Peace, Locomotion Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Imagine Peace

  Dear Lili,

  Little Things by Lonnie C. Motion

  Dear Lili,

  Imagine Peace Again

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  A division of Penguin Young Readers Group.

  Published by The Penguin Group.

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,

  Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.).

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England.

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  (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.).

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd).

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank,

  Johannesburg 2196, South Africa.

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England.

  Copyright © 2009 by Jacqueline Woodson.

  All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Woodson, Jacqueline.

  Peace, Locomotion / Jacqueline Woodson. p. cm.

  Summary: Through letters to his little sister, who is living in a different foster home, sixth-grader Lonnie, also known as “Locomotion,” keeps a record of their lives while they are apart, describing his own foster family, including his foster brother who returns home after losing a leg in the Iraq War.

  [1. Foster home care—Fiction. 2. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 3. Orphans—Fiction.

  4. Peace—Fiction. 5. African Americans—Fiction. 6. Letters—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.W868Pe 2009 [Fic]—dc22 2008018583

  eISBN : 978-1-440-69916-0

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Tashawn and Ming

  And eventually, for Ryleigh

  Also by Jacqueline Woodson

  Last Summer with Maizon

  The Dear One

  Maizon at Blue Hill

  Between Madison and Palmetto

  I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This

  The House You Pass on the Way

  If You Come Softly

  Lena

  Miracle’s Boys

  Hush

  Locomotion

  Behind You

  Feathers

  After Tupac and D Foster

  Imagine Peace

  I think it’s blue because that’s my favorite color.

  I think it’s soft like flannel sheets in the wintertime.

  I think Peace is full—

  like a stomach after a real good dinner—

  beef stew and corn bread or

  shrimp fried rice and egg rolls.

  Even better

  Than some barbecue chicken.

  I think Peace is pretty—like my sister, Lili.

  And I think it’s nice—like my friend Clyde.

  I think if you imagine it, like that Beatles guy used to sing about?

  Then it can happen.

  Yeah, I think

  Peace Can Happen.

  —Lonnie Collins Motion, aka Locomotion

  Dear Lili,

  As you know, in a few days I’m going to be twelve. That means two things:1. In six weeks, you’ll be nine.

  2. In nine more years, I’ll be twenty-one and then I’ll be old enough to take care of you by myself. And when I’m twenty-one and you’re eighteen, I’ll still be your big brother and kind of like the boss of you. But I won’t be mean. And if you want, we can keep living in Brooklyn. Maybe we’ll even find a place near your foster mama’s house because I know you like it a lot over there since it’s right near the park and there’s a cool playground and stuff. When we’re together again, I’ll take you to that playground myself so you won’t be missing it. Even if we’re big, we can still go, right? I see big kids at the one over here sometimes. They hang off the jungle gym and go down the slide. They be acting all crazy and having a real good time.

  When we were small, Mama used to take us to the playground over by where our old house was. Since you were still real little, she’d have to go with you down the slide. “Lonnie, you take your sister down the slide now,” she’d say sometimes.

  And even though I felt kind of stupid doing that with my friends there watching and singing, Lonnie gotta baby-sit, Lonnie gotta baby-sit, I did it anyways because Mama would get that smile on her face. Daddy used to say, “That’s a smile make a regular man climb Kilimanjaro.”

  Back then, I didn’t even know what Kilimanjaro was. Now I do though. It’s a mountain in Africa. And if Mama and Daddy were alive and we were still little kids, I’d take you down that slide a hundred times. And climb Kilimanjaro if Mama asked me to.

  Love,

  Your brother to the

  highest mountain,

  Locomotion

  Dear Lili,

  This morning, when I got up and saw the rain still coming down, I sat on the couch watching it for a long, long time, thinking about you and Mama and Daddy. Thinking about when we was all together and we’d do things like take the bus to the Prospect Park Zoo and take the train to Coney Island. Or like when me and Daddy used to go to the Mets games and everybody would always be asking us how come we liked the Mets when the Yankees was the ones always winning. I remember Daddy said, “Ain’t it boring to always be winning?” And I thought about that for a long time even though I was just a little kid. I thought about how if you walk out on the field or the basketball court or the handball court already knowing you got the game in the bag, what’s the point? Like when me and Angel and Lamont and Clyde be playing ball and we get some in and miss some—well, like when that ball finally goes through that net and you hear that swoosh! sound and your homeboys be slapping your back and saying “good shot” and stuff? If you knew that was coming, you wouldn’t even get that good feeling you get when it happens. You’d just be all regular and not caring and stuff. But when I was a little kid, I’d just say, “Winning’s fun and I sure wish the Mets would win a little bit more!” Daddy used to laugh that big laugh of his and hug me so hard I couldn’t even feel my breath moving through my lungs.

