The Battle of Jericho (2 page)

“Now
that's
disgusting!” Josh hooted, shaking his head. “You both still coming over my house on Saturday?”

“Yeah, I ain't got nothin' better to do,” Kofi replied as he sucked a french fry dry.

“You gonna bring Dana the Wolf?” Jericho asked Kofi. “You sure you're tough enough to handle her?”

“Yeah, probably. Strong, tall women turn me on!” Kofi answered with a laugh.

“Hey Jericho, speaking of women, here comes your girl Arielle,” Kofi whispered as she walked toward them carrying her tray. Arielle wore a blue-and-white Douglass High sweatshirt, blue jeans that hugged her hips, and clean white tennis shoes. She wore her hair swept back from her face, with three small silver earrings in each ear. Jericho
could feel his underarms getting clammy as she approached. “I heard she liked her men large and sloppy, with messed-up trumpet-playin' lips, so you just may have a chance!” Kofi said, giving his friend a shove.

Josh added, “Yeah, my cuz here knows how to kiss a trumpet and make it sing, but he may have some trouble with a girl like Arielle!”

“If she was shaped like a trumpet, Jericho would know just what to do,” Kofi teased. “A trumpet he can handle—it doesn't talk back like a girl does!”

Josh laughed, “Arielle is all that
and
a bag of chips! That girl can talk and walk better than any trumpet Jericho has ever seen!”

Kofi chuckled as he worked on his Coke-soaked french fries. “You better go ahead and talk to her, Jericho, before all that good stuff is gone!”

Jericho didn't really mind the teasing—he just wished he could be as comfortable with girls as Josh and Kofi were. “Shut up, man,” Jericho whispered, “before she hears you. You know I been tryin' to talk to her since school started.” He couldn't figure out how he managed to feel so completely stupid around a girl like Arielle.

“So talk! Here's your chance,” Josh replied.

“I can't—she's got Dana the Wolf with her.” Dana Wolfe had a reputation of being tough. She had been the first girl to get a tattoo, the first to get her eyebrow pierced, and could be depended on to be the first to jump into a fight to defend her friends. And she could outshoot in basketball and outrun on the track many of the boys in the junior class.

Arielle and Dana whispered something to each other and laughed just before they reached the table where Jericho, Kofi, and Josh sat.

“Whassup, Kofi?” Dana said, clearly ignoring Jericho and Josh. Wearing tall black boots, a suede skirt, and a soft green sweater, she carried her five-foot-ten-inches regally. She was almost as tall as Kofi.

Kofi grinned and replied, “Just you, Dana. Did I ever tell you I was a wolf in a former life? Maybe that means we were meant to be together!”

“Yeah, and maybe that means you've got some serious mental problems!” she replied with a smirk.

“Ooh, she got you, man!” Josh hooted.

“Don't get me started on you,” she warned Josh with a grin, “or I may have to chase you home from school, so you can run to your mama for protection!”

They all cracked up then. Arielle said very little, and even though she laughed at Kofi and Josh with the rest of them, she looked bored and impatient. She barely glanced at Jericho. He had stopped eating when the girls got to their table. He didn't want to say something to Arielle with pepperoni stuck in his teeth, and he couldn't think of anything clever to say anyway. Just as Jericho figured out that he'd ask Arielle about the biology homework, she and Dana saw three other girls they knew and went to sit at their table. It seemed to Jericho that the air where she had been standing was suddenly chillier when she left. Why did he feel like such an idiot whenever she was around?

The three boys had almost finished lunch when two seniors sauntered across the crowded cafeteria. They wore
black silk jackets, black jeans, and the very latest, most expensive Nike shoes. Jericho recognized them immediately—everyone in the school knew the Warriors of Distinction.

Whispers and rumors surrounded the club. It was common knowledge that the Warriors all wore the latest shoes and clothes—every single day. They had a reputation of giving the very best parties—you had to know somebody just to get an invitation. Kids who had been to these functions came back boasting about the live entertainment, the upscale houses where the parties had been held, and the easy access to kegs and smokes.

