The Stars Beneath Our Feet

In after-school, Rose is “the biggest and tallest kid” who has “a watermelon head” (56). She stomps everywhere instead of walking and always has her upper lip tucked inside her bottom one. Rose had been thrown out of a lot of after-school programs. Lolly calls her “special” and nicknames her “Big Bad Rose” (56). She sits alone away from everyone else, reading and never speaking. No one talks to her. Lolly has never heard her say a word and wonders if she knows how. 

The community center is in lock down because a 14-year-old boy was shot nearby. Sunny heard it was because he slapped a girl who was dating a dealer.

The winter and snow are making Lolly even more miserable. The only thing that makes him happy is building the House of Moneekrom, but his mom is going to make him tear it down tonight. It makes him feel like he is losing control.

In another meeting with Mr. Ali, Lolly asks why Mr. Ali used to be angry at his father. Mr. Ali will tell him if Lolly first talks about his own anger. Mr. Ali asks Lolly about Daddy Rachpaul—Lolly should try to understand how hard it must be to lose a son. When Mr. Ali suggests it would be good for Lolly to get to know his dad better, Lolly gets mad. It isn’t his fault he doesn’t get to see his dad as much as he’d like—it’s his dad’s job as the father to make time to come see him.

Mr. Ali proposes Lolly and his dad could work on their relationship to help each other adjust to a world without Jermaine, but Lolly doesn’t want to be open. Nobody gets him or cares. 

Lolly walks quickly and vigilantly down 125th Street. Ever since Christmas Eve, he has felt unsafe. He always felt safe when Jermaine was alive.

In a shop called Tuma’s, he buys an African hat. He watches and waits for Tuma to finish selling hats to a group of white people, who live in “their own special places in Harlem” (62) where no Black people really go. Lolly doesn’t understand why they don’t get their hair cut at their barbershops and wonders if they think the barbers wouldn’t know how to cut their hair, or that Black people wouldn’t like them there. Lolly thinks they must like staying invisible.

Lolly gets back to his house. Being in the St. Nick houses on the 14th floor makes him feel better because he can look out at Central Harlem all lit up.

Lolly thinks about how Jermaine stopped talking to him before Halloween. He wishes he hadn’t done what he did. It is a bad memory. He wonders what it would feel like to fall over the ledge.

The narrative flashes back three years.

Jermaine is showing nine-year-old Lolly how to make pancakes, teasing him while they play-fight. Jermaine has just finished high school and is working at a barbershop with Rockit. Having money allows Jermaine to solve some problems at home. Tired of trying to read by candlelight after the power in their apartment went out and the managers didn’t fix it, Jermaine paid their neighbor Mrs. Jenkins to let them pass an extension cord between their apartments because her half of the building still had power. After paying Mrs. Jenkins, Jermaine even had money left over to get some groceries.

Lolly’s dad calls Jermaine a “sly genius“ (69). He playfully pins him against the fridge and tells him to fight back—he might be sly, but he needs to man up. This happens all the time. Lolly says it is boring. Lolly’s mom comes home. She is in a good mood because she just got a new job as a security guard.

Lolly wishes he had a job so he could help out like Jermaine, but when he asks if he can sweep the floors of the barbershop, Jermaine turns around so suddenly that hot oil whips off the spatula and flies into Lolly’s eye. Jermaine carries him to the sink, washes his eye, and then turns on Lolly, hard. He does not want to see him coming around the barbershop and makes him promise that he won’t go down there, no matter who tries to send him. Jermaine is sick of seeing Lolly all the time anyway.

Lolly cries, promises he won’t go, and runs to the bedroom. He spends the next hour building a pirate Lego set. This is Lolly’s first memory of getting relief from building Lego, which suck him into a different world connected to his dad and Jermaine.

In the present, Lolly thinks about how Mr. Ali told him to get to know his dad better, but he doesn’t really think that his dad wants him around.

In after-school, Vega tells Lolly that the kid who got shot at the bodega yesterday was his cousin Frito, but he’s okay. Harp and Gully, the older boys who keep following them, told Frito they want him to join their crew. Lolly looks at Vega’s texts all from different crews recruiting. Suddenly Mr. Ali grabs him and dangles him upside down. The other kids laugh while Mr. Ali carries him down the hallway to the storage room.

Lolly can’t help but laugh. Mr. Ali tells him if he sees him “celebrating ‘hood fame’ and grimy gang threats” again he will lock him in the storage room (77). While the other kids laugh at Vega cracking jokes, Lolly realizes that there is a lot of space in the storage room. By the time Mr. Ali opens the door, Lolly is so lost in thought he doesn’t even notice.

In after-school, Sunny hands out Valentines to everybody except Rose. It feels good to Lolly to see Rose get left out because if he isn’t happy, it’s fair that anyone else should be. Rose doesn’t even look up when Sunny makes a big show of handing out candy. She is in her own world, as usual.

Sunny and her best friend April E. have started a business called EDK Investigators, a detective agency. Their first mystery is to figure out what Lolly has been doing in the storage room all week.

When they get back to their homework, Lolly is surprised to see Sunny put a piece of Valentine’s candy in front of Rose. When Rose puts it in her mouth, she starts crying and moaning and runs to the water fountain. Sunny says that one was jalapeno flavored.

While Mr. Ali is yelling at Sunny, Lolly tells Mr. Ali he has finished his homework and wants to be let into the storage room. Lolly rushes off, excited.