by Alba Delia Hernández

Edith was long and thick. Taller than any of us in our seventh-grade class. Her pants were always flared and her blouses were tight around her breasts and shoulders. She was shaped like a Christmas tree. She was quiet. Her hair was short and uneven with blunt edges that looked as if it had been chopped with a cleaver. She came to our seventh-grade class midyear, from Puerto Rico, spoke a little English and had the unfortunate endowment of gargantuan feet, size twelve. “Big Foot is coming,” some kids would say. “Thud, thud thud,” they’d laugh as she walked. I was mesmerized by her big feet but I never said anything bad to her.

Cynthia was the girl that all the boys liked. Flat stomach, buttocks bouncy like oversized water balloons. Her nails were always painted pink and her mother pressed her hair with an iron so that she had the look of a princess in Jordache jeans. But her mouth was not a fairy tale. Cynthia, the loud mouthed one, snapped her eyes in disagreement to just about anyone, even when they were agreeing with her.  “What you looking at?” “You got a problem with me? Then fix this problem, you ho.” She was the penultimate of “don’t fuck with me.” No one messed with her. We had never seen her in a fight      in our Junior High School in Bushwick, but word got around that she fought girls twice her size—two at a time— and had pinned down a boy until blood shot from his nose in her Coney Island elementary school.

Me, I was the messenger. I hung out with Cynthia because she made me laugh the way she would curse, her raspy laugh. And, since no one messed with her, by association, no one messed with me.  

Mr. Larkin, our science teacher, had a polished look to himself. Button down shirts, pressed polyester pants. Clean even nails. But he lacked good judgement.  Like when he decided to place Edith, the tallest girl in the class, in the front row middle seat, maybe because he thought she would learn better this way.  Edith’s  big head covered the middle of the Periodic Table of Elements. We had to stretch our necks to the right, then left to see. But even then, most of us could only see helium or hydrogen. Someone always had to say something about Edith’s big self being in the way. A few threw rolled up yellow juicy fruit gum wrappers at the back of her head. One day Cynthia threw her actual chewed up gum at Edith’s hair. Edith didn’t even turn around to touch her hair to see what had been thrown. 

Today’s lesson was on iridium and gold. Between his thumb and index finger, Mr. Larkin held a silver metal the size and shape of a coffee bean, like the ones my grandmother roasted in Puerto Rico. He passes it to us so that we can take a close look at it. “This element is rare on earth and most likely to have come from a meteorite. A flaming ball of fire powerful enough to have wiped out the terrifying dinosaurs.” I feel a little bad for Mr. Larkin, because most of us are talking over him and his kiddish excitement was beginning to wear off. “As for gold,” he continues, “who can tell me something you read about in last night’s homework about this metal?” Edith raises her hand and answers, “It’s the most ma ma mal...” Mr. Larkin helps her find the word, “Malleable, is that what you are trying to say?” Edith answers, “Yes, you can shape it into almost any form.” Edith’s answer makes Mr. Larkin sigh and smile.

The rest of the class, however, is still chattering louder than him or Edith. Cynthia is especially loud, still cracking up about throwing gum at Edith’s hair. “Cynthia!” Mr. Larkin shouts, “Can you please tell the class what is iridium’s atomic number? And gold’s atomic number?” His question is not really fair since Edith’s head is covering the center of the Table of Elements and that’s where gold and iridium are. “It was part of your homework reading,” he says as if to challenge my thoughts. Cynthia stops laughing, widens her eyes, but says nothing. “77,” says Edith. “Iridium’s atomic number is 77 and gold is 79.”  “Nobody asked you,” Cynthia snaps back.

When the bell rings, Mr. Larkin asks who has the iridium sample and we all say, “not me, not me.” He says he’s going to give us one more chance to fess up or else he’s calling security. We shrug our shoulders. Nobody fesses up so Mr. Larkin uses the phone against the wall to call security. A guard pats us all down, but the iridium metal was not found. Mr. Larkin should have known better than to have trusted us. What a lack of good judgement.

While I walked with Cynthia to our next class, Cynthia announced that she would fight Edith at three. She turned to me and directed me to let Edith know that the fight would happen in the back of the school near the handball courts. She took off her gold earrings and asked me to hold them.

 I had a rush of something evil in me. My heart raced, my face flushed like the time I read a nasty sex story underneath my covers. During recess, when I planned to tell Edith, I couldn’t find her. I couldn’t wait to deliver the news. My God, the power I had. I held information and in order for the communication to happen, I had to carry it in my own body. The news, the forewarning was quiet enough so the teachers didn’t find out, but contagious enough to have the whole school waiting outside the doors. The words, so delicious. I found Edith sitting on a locker room bench. “Cynthia’s gonna fight you at three, near the handball courts.” 

 “I know,” she said. I shrugged my shoulders, scrunched my face and sighed. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I didn’t say that part. I really wasn’t sorry. I loved every moment of delivering this news. 

 Edith didn’t say anything back to me. She walked away real slow, like she didn’t care anymore.

 During algebra, our sixth period class, there was a knock on the door.  To everyone’s surprise it was Cynthia’s mom. “Hurry up,” she told Cynthia, ”we’re going to be late to the doctor.”