But the Warriors also had a positive reputation with adults. The club was well known for collecting and distributing books to kids in the summer and toys in the winter. Many fathers of current Douglass students, and lots of men in town as well, had been members of the Warriors when they were students. They kept up with each other at annual meetings, and rumors of fixed parking tickets or lower rates for car loans buzzed around.

Jericho wondered whose table the boys were heading to as they walked confidently across the room. A club like that was just plain tight. His heart thudded as they seemed to be heading directly toward them. Jericho, Josh, and Kofi looked up with disbelief as the Warriors stopped abruptly at their table. Kofi dropped his french fry into his Coke.

“Kofi Freeman? Jericho Prescott? Joshua Prescott?”

“Yeah, that's us,” Jericho answered.

“Are you two brothers?” one of the Warriors asked Jericho and Josh.

“No, cousins,” they answered together. They were used to the question; people had been asking them that since they were kids.

“We've been observing the three of you,” the taller of the Warriors began, “and we think you have potential.”

“Us?” Jericho asked. He couldn't believe that anyone had bothered to notice him at all.

The two members of the club stared at Josh, Jericho, and Kofi with stony eyes. They turned as if they were going to walk away. Jericho gasped silently. Then the two seniors looked at each other, faced the three friends once more, and crossed their arms in unison. The taller one cleared his throat and said finally, “The Warriors of Distinction want to know if you would like to help us this year with our holiday toy drive. It's hard work and there is no pay. But underprivileged children all over the city will thank you.”

Josh spoke first. “Yeah, I'll help.”

“Me too,” Kofi added.

“Sign me up,” Jericho said quickly, just in case they might think he wasn't interested.

“We'll meet at five P.M. Eddie Mahoney's place on Gilbert Avenue. Here are the directions. Don't be late.” With that, the two Warriors of Distinction turned and left the cafeteria. They spoke to no one else, although Jericho noticed that every girl in the lunchroom watched them as they made their way out of the door and into the hall.

Jericho and Josh looked at each other and grinned. “You know what this means?” Josh said. “It means we're on the list to be Warriors!”

“Not necessarily,” Jericho countered. “I knew a dude
last year that got asked to do the Christmas thing and he didn't get asked to pledge.”

“Well, there's lots of things they check, you know,” Kofi reminded them. “Like grades, stuff you do around the school, and who you hang with.” He had pulled the dropped french fry out of the soda.

“And how you eat your french fries?” laughed Josh.

“Who knows what they check? Who cares! All I know is the first step to getting in is being asked to help out at the toy drive, and we just got there!” Jericho said exultantly.

“What's the real deal with Warriors of Distinction and the school?” Kofi whispered, looking around to make sure that no Warriors were close enough to hear him.

“Well, it's not officially school sponsored anymore—some business in the community decided to sponsor them a few years back, I heard,” Jericho explained. “But only Douglass kids are members, and they always get a Douglass teacher to help them out.”

“Doesn't matter,” Josh declared breezily. “They've been around for like a million years—almost as long as this old, rusty school has been here.”

“So how do they get over with the principal and teachers if they're not really a school club?” Kofi continued.

“I've seen the principal, Mr. Zucker, wear his old Warrior jacket to school sometimes, so I know he was a member of the Warriors when he went to school here—several of the teachers, too,” Josh offered. “Even my dad was a Warrior!”

“Yeah, yeah, we know.” Jericho then said thoughtfully, “I've seen the Warriors around at school stuff, at Open House and Homecoming and Teacher Appreciation Day.
They show up and look good, doing stuff for the school like showing parents around or passing out apples to the teachers, and the school has always given them perks.”

“Like what?” Kofi asked.

“Like they get their schedules fixed so they have no afternoon classes. And they get trusted with keys to things that no other student has access to—the faculty lounge, the student store, the supply room. And who ends up working in the office in the computer room where report card records are kept? Warriors of Distinction!” Then he lowered his voice. “I've heard kids talkin' about grades being changed. I don't know how they do it, but I'd love to have that kind of power.”

“I heard they've got the answers to every teacher's final exam!” Josh exclaimed.

