Daddy Was a Number Runner Read Free Page B

Henrietta. Ain’t nothing gonna happen to me, you hear?”
    Mother nodded slowly. Then she looked at me. “Francie, get up from there and go on back to school before you be late again. Sterling,” she yelled.
    â€œOkay,” he answered from the kitchen. “I’m comin’.”
    â€œFrancie! Don’t let me have to tell you again.”
    â€œOkay, Mother. I’m goin’. ‘Bye, Daddy.”
    â€œ ’Bye, sugar.”
    When I got downstairs I peaked outside but Sukie was nowhere in sight. I ran most of the way back to school but was good and late anyhow.

TWO       

    MRS. Oliver, my homeroom teacher, didn’t even bawl me out for being late as I slid into my seat. I was disappointed. Maybe she didn’t like me anymore.
    I was in first-year junior high at P.S. 81 between St. Nicholas and Eighth Avenues, one of the worse girls’ schools in Harlem, second only to P.S. 136 uptown. A brand-new baby was found flushed down the toilet at P.S. 136 last week. Nothing like that had happened at my school, at least not yet, but everything else did.
    Everybody was excited at school today. There was a rumor that Saralee and Luisa’s gang was gonna beat up all the teachers who were failing them. That would be just about every teacher in school except Mrs. Roberts. I don’t think even Saralee, leader of the Ebonettes, would dare tangle with Mrs. Roberts. She taught us art and was the only colored teacher at our school and nobody messed with her. We didn’t even take our magazines into her room, she was that tough.
    The Ebonettes were the sister gang to the Ebony Earls, the roughest street fighters this side of Mt. Morris Park.When the Earls warred with their rivals, the Harlem Raiders from uptown, blood flowed all up and down the avenue. When they weren’t fighting each other, the gangs jumped the Jew boys who attended the synagogue on 116th Street or mugged any white man caught alone in Harlem after the sun went down. It got so bad that the insurance man from Metropolitan had to hire one of the Ebony Earls to ride around with him for protection when he made his collections. Yeah, the Earls were tough all right and the Ebonettes tried to be just as bad.
    The bell rang and we all trooped down the hall to our first course. Maude was in my class and we walked together.
    â€œI sure hope Saralee and them don’t beat up Mrs. Oliver,” she said. Maude had a square dark face and thick hair. If it wasn’t for her bowlegs, which made her walk pigeon-toed, she wouldn’t have been bad looking at all.
    â€œI hope they don’t,” I agreed. I liked Mrs. Oliver. She was white-haired and looked like somebody’s grandmother.
    Maude and I sat together in Miss Haggerty’s class. She was our arithmetic teacher and real pitiful, a pale stick of a woman, scared peeless most of the time. Now she mumbled that we would begin our lessons on page fifty-eight and to please take out our arithmetic books. Almost everybody, including me, took out our love stories and true confessions instead. We didn’t even try to hide our magazines in Miss Haggerty’s class and she was so terrified she just ignored them.
    It was a good time for me to catch up on my love stories because Daddy wouldn’t even let me bring those magazines inside the house. He said he didn’t want to catch me reading such trash.
    I usually paid attention to Miss Haggerty for the first fiveminutes, though, until I understood and could solve the problem. So today, when she asked for a volunteer for the blackboard, I raised my hand and stood up.
    â€œSit down,” Saralee growled at me. I sat.
    Miss Haggerty ignored us both. “Do we have a volunteer?” she asked again. Nobody moved.
    â€œWell, then,” Miss Haggerty said, walking to the blackboard and picking up a piece of chalk, “I’ll work it out for you. Now the main thing to remember