  Felt real good, Lili.

  Locomotion

  Dear Lili,

  Every day, the memories get a little bit more faded out of my head and I try to pull them back. It’s like they used to be all colorful and loud and everything. They’re getting grayer though. And sometimes even the ones that used to be loud get real, real quiet.

  Lili, do you remember? There was a time when all of us were together. There was a time before the fire and before nobody wanted to be my foster mama until Miss Edna came along. There was a time before your foster mama came and said, “I’ll take the little girl but I don’t want no boys.” You were the little girl, Lili. And you didn’t want to go. It was raining that day just like it’s raining now. And you held on to me and cried and cried. You kept saying, I want to be with my brother.

  And I hope you know that I wanted to be with you too. But I didn’t want you living in a group home anymore. I wanted you in a nice house with nice people and not kids everywhere taking your stuff and being mean to you.

&
nbsp; Remember I said, One day, we’ll be together again? I know that day is taking a lot longer to come than it should, but I still believe it’s gonna get here, Little Sister. And that’s why I’m trying to write you lots and lots. Because I love writing and I love you and when me and you are together again, I’m gonna want us to remember everything that happened when we were living apart. I’m gonna hold on to all these letters and when we’re living together again, they’re gonna be the first present I give you. A whole box of the Before Time. That’s what this is, Lili, even though I know when me and you get sad, all we think about is the other Before Time—before the fire, before we lived apart from each other. But this is a whole new Before Time. And it’s cool, because we’ll be able to remember a whole other set of good things, right? So I’m writing. And I’m remembering. For me. And for you, Lili.

  Love,

  Locomotion

  Dear Lili,

  I know it’s been three years since that day when your foster mama came. But the way I figure it—me and you are both gonna live to be at least a hundred years old and given that fact—three years, four years, even if it takes nine years—well, that’s not a real, real long time after all.

  Love you to eternity,

  Locomotion

  Dear Lili,

  Today in school we got the good news that Ms. Cooper is going to be leaving soon. Her belly’s been growing a lot since school started but nobody in class liked her enough to ask if that was a baby inside. Not even LaTenya and LaTenya likes everybody. On the first day of school, I told Ms. Cooper I was a poet since last year Ms. Marcus told me that’s what I should call myself because she said my poems were real good. I liked saying I’m a poet a whole lot and every time I say it to Rodney or Miss Edna, they always say You sure are, so just keep on writing those poems, Lonnie. But when I said it to Ms. Cooper, she just looked at me and folded her arms. Then she asked me if I’d published any books. I said not yet, since I’m only in sixth grade and all. But I told her I wanted to publish a whole lot one day. Ms. Cooper just gave me her back and walked over to her desk. She said, “Until you publish a book, you’re not a poet, you’re an aspiring poet, Lonnie.” So after that I went back to being just a regular boy—not a poet like Ms. Marcus had said. I don’t think Ms. Marcus had been lying. I guess there’s just people that think you’re a good poet and people who don’t really care about poetry and the people who like to write it. I still write a few poems but mostly I’m writing these letters to you, Lili. It’s not like I believe Ms. Cooper—it’s just that she made me feel a little stupid for thinking I was really a poet. I hate that feeling. And plus, the very next day after she said that, I got a forty-two on the pop quiz she gave us. It became just like in the olden days, before Ms. Marcus said I was a poet. Back when I used to get bad grades all the time. And then, after Ms. Marcus told me I was a poet, it was like my schoolwork started getting easy. Well maybe not easy easy, but if I got good grades and stuff, Ms. Marcus would let me have free time to write and that made me want to get good grades. But now Ms. Cooper and her mean old words and her big old belly are leaving. We’re getting a new teacher. I don’t know who it’s going to be, but anybody is better than her. When she told us she was leaving, I wanted to stand up in my chair and start cheering. But I knew if I did that, she’d put a mark in the book by my name and I already have enough marks in her book. I hope her book leaves with her.

  I got my fingers crossed that Ms. Cooper’s replacement is going to be somebody who doesn’t think you need a whole published book to be a poet!

  Love,

  x-poet

  Locomotion

  Dear Lili,

  A week before school started, Miss Edna got me new notebooks and stuff. I picked a knapsack that’s blue camouflage. But when I was putting my math book in it, Miss Edna got all choky and I took all my books out and put them in my old knapsack that’s just green. Then I put the new one in the far back of the closet. I don’t want to be having anything that reminds Miss Edna about her missing her older son, Jenkins, who’s over there fighting in the war.