 I looked at Kevin, Kevin looked at Jenny, Jessica looked at me and if eyes could talk, we all said, “What the fuck? What about the fight?” I whispered to Cynthia, “what about the fight?”

 “Tell Edith I’ll fight her tomorrow. I had no idea I had a doctor’s appointment.” 

 I found Edith in the library. She was sitting by herself with the White Pages open, her index finger and eyes sliding down a page. “Cynthia is sick,” I say. “She’s gonna fight you tomorrow, not today.”

 Edith slammed her hand on the open White Pages and stood up. “Tell Cynthia, I’m fighting her first thing tomorrow.” I’m caught off guard. “Tu ta segura? You sure you want me to tell her that? Tu está segura?” I asked in Spanish just in case she was just not understanding.

 “Yes, tell her that I will meet her in front of her building, 325 Troutman, right? I’ll be sitting on her stoop at 7:30 in the morning. Me entiende, verdad?” She closed the White Pages and slowly looked up at me as if she were counting one, two, three with her eyes. By the count of three I was off to deliver the news. 

 From Melrose, where I live, to Troutman is two blocks. The doors to Cynthia’s building have broken locks and are completely open. I walk up three flights of stairs and knock on Cynthia’s door. “Who’s there?” Cynthia’s Dad says. “So sorry, Mr. Garcia, but I have to talk to Cynthia.” “She’s not here. Tell me, I’ll give her the message.” If there’s something I’m sure about, it is that Cynthia’s Dad should not hear my news. He came back from a war all messed up and ready to fight even the sound of the wind. “Please tell Cynthia that Mr. Larkin wants us in school one hour early for science tutoring. Tell her that I’ll pick her up at 6:30 so we could go to school together.”

 It’s hard for me to be still when I get home. I watch TV with the family but I have cramps in my belly because I could not deliver my message to Cynthia. Something is going to go wrong.

 It’s 4 am and I am awake. By 6 I am taking a shower. By 6:30 I’m at the corner of her block on Knickerbocker and Troutman. I run to her. I am out of breath. “Edith wants to fight you. She’ll be here in half an hour.”

 The change in Cynthia’s face is priceless. Just like a kid who has been stripped of his cowboy gear. No gun for her to hold. No handcuffs to her right. “Here’s the vaseline. Get ready. Give me your earrings,” I tell her.

 “No,” she says, “let’s just go to school. I’ll fight her at three,” she says. I convince her to wait on the corner of Wilson and Troutman. “Let’s see if Edith really shows up,” I tell her. 

 A half hour passess, and Edith shows up and sits on Cynthia’s steps. Her big man-looking shoes tap the concrete.

 On the way to school Cynthia’s mouth is filled with fucks that have the impact of a butterfly against a window. 

 At school, when I see Edith, I tell her, “Cynthia is going to fight you at three.” She smiles at me and for the first time ever I notice she has a gold canine tooth.

 At three, Cynthia is ready and waiting outside. Edith walks out and ignores Cynthia. Cynthia taunts her with words like you scared bitch. Edith, who never did anything wrong, keeps walking. She keeps walking just looking down at the concrete all by herself and with her backpack. Her fake Sergio Valente jeans flattening her ass more than it already is. Edith crosses the street to the other side.

 Cynthia pounces on Edith’s back. Edith rolls up like a fetus while Cynthia punches her. Then out of nowhere a gold light emanates from Edith’s body.  And as if in a trance, Edith says, “God grant me gold, a pure sword of gold, and a fireball of iridium.” She stands and in the palm of her right hand a yellow juicy fruit wrapper becomes a sword of gold.  On her left, Mr. Larkin’s iridium pellet becomes a fire ball that knocks Cynthia to the ground.

 Cynthia begins to back up and away from Edith so fast that she falls and starts crawling backwards on her elbows and feet, her chest heaving fear. “Yo, get up and fight,” I hear someone say. But Cynthia gets up and runs away fast.

 At school nobody says anything about the fight. It’s an eerie quiet. I didn’t talk about it. But it changed me. I stopped thinking Cynthia couldn't be fucked with.

 Edith continued to sit in the front row in science class. Her big head and puffy hair still covered the center of the chalkboard so that we still can’t see the full Periodic Table of Elements. She held her head the way she wanted. She titled it to the left and to the right and no one dared to say anything mean to her anymore.

Alba Delia Hernández is a writer, inspired by Puerto Rico, growing up in Bushwick, and salsa, who dances in the hybrid forms of fiction and poetry. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University. Her writing was highly commended in Aunt Lute, Gathering of the Tribes Magazine and Poetry Project series ‘House Party,’ Like Light.  She received the Bronx Council of the Arts First Chapter Award. She’s read at el Museo del Barrio, Nuyorican Poets Café and La Respuesta in Puerto Rico. She’s a passionate yoga teacher, salsa dancer, and videographer who recites speeches by Puerto Rican revolutionaries or moves to songs of resistance. Currently, she teaches creative writing to students across New York City public schools with Teachers & Writers Collaborative and other organizations.