In Abigail Goines's place, these kids had Horizon Property Management, and they didn't even know how lucky they were. Scholarships, private tutoring, one of the wanna-be Eliza Doolittles even wrote a somewhat legible piece mentioning a proper speech and manners course. Their misfortune was their greatest asset. That's how Piper's book would start, the one she sat in class and imagined herself writing on the Horizon Little Leaders League after she seized control of the New Holland Herald. Piper would donate her advance back into the program, use the publicity tour to cross promote the Herald, so everyone's interest would be served. Young, innocent, harmless black orphans saved from the ghetto during their darkest hour, led by a young, attractive, affluent person from the suburbs who believed in them so that they could believe in themselves. Hollywood put a movie out like this every four years, so this would be the next one. A descendant of Lassie would be bred to fill the role of that mutt that insisted on lying in a long smelly pile by the front door every class. Of course, they would insist on putting a Caucasian savior in the "Piper" role, so Piper'd put a racial bonus clause in the contract as a trap for them.
Piper was planning a speaking tour in her head when one of the boys in the back raised his little suited arm, tie hanging out like a lascivious tongue on the desk before him, and yelled, "Yo! It been time to go!" All the other children turned to look at him, shaking their heads. Piper took a good long look at him too, figuring she'd never see him again, then looked around the room to try and guess which snitch would rat him out first.
Bag packed, the anticipated Chinese take-out entree already haunting her mouth, Piper turned back to the room to see that one seat had not been emptied. The dog, awakened by the commotion, sat proudly before this little boy. The Harlem Outcry's star political cartoonist, who didn't know a thing about politics but whom Piper had to admit was really good at drawing monsters and superheroes, for his age group. He was a true artist, effete and everything.
"Look, you want to do an illustration for the X-Men story, that's fine. Copyrightwise, I'm still saying it's not legal, but I doubt those corporate bastards would have the heart to sue you, so what the hell, go for it."
"Cool!" the boy said, but that's all he did. He wasn't moving.
"Good-bye," Piper hinted.
"Good-bye," the boy mimicked, hand running down the dog's head as they both stared intently back at her.
Piper flopped her bag back on the desk, located her seating chart. One thing she'd already learned about the little urchins is that they didn't respond well to "Hey kid."
"It's Jifar, right?" Piper asked. The boy smiled politely back at her. "So what do you want? Why are you just sitting there looking at me like that?"
"We're supposed to. We're supposed to watch out for you, make sure you're OK," Jifar said. He seemed very proud of his duty.
"We?" Piper began asking, but Jifar nodded and looked conspiratorially to the dog and Piper lost all motivation to pursue that line of questioning. "Why don't you just go now, OK? I'm doing just fine, thanks for your concern, but I got my real job to get back to."
"I'm sorry, I can't. I promised. I told Mr. Snowden I'd watch out for you, so please let me, OK?"
"Oh, here we go. That's just great. Look, you tell Snowden from me that I can watch my own back, OK? You tell him that, and then you kick him, right in the shins."
"What are shins?"
"Nothing, I was just joking. Don't worry about him, I'll take care of it. You just work on the art. You play your cards right and I'll have you syndicated before puberty."
When Piper returned to her block that night she saw a man trying to shove a package under her front door. Piper wasn't prepared for the sight but didn't need to be. It was who it was that caught her so off guard, and more than that how excited and nervous she felt just seeing him there. Robert M. Finley didn't even notice her coming. Piper was already at the bottom of the stoop when he saw her between his legs, stood upright, then pulled his pants from were they were lagging.
"You're late. More than two months late, actually," Piper managed. She wished she was darker. She wished that she had enough melanin to inure her from obvious blushing forever. Piper was fairly sure certain she wasn't blushing just at the sight of him, but simply by questioning if she was blushing or not was enough to increase the chances she was exponentially.
"Hey, hi, I'm here to. . I mean I wanted to ask you if I could get the master key to the Harlem Outcry news boxes because I have a bunch of Great Works I need to give away." He wasn't expecting her or he was even more awkward than she'd remembered. "It's just, you know, I did call that morning to cancel," Bobby said. "I had a lot going on in my life at that moment. I'm here now, so can I get that key?"
"Pick it up in the office. What's that?" Piper poked the air toward the large envelope jammed a third of the way under her front door.
"Nothing."
"Not nothing. Something. What is it?"
"I brought you a gift." Robert M. Finley turned again to the package, spent an equal amount of energy trying to pull it back out again. "Please, take this, read this. My number's on the last page. When you get to it, call me."
The envelope pushed into her hand had to weigh five pounds. Before Piper could even manage a firm grip, Bobby was past her, pausing only to give her cheek the quickest peck it had ever received before moving on.
"Wait! What is this? This is the book you were telling me about, isn't it? The Tome, right?"
"No, this is an entirely new one. This book I wrote for you." The last sentence Robert M. Finley delivered more to the steps than the woman standing on them.
"Oh my God, I think that is about the sweetest thing anybody's done for me in I don't know how long. Wow. I've never been in a book's acknowledgments, let alone dedication."
"No, you don't understand. Not the dedication, the whole book. Read it, call me so we can talk. Please, if you still want to," he said, nodding at the manuscript in her hand.
"I don't understand. Come on, you're coming inside. You're already here, we can talk now. We'll order food. I'm paying." Piper reached in her pocket and pulled out a rumpled twenty as proof of this statement.
"No," Bobby said to her, but he wasn't walking away, either.
"Well, why the hell not?" Piper wanted to know.
"Really, I got a lot to do. If I'm going to get rid of these extra copies of The Great Work, it's going to take me all night, even if I can get Lester to let me use the moving truck and Snowden to help." Piper just stared at him, lips sucked up into a disdainful ball on the side of her face, so Bobby kept talking. "I mean, I own 2,871 copies of it," Bobby confessed. He couldn't figure out if Piper's look of incredulity was because of the amount or his entire excuse in the first place, so he started up yet again. "OK, fine, I have to go because I know I'm a socially awkward person, and I had one of the best, most fulfilling conversations of my life at the Horizon Ball and based on past experience I'm pretty sure if I stay here much longer I'm going to ruin any chance with you I might have. Because you make me even more nervous than usual. Because I find your beauty, in every sense of that word, literally stunning. If I could but beseech fate to be so generous as to offer me the opportunity to build a love with you, then that amour would resound with the — "
"Jesus Christ, are you reading off a cue card?" Piper uttered in disbelief. Bobby looked even more shocked to see it in his hand than she did, despite the fact that he'd been staring down at it during his entire monologue.