Boy 2.0: Chapters 1–2

The car hit a bump and the kid’s backpack slid off the seat with a thud. Still no movement from up front. Not even a twinge of concern in the laser-focused eyes in the rearview mirror. A real pro, this lady.

The boy didn’t turn back. What would have been the point? He didn’t know this lady. And she had done nothing to make his day one iota better. That was why she didn’t get named in his story. She didn’t matter. He decided he wouldn’t even remember her face.

“You’re not going to learn anything like that, Aaron,” Jackson said.
“I’m absorbing,” said the voice under the book.
“Osmosis is not a practical study strategy. Also, Win is here. Come on.”
Aaron lifted the book. “Hey,” he said. Then he added, “What do you go by? He? They?”
“He is fine,” the boy said.

“Hi, Win!” the two girls at the table said at the same time. The younger one, with a deep-brown tone like Jackson and plaited pigtails, grinned half a mouth of teeth and clutched a small furry thing in her hands.

“Actually, I like to be called Coal.”
“Coal,” Jackson said. “Well, all right, then.”
“Coal?” the older girl said. “Like charcoal? The combustible or the art supply?”

“Coal,” Jackson said, “like what a phoenix rises out of.”
“That’s ash,” the older girl said. She smoothed an unruly curl that had sprung from her bun back away from her eyes. She was a lighter tone than her sister and had Jackson’s coily hair.

“Coal,” Jackson said, “like what a phoenix rises out of.”
“That’s ash,” the older girl said. She smoothed an unruly curl that had sprung from her bun back away from her eyes. She was a lighter tone than her sister and had Jackson’s coily hair.

“So that’s Mari and Hannah,” Jackson said.
Mari saluted, and Hannah grinned again while holding up her stuffie—a sloth —for him to see.
“This is Missus Quickness,” Hannah said.
“Of course, Han, I almost forgot,” Jackson said.

Coal ran his finger across the edge of the table. “Tom,” he said. “Do you know what happened?”
“He’s been taken to Holy Angels Hospital,” Jackson said in a softer, more careful voice. “He’s on a psychiatric hold for forty-eight hours. I don’t know anything else, but we can try to find out.” Jackson hesitated, with one hand already hoisting the shepherd’s pie dish.
“So he might be back home after that.”

Coal ran his finger across the edge of the table. “Tom,” he said. “Do you know what happened?”
“He’s been taken to Holy Angels Hospital,” Jackson said in a softer, more careful voice. “He’s on a psychiatric hold for forty-eight hours. I don’t know anything else, but we can try to find out.” Jackson hesitated, with one hand already hoisting the shepherd’s pie dish.
“So he might be back home after that.”

“It’s just the five of us,” Jackson said. “We’ve never been a foster family before, so this is all new.”
Coal took a swig of juice. Jackson topped off the glass.
“We also weren’t quite prepared for you tonight, everything happening so suddenly and all.”
“That’s okay,” Coal said.

Over the years, he’d come to use his nickname as a test to see what kind of people he was dealing with. The ones who looked at his skin and called him black as coal. The ones who asked if he’d gotten burned up. The ones who sneered, who mocked, who wondered if he was even clean. It didn’t even matter what they looked like or where they’d come from. The jeers were always the same.

The McKays seemed different. Like Tom had been. Which didn’t mean anything. Not yet. He had gotten too complacent with Tom. After three years, he had begun to believe that he had a home forever. He wouldn’t let that happen again.

A call roused the McKay kids from sleep as the scent of something savory wafted up the stairs, shortly followed by the sounds of opening and closing doors, water running, flushing, sighs, hands pounding outside the bathroom, cries of hurry up and the like.

A call roused the McKay kids from sleep as the scent of something savory wafted up the stairs, shortly followed by the sounds of opening and closing doors, water running, flushing, sighs, hands pounding outside the bathroom, cries of hurry up and the like.

He lay in bed, listening to the sounds of the house as they changed from creaking and the wind blowing outside to the clamor of the kids getting ready.

He quietly absorbed it all, getting used to this new, more chaotic reality, and tried to figure out his place inside it, for however long it lasted.

“Nothing,” Aaron said, but he leaned closer to Coal...so Coal could see the headline: “Traffic Stop Turns Deadly.” Coal had seen hundreds of these. He ignored the headline and focused instead on the photo of the woman, Allana Hastings, who had long cornrowed hair, mugging for the camera, flanked by two friends who were blurred out...Of course, they chose to use a club photo. It told a particular story about the victim and said nothing about the cop who’d pulled the trigger.

She put her hand on his head and tousled his high top a bit, leaving four finger dents in the crown.
“Mom!”
“I’m driving so you have time to fix it.”

Because the McKays were just across town from Tom, it meant that Coal was still going to Du Bois Middle, pronounced “Doo Boys,” because it was named for W.E.B., the Black icon.

After homeroom, he and Door went to the south wing, which perpetually smelled weird on account of the science.

At the far end of the south wing was the maker space, filled with “supplies” a.k.a. “garbage” of all kinds. About midway was the menagerie, where Door and Coal were headed. You always knew the menagerie was nearby because the smell turned from swampy to wood shavings, wet fur, and assorted musty scents.

Usually, everything about Ms. Freeman was gray. Gray hair was braided neatly like a crown going around her head, her dark skin looked desperately in need of moisture, and a full set of gray clothes, none of which, by the way, were ever the same shade of gray. But that morning, she was wearing overalls in an equally nondescript color of grayish beige and bright blue boots.

“You mean the swamp?” Bisa asked. The girl’s usually large eyes were even larger. “We’re going in the swamp?”
“Wetland is the proper term,” Ms. Freeman said.