“Is that, like, possible?” Kofi asked.

“And did you ever notice the hottest girls in school seem to hang with the Warriors?” Jericho asked, thinking of Arielle.

“Well, sign me up, dude!” Josh declared cheerily.

“You ever been to one of their parties?” Kofi asked in a whisper.

“Not hardly. I know some kids who did, though,” Jericho told them. “All the way live!”

Josh finished the last of his chocolate-chip cookies. “Where you think they get those jackets, man? They wear the silk ones when they want to look slick, and the leather ones when they want to look tight. Either way, I'd look
too
good in one of those!”

“I hear they got connections. Goes way back, I hear,”
Jericho answered vaguely. Since everybody at school talked about the Warriors all the time, it was hard to tell what was real and what was made up. Not all the whispers about the Warriors were good.

“Aw, you can't believe everything you hear, man,” Kofi told them. “But I'd take that kinda hookup if it's for real.”

“I can see how they'd ask you two—Kofi, you're the computer genius, and Josh, you're good at sports and just about everything else, but I can't believe they asked me, too,” Jericho admitted quietly.

“Aw, quit dissin' yourself,” Kofi told him. “The Warriors know who's got it together. And I bet Arielle figures it out too!”

“For real, though, the only way I can get a girl like Arielle to speak to me is if I need to borrow a pencil in class.”

“Relax, man. I bet she'll be sharpening your pencils before you know it,” Josh said with a chuckle. “This is so awesome! I can't wait to tell Dad.”

“Yeah,” Kofi said. “He'll think it's pretty cool that his pinhead son finally did something right! Hey Jericho, didn't your dad go to school here too? How come he wasn't a Warrior?”

Josh's father, Brock, and Jericho's father, whose name was Cedric, were brothers and had both attended Frederick Douglass High. However, Cedric, the older of the two, had never been asked to pledge. Brock, three years younger, had pledged and boasted about it ever since. Jericho wasn't sure if his father regretted not being a Warrior or not. But he told Kofi, “Aw, my dad ran the school when he was here—he didn't have time to be a Warrior!”

“You think he'll be glad you might be in it?” Kofi asked.

“Probably.” Jericho bit into his second ice cream sandwich. “He don't stress me about that kind of stuff.”

“You think they make those Warrior jackets big enough for you, Jericho?” Josh asked with a grin.

Jericho had actually wondered the same thing, but he said, “You just jealous 'cause when the girls try to put their arms around you, they think they're grabbing a skinny old pencil instead!”

“I'd rather look like a pencil than a bowl of oatmeal!” Josh countered.

“Well, at least my hair doesn't
look
like oatmeal!” Jericho zapped back at him.

The three of them laughed as the bell rang and they picked up their lunch trays. “We're gonna be Warriors of Distinction!” Josh declared as he did his own little dance of joy across the cafeteria floor.

As they left the lunchroom, Jericho glanced over to Arielle's table. She had gathered her books, and she seemed to be looking directly at him. The faintest hint of a smile touched her lips.

“
JERICHO, MAY I SEE YOU A MOMENT?
”
Mr. Tambori called as Jericho was packing his book bag after school. Jericho frowned momentarily and glanced at his watch. He was in a hurry to get out of school on time today. But Mr. Tambori was his favorite teacher, his music teacher.

“Sure, what's up, Mr. T?”

“You know the citywide instrumental competitions are very soon—the last week of January,” Mr. Tambori began. “Your trumpet solo will be the highlight of the evening.”

“Yeah, I know—a Thursday, right? Talk about pressure! I've been practicing every night. I'm at the place where I dream the music,” Jericho replied, smiling.

“Good. A colleague of mine who lives in New York will be there. He is a professor in the music department at Juilliard. This could be the ticket to the rest of your life, Jericho,” he said seriously.

Jericho fidgeted with the buckle on his book bag. “Can I just get a ticket for the rest of this week first? I don't want to think that far ahead. Maybe I'd rather play football.”

Mr. Tambori looked at Jericho intently. “Are you serious? You have a talent that is rare and wonderful.”