Yolonda's Genius Read Free

bus driver was easygoing; he might not make her sit if she was quiet.
    There was a small space on one seat near the window, and she said gruffly to Andrew, “Sit.” Clutching his harmonica, her brother eased over a third grader and sat.
    Yolonda stood holding on to the edge of a seat in the second row. She held her homework toward the light, the better to read her pretty, slantedhandwriting. She dotted her
i’s
with tiny circles and ended every sentence in a curled sweep.
    â€œSit down, whale. You’re breakin’ the floor,” a voice hissed at her from somewhere midbus. Gasps, giggles, and guffaws erupted around her. Yolonda straightened her back, keeping her eyes on her homework. Her mind searched the boys’ voices she knew. White boy, definitely. Was it dumb George? Was it Danny with his daddy longlegs and pimpled cheeks? Gerard, smart and sly in his too-white shirt?
    â€œHey, whale!”
    Whales surfaced in Yolonda’s mind.
Their big gray heads were slapped by little waves, their small eyes peering
.
    Yolonda turned her face toward the voice. Danny-longlegs still had his hand cupped around his mouth, his legs splayed out in the aisle.
    Slowly Yolonda edged her way back to his seat. He sat slumped, with a smirk on his face, long legs hogging the narrow space.
    â€œWhat do you know about whales, blisterface?” asked Yolonda softly. She looked down at him. “You don’t know diddly, do you?”
    Danny shifted uneasily in his seat, but slid an angry glance up at her.
    The whales peered from their little eyes. Then they spouted up beautiful gushes of water like the fountain in Grant Park.
    Yolonda looked into Danny’s reddening face. “Whales are the most remarkable mammals in the ocean — all five oceans.”
    Danny’s lip curled, but before he could make any reply, Yolonda carefully lifted her solid right foot and brought it squarely and gently down over Danny-longlegs’s huge running shoe. She watched his face pale trader the frozen smirk as she slowly settled her weight onto his foot.
    â€œWhales sing to one another through hundreds of miles of water. They have a high keening sound and a low dirgelike sound.”
    â€œGet off my effin’ foot, you cow,” muttered Danny through his teeth. There was a giggle from behind them.
    â€œRight,” said Yolonda, her voice gooey with mock praise, “the female whale is called a cow. Didn’t know a farmer boy like you was so well informed.” And Yolonda leaned her weight deeper into his foot.
    He grimaced in pain and shot a glance at the bus driver.
    â€œThe music whales make is found to be beautiful, and people make recordings of it. It is found to be powerful, and musicians create background music for it.”
    His face went blank and she knew she was mesmerizing him. She knew he didn’t want to soundstupid in front of his friends and the girls in back. She knew a struggle against her foot would look uncool.
    She increased the pressure on his toes by twisting away from him and pretending to review her homework again.
    â€œGet off my effin foot!” His anger had a begging sound, and Yolonda was gratified by loud giggling and snorts of laughter from the back of the bus.
    â€œKeep it down to a dull roar, kids,” the bus driver called good-naturedly without taking his eyes off the road.
    The whales sank, lifting their tails high above the water like a signal. Deep in the ocean, their voices sent out a high swelling cry, sharing their message of victory for a hundred miles.
    Although she was prepared to confront Danny-longlegs when the bus reached the school, he brushed past her in a hurry, heading for his room.
    Yolonda watched Andrew trudge off to his first-grade class, slipping his harmonica into his back pocket. Andrew didn’t do well in school like Yolonda. He couldn’t even read one word yet and had to attend a special reading class for slow learners. He