  Clyde’s in my class this year. So’s Angel and Eric. Lamont moved away. Today in the school yard, we all stood around just looking at the other kids playing. I was shivering because I’d only worn my jean jacket with a T-shirt underneath and since it’s already cold, I wasn’t dressed right. Neither was Clyde—he just had a long-sleeve shirt that was a little bit too big for him and some jeans and just a zip-up sweatshirt. He had pulled the sleeves down over his hands and then put his hands in his pockets but he was still shivering.

  Eric said, “School’s stupid. Don’t even know why I’m here!” He was wearing a down coat and at that moment I was wishing I was him.

  Clyde told Eric he was just missing Lamont and Eric said, “I ain’t thinking about no Lamont,” but you could tell nobody believed him.

  We all missed Lamont. The day he came up to us and told us his family was moving to Florida, none of us said anything. It was a week after the last day of school and we’d all come back to the school yard to just kind of hang and whatnot. It was hot as anything and even though Angel had brought his basketball, none of us felt like playing. That’s when Lamont came running up to us all out of breath and saying that he was going to Florida. Clyde told him it was too hot to be going to Florida. Said it was about eight hundred degrees hotter than New York.

  We going there to live, Lamont said. My dad got a job. He says it’s a good job. We gonna live in a house and it’s gonna have a pool. But Eric looked at him all skeptical and said, You ain’t gonna have no pool.

  Lamont grinned and took a picture out of his pocket. In the picture, there was a pretty white house and you could see the blue water from the pool just in the edge of the picture because the pool was halfway behind the house. The pool was inside the ground. I’d never in my life knew anyone who lived in a house that had a pool inside the ground. That kind of stuff only happened on TV. Eric told Lamont that he was lying. That the picture wasn’t his house.

  Why you gotta hate? Lamont said, and he looked all hurt, like he couldn’t believe his boy wouldn’t believe he was gonna live in a pretty white house with a pool. That’s when Clyde told Eric that if Lamont says it’s his pool then it’s his pool. But Eric just looked mad.

  Lamont said when they got to Florida he was going to send us a picture of his whole family swimming in that pool. Then he looked at Eric, but Eric just started walking out of the park. I said that maybe Eric was being so mean because he was getting sick again. He has sickle-cell disease and that makes him real mean sometimes. I think because it hurts his body a lot. And it’s hard to be all nice and sweet when your body’s hurting.

  He ain’t sick, Lamont said.

  Nah, he ain’t, Clyde said. But I bet he’s hurting real bad.

  Lamont put the picture back in his pocket and told us it wasn’t like he asked his daddy to get the job. He said if it was up to him, he’d never leave Brooklyn.

  We all told him that we knew that and then he gave us all Bye, Dog hugs. Said, Y’all stay cool.

  We told Lamont to stay cool too and that day in the park was the last time we saw him.

  That’s why when Eric said that thing about everything being stupid today, I know he said it because he was missing his friend, but me and Angel and Clyde didn’t say nothing else back. I mean, what could we say? Some days I just think the whole world and life and everything is stupid. And that’s ’cause I be missing you.

  Love,

  Locomotion

  Dear Lili,

  Here’s the scoop—I like Miss Edna and I know you like your foster mama. So I was thinking that it’s like instead of our family getting smaller, it got bigger, right?

  When your foster mama brings you to see me tomorrow at the agency, we’re going to get to spend the whole afternoon together and Miss Edna said she’d take us to Junior’s so we could eat those big hamburgers and some cheesecake for dessert. I told her you don’t like cheesecake. (I bet you
thought I didn’t remember, huh!)

  Miss Edna was sitting there sewing a patch on my pants where I got a hole in the knee—she likes sewing. But she stopped sewing then and looked up at me like it was crazy to not like cheesecake. Then she said, Well I guess she’ll just get herself a piece of pie or an ice cream sundae, won’t she? And I smiled because I know how much you like ice cream.

  I watched Miss Edna sew that patch on my pants. She pulled the needle and dark blue thread real slow through the material, then stretched her arm all the way out until the thread stopped reaching. Then real slow she pushed it down into the material again. Over and over until the patch was tight against my jeans and it would take a lot of running and sliding and acting crazy to rip it off again. Miss Edna looked really peaceful. Like her mind was on something far away. Something that was making her happy—deep inside. I wondered if she was thinking about Jenkins. About the letter she’d gotten from him saying his tour was almost over and soon he’d be home from the war. I sat there wondering again why they called it a tour like you were going somewhere for a vacation instead of going somewhere to be in a war. I asked Miss Edna if Jenkins liked fighting.