Me

  So, When Clifton Says

  Past the Bleachers

  She Looks Me Hard in My Eyes

  Will Never Be the Same

  There Is a Rumor Going Around

  I Figure It’s the Rumor

  When a Rumor Hit the Wind

  Have You Ever Started a Rumor?

  When I’m on the Basketball Court

  It’s Too Hot to Think About Thinking

  The Asphalt Is Hot on My Sneakers

  Tyrone Mad Cause It’s True

  I’m Still Mad

  I Don’t Realize I’m on the Porch of Lay Li’s House

  I Finally Stand Up

  I Just Want to Tell Lay LI

  Lay LI Got a Way

  Lay LI Says Google Makes

  Now, When I Get a Chance to Have My First Kiss

  Stories

  Stories Like the Boys

  Stories Like the Ones We Heard About Angel

  Stories About Angel’s Mama

  Stories Can Change Who You Are to Yourself

  But I Think My Story About My First Kiss

  The Thing

  In the Closet I Sit & Wait for Adrian

  Too

  Here Come the Senior Boys

  Remember When?

  Remember When I Didn’t Have the Answer?

  Remember When Lay LI Said

  I Remember When It All Changed

  Here Come the Valley High Boys

  After the Ball Game, I Realize

  Basketball Drills #3

  Clifton & I Fall Off

  At the Purnell Community Center

  You Two Are Nothing Alike

  Selfies Be Like

  Kiyana Calls One of Them Kids

  After We Leave

  On the Corner

  Because I Ain’t Dipped

  Lay LI Doesn’t Notice My Shorts

  Lay LI Opens Her Mouth & a Story I Ain’t Never Want to Hear

  The Thing About the Truth

  I Should’ve Known

  Her Eyes Then Fixed

  Like the Time

  Lay Li’s Hands Speak a Language Too

  It’s Finally Saturday

  I Just Want to Hoop

  Ain’t No More Playing Small

  Tyrone Sees Me First

  Today on the Court

  About Friday Night

  After a Pickup Game

  The Next Morning

  All the Things People Say to Me & About Me

  Damn!

  Inga Says

  Sky Says

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  to my grandmothers: thank you for teaching me kindness

  to my younger self: you deserve, you deserve, you deserve

  to my daughter: you are the most beautiful poem i’ve ever written

  ME & LAY LI AIN’T TALKING

  cause she think she cute

  cause she think I ain’t.

  Must be pretty boy Curtis

  all in her head

  all in her mouth

  making her forget

  her home training.

  Making her forget

  her daddy got a gun for a li
ving.

  & her mama gone.

  & THIS IS WHY I THINK

  she ain’t got no sense, nohow.

  Cause ain’t nobody but fast girls

  checking for Curtis.

  & he keep her name close

  & she don’t come home

  the same way no more.

  She must think she cute!

  Must think I ain’t!

  Like she ZendayaSkaiStormMeganNickiBeyoncé or something

  Like she long curly hair movie star perfect

  Like she perfect pink nail salon pop queen perfect

  Like she all new Macy’s rack & Adidas shell toe perfect

  Like she glossy magazine cover most beautiful girl perfect

  Like she ain’t never had a bad day in the sun perfect

  Like she ain’t never had a bad picture kind of perfect

  Like she got a life don’t nobody judge cause she’s so perfect

  I mean,

  look how she keep me waiting like

  I’m supposed to wait on Curtis

  or something

  & I hate his light-skinned self!

  Especially because he ain’t as funny

  as he think.

  Especially when he calls me black

  & ugly & stupid!

  & LAY LI STAY GRINNING

  like he the sun

  like we ain’t friends

  they boyfriends see Lay Li

  It’s like they see the best parts of they favorite movie

  & they favorite movie got they favorite soundtrack

  & they favorite soundtrack make them feel strong

  & they swing they arms around & show off to whoever is looking

  I mean, sometimes I get caught looking but I ain’t got n o t h i n g to say

  Not Lay Li

  She act like she never lookin’

  She must think she cute

  But she ain’t just cute

  Lay Li pretty

  & they boyfriends at the skate rink

  forget they home training around her.

  So when Curtis say the things

  I’ve already said about myself

  & she laugh

  I know deep down inside

  she ain’t never care about me at all.

