Darius & Twig (15 page)

I didn't want to speed up when I passed Twig, but I did. A little.

I was tired. The second lap was a lot worse than the first one. Little waves of nausea came over me. Checking my watch, I saw it was twenty minutes to seven. I didn't know when I had started, but I thought I was probably doing about a 1:10 quarter. Already part of the way through the second lap, it was too late to time the whole quarter, but I thought I'd check it when I passed the start line again.

When me and Twig went up on the roof to find Midnight, I thought that was a best me, and a best Twig. Maybe it wasn't. That was an okay me, yes, but I thought that the best me was somewhere in my words, in my thinking.

Dear God, don't let me throw up
.

I crossed the start line. It was eighteen minutes to seven. I was doing more than two minutes a friggin' lap. I ran a little past Twig and sat down on the infield grass. The world was spinning around me, and soon I was telling myself how much I was going to exercise in the future.

I lay there for another ten minutes before Twig came over.

“Yo, Darius, you dead?”

“Yeah.”

He sat next to me. I felt something pressing down on my back and realized it was Twig's head. Then he moved and told me my heart wasn't beating that fast.

“You're just out of shape, dude.”

“Oh, I hadn't noticed that,” I said. “I just thought somebody ran off with all the oxygen.”

“I like your story better now,” Twig said. “Before, it was good, but there were parts I didn't get. Like why the kid was swimming with a bad leg. And I liked the dolphins—they're like a metaphor, right?”

“Yeah, sort of,” I answered. “Only I don't think in terms of metaphors.”

“Yeah, you do,” Twig said. “You got dolphins and falcons and stuff in all your stories. You can't fly and you—can you swim?”

“No.”

“See?”

“Could be.”

“But now the story is clearer because the kid is looking for something inside of himself, and that's what it's all about. And you know what else I like about the story? I like the fact that at the end, he still has a bad leg and stuff isn't just wonderful. He's still got all the problems in his life and he's still got to deal with them. Shit doesn't go away easy.”

“Like we still have to deal with the stuff in our lives?” I asked.

“That's right,” Twig said. “I break my leg or lose a couple of races and where am I? Maybe stacking boxes in a bodega.”

“No, I don't think so,” I said as I rolled over and sat up. “If you get over once, I mean if you really get over the way you did in Delaware, and the way you did against Jameson, you have to know that there's a best Twig somewhere in you, and you just got to find a chance for him to do his thing. It doesn't have to always be about running.”

“Maybe it's about having somebody like your nonrunning, nonflying, and nondancing butt around to keep reminding me about a best Twig.”

“Could be,” I said, standing.

“So when are you going to send your story off?” Twig asked.

“I already did,” I said. “This morning.”

“Before I read it?”

“I was afraid you weren't going to like it,” I said.

“If I'm going to be your agent, you always—I repeat,
always
—have to send me the story first,” Twig said. “You got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right!”

In the end, things worked out well for me and Twig. He got two scholarship offers, one from the University of North Carolina and one from Texas Christian. He took the one from Texas Christian because it was a full ride without a loan.

The
Delta Review
took my story and published it. I was excited when I got the acceptance letter but disappointed with the magazine. The copy I had seen of the Canadian publication was printed on slick paper and had nice illustrations. The two copies they sent me were smaller and on cheap paper. Mr. Ramey wasn't impressed and said there wasn't much he could do with it. Miss Carroll was happy with it, though, and sent out both of my copies to friends. The one that she sent to a friend at the English department at Amherst College in Massachusetts resulted in a scholarship offer. It involved a job at the school, some student loans, and a reduced tuition plan.

Midnight only partially recovered from being shot up. He's in a wheelchair, but he did get to move to handicapped housing with his mom and little sister.

I'm going to spend the rest of the year working with Brian. His grades are good and I hope he can keep them up. He's not going to get any help from Mom, I know, but what I'm hoping is that he doesn't get discouraged. As Twig said, the shit in your life doesn't go away easy.

WALTER DEAN MYERS
is the
New York Times
bestselling author of
Monster
, the winner of the first Michael L. Printz Award, the current National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, and an inaugural NYC Literary Honoree. Myers has received every single major award in the field of children's literature. He is the author of two Newbery Honor Books and five Coretta Scott King Award-winning titles. He is the recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults and is a three-time National Book Award Finalist as well as the first-ever recipient of the Coretta Scott King–Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement. He was the 2010 United States nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award and is considered one of the preeminent writers for young people. You can visit him online at www.walterdeanmyers.net and www.who-is-america.com. Walter lives in Jersey City, New Jersey, with his family.

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Cover art © 2013 by Jennifer Heuer

Cover design by Ray W. Shappell

Amistad is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

D
ARIUS & TWIG
. Copyright © 2013 by Walter Dean Myers.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Myers, Walter Dean, 1937–

Darius & Twig / Walter Dean Myers. — First edition.

pages cm

Summary: “Two best friends, a writer and a runner, deal with bullies, family issues, social pressures, and their quest for success coming out of Harlem”— Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-0-06-172823-5 (hardcover bdgs)

ISBN 978-0-06-172824-2 (lb bdgs)

EPub Edition March 2013 ISBN 9780062209252

[1. Best friends—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. Authorship—Fiction. 4. Running—Fiction. 5. African Americans—Fiction. 6. Dominican Americans—Fiction. 7. Harlem (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction. 8. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction.] I. Title. II. Title: Darius and Twig.

13 14 15 16 17
LP
/
RRDH
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

FIRST EDITION