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them. Mr. Lord thinks we shouldn’t have mountain climbing until it becomes easy, maybe with escalators.
    Some people, Mr. Lord, see the rewards on the tops of the mountains and understand that those rewards will make life better for them. And some people, Mr. Lord, are struggling with burdens you can’t even imagine, and they struggle up the mountain hoping to find a life that they, and the people they love, can call normal.
    For some people, Mr. Lord, it is only the view from the mountaintop that will make us whole.

All Cruisers! All Cruisers! Get over to FDA NOW! They’re saying that Sagal can’t run the dash unless she strips down to shorts! Bring guns and ammo!
    â€” BOBBI MAC
    I had been thinking of going over to Frederick Douglass Academy to show the Da Vinci girls’ track team some love but I got myself sidetracked thinking about LaShonda’s problem. The thing was that I always thought that if you had a problem all you had to do was be smart enough and you could solve it. Now I was running into problems that looked as if it didn’t matter if you were smart because they didn’t have any good solutions.
    LaShonda’s problem was real and I didn’t see a solution to it. I could figure out what to do — if she didn’t want to be separated from her brother then she should stick to her game plan. That was all cool but it didn’t make things right because they were still poor and he was still needing her.
    When I got Bobbi’s text message I knew what that was about and I almost felt as if I didn’t want to go over to FDA. FDA kids thought they were so smart — most of them were — but they were constantly scoping out Da Vinci for a beat down. Everybody in the school leagues knew that Sagal, the anchor on the Da Vinci girls’ relay team, was a Muslim and couldn’t strip down to shorts, but nobody made an issue of it until they found out just how fast she was. The girl could run!
    Kambui comes up with a lot of lame sayings but when he talked about Sagal I thought maybe he had something going on. I met him in the train station at 148th Street and we walked toward FDA together.
    â€œSagal will fight them if they try to stop her from running,” Kambui said. He had his camera out and was filming everything. “And if she fights, I’m going to fight with her, man!”
    Yeah, right.
    Sagal Shehabi was born in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Her father made a living as an appliance repairman and her mother baked bread and sold it. Sagal was wounded in the fighting between Americans and the Taliban and to prove it had a really ugly scar that ran across her forehead, down alongside her nose, and across the tip of her chin. She was usually quiet and stayed to herself and you would have thought that she didn’t know anything. But her grades were good and she tried to blend in with the American girls. When she went out for the track team the other girls thought she didn’t understand what it meant because she showed up in loose-fitting pants and wore a hijab , which covered her hair. But when she ran they knew she had something serious going on.
    So me and Kambui showed our IDs downstairs and went up to FDA’s gym.
    â€œYo, Zander, you getting uglier!” I recognized Freddy Brandt sitting in the bleachers. He was in FDA’s band. “You looking like a sissy King Kong!”
    â€œAnd I can smell your breath from here!” I called back. “You need to stop rinsing your false teeth in the toilet bowl.”
    Mr. Weinstein, our athletic director, was on the gym floor talking to the FDA coach when I got over to them.
    â€œZander, go sit down!” Mr. Weinstein said.
    â€œI’m here to —”
    â€œGo sit down!” he yelled.
    I gave him a look, but I didn’t hold it too long because I really didn’t think he was wrapped too tight and he was built like he could knock you out with one punch.
    Bobbi found me