  LAY LI THE SUN

  & she called me best friend

  Called me smart

  Called me her ace

  Called me her right-hand sis

  Lay Li called me my name

  Ain’t never call me nothing but my name

  When everyone else call me nothing

  She say best friend—like sis-patna-friend & she laugh bright bright

  Because Lay Li the sun

  now I know she just said them lies

  to keep my shadow

  all up & around her sunshine smile

  LIKE THAT TIME WE SKIPPED SCHOOL

  for the pool party

  & all the girls wear bikinis

  but I got my one-piece on

  with a white T-shirt on top.

  & the boys just looking

  like they mama ain’t taught them nothing worth knowing.

  Lay Li got that good hair

  so she don’t care if it’s wet & loose.

  But my hair ain’t close to being good

  so I keep it in a real real real tight ponytail

  until the sun get so hot

  I jump in & cool my sadness down.

  It’s like I already know.

  So I let my shoulders sink low

  like my heart be

  & I watch Lay Li

  how she walks & everybody stops

  & I’m trying to learn

  how to walk in a room & turn their heads

  how to move in a crowd & be the light

  how to keep a boy’s interest

  but not just any boy

  a boy who remembers my name

  maybe a cute one with long eyelashes

  & gentle hands

  the kind of hands that keep to themselves

  how to keep my sister, Essa, from talking bad to me

  my older sister tell you “don’t mess up my name,”

  she go so far to move her mouth & show her perfect white teeth

  it’s “EEEEEE-SaaHHHH like mantra, like a prayer”

  how to move through the world

  standing tall & demanding to be named properly

  how to be more than a baller

  how to be someone that keep ’em guessing

  how to stop stressing because ain’t nobody

  got time for the kind of shade I got

  but everybody got time for some

  s u n

  LAY LI SMILE AT CURTIS

  & he only a little bit cute

  but he ain’t funny or smart

  so that’s how I know her grin is a lie.

  & I pretend I don’t hear his slur

  I pretend I don’t see his hazel eyes

  when he say “lose her ugly black ass”

  & Lay Li laugh.

  Laugh like a knife in the back or laugh hysterical like the girl running from the scary man in a hockey mask or laugh like kids being followed around the mall by security or laugh like I do when my sister, Essa, makes me the butt of the joke. See I laugh & laugh & laugh & laugh &

  she say “Shut up, Curtis”

  but it sounds like “Come here.”

  I dunk my head underwater slow

  & wait

  just wait

  I wait even longer

  for her to say a n y t h i n g like:

  “don’t talk about my friend, I don’t care how pretty your eyes is!”

  But she just say “shut up”

  & she l a u g h

  the kind of laugh that make me forget

  we even friends

  the kind of laugh that make me forget

  we even

  & I think

  I could stay here

  where it’s all a blurry aqua blue,

  I think

  I could stay here

  where my eyes

  don’t hurt as much

  & it don’t feel

  like I’ve been looking at the sun

  all day l o n g.

  OKAY, SO BOOM. THIS IS HOW LAY LI & I MET.

  At the end of summer, when we ready to head into the first semester of freshman year, I got a problem

  with the boys who keep slapping the water. Tyrone & Adam slap the water at me

  when I swim by them. Because everybody knows I’m better than them on the basketball court.

  Still, I keep calm. I play cool. I see a girl at the edge of the pool. Red swimsuit & long wavy ponytail.

  Her right eyebrow lifted skylike: She ready for the joke. But she ain’t laughing.

  The boys slap the water. I swim under the current. I head to her side of the pool.

  & so do they. They slap the water but her mouth ain’t like mine. It ain’t closed

  lock-like & tight, until I’m on the court with a nasty dribble. It ain’t safety pin safe

  like my grandmother taught me. Her mouth curse them until their eyes water. Her lips

  curl & she cross both her arms “& you betta not do it again!” They laugh

  & she don’t. This girl I never seen before got a name: Lay Li.

  I wipe my eyes, stinging from the blue water. “Thank you,” I say, pretending it don’t burn.

  TWO YEARS LATER & LAY LI BATHING SUIT

  Is way better than mine

  I hate my royal blue
one-piece

  It’s a hand-me-down

  It’s ugly

  I rather wear my basketball shorts

  but they’re the only pair I got

  keep dry when I walk home

  Everybody who know somebody

  will skip class for the pool party

  & everybody will have a cute bathing suit on:

  Strawberry red

  or bright yellow

  or periwinkle blue

  or one of those two-pieces with candy cane stripes

  But not me

  I PUT A T-SHIRT ON TOP

  & try to hide

  this ugly-ass basic blue swimsuit

  Mines is long in the crotch

  so long the water drains slowly down my leg

  after I climb out the deep end.

  I put a T-shirt on top