Tiger Milk Read Free

collar and its mouth is hanging open. I’m pretty sure that if it could talk it would hit us up for spare change. The girl is sitting on the kerb rummaging through her army rucksack and she looks up at us suspiciously. She has dark makeup around her eyes and her dyed-black hair is parted in the middle and her arms are covered with scabs. I’m letting the last few Yum Yum noodle crumbs dissolve in my mouth when Jameelah grabs me by the t-shirt. A car comes around the corner and the girl with black hair quickly jumps up and pulls her dog out of the street. The driver leans out the window and grins at us, his face is all red. Jameelah gives him the finger, but the girl runs after the car and together with her dog jumps into the backseat.
    Shit, I think looking at the ground. The pavement is dotted with old pieces of gum.
    Give me the tobacco.
    Jameelah reaches into her jacket pocket and then walks over and leans against the wall of the nearby building, she tucks one knee up and props her foot against the wall behind her. I crack a smile. Now we really do look just like all the other girls around here. Jameelah winks at me and nods at a guy across the street who’s leaning against a signpost and looking across at us. He’s tall and thin, wearing skinny jeans and a pair of those idiotic-looking horn-rimmed glasses. He looks kind of sweet though and I can’t imagine he could possibly be waiting across the street because of us.
    I shake my head at Jameelah.
    I’ll bet you, says Jameelah, I’ll bet you he comes over here.
    She waves at him and I see his eyebrows arch. He hesitates for a second and then crosses the street with an awkward grin on his face.
    Him, I ask.
    Jameelah nods without taking her eyes off the guy.
    Watch this, she whispers.
    As the guy gets closer I start to feel a little strange. But that’s normal, you always feel a little strange at first, it happens every time, it’s just part of the whole thing. Jameelah takes my hand and we saunter toward him.
    Hey, says Jameelah.
    The guy looks us up and down and grins.
    What are you staring at, says Jameelah.
    I’m not staring, he says.
    He’s pretty old, he must be thirty. He looked younger from far away because of his clothes. He’s barely got any hair left, with just a bit of fluff above each ear.
    Our last two classes of the day were cancelled, says Jameelah.
    Aha, he says, so what are you up to then?
    I’m Stella Stardust, says Jameelah, and this is my friend Sophia Saturna. I’ll bet you have one of those apartments with wooden floors and stucco moulding and all that stuff, right? And tons of old vinyl? You definitely look like the type of person who collects records.
    No vinyl but a lot of CDs, the guy answers, shoving his hand into his jeans pocket, do you know what CDs are?
    Nah, we’re walking talking MP3 players you know, at night we plug giant thumb drives into our ports, kind of like in the Matrix, you know? We keep them on our nightstands right next to our kiddie cassettes and the music is downloaded automatically onto our internal hard drives along with everything else, like our homework assignments, telephone numbers, French vocabulary lists, everything.
    The guy looks at Jameelah and laughs out loud.
    What’s so funny about that, says Jameelah, barely able to keep from laughing herself.
    Shaking his head, he stares at her like he’s watching the climactic scene of the most interesting movie ever. For a second I think he might actually believe Jameelah’s bullshit. Belief is wanting things to be true that you know are impossible. And this guy is one of those people, the type of guy who wants to believe everything because he spends all day taking care of boring shit, emailing and crunching numbers and sucking up to clients, yeah, he probably has to meet with clients constantly and once in a while when he’s running back and forth to the copier he stops and asks himself why he bothers with it all. He’d much rather lose himself in our