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look.”
    “Exactly,” the nun says. “Anyway, an example of bad karma. Go.”
    “I don’t have one,” I say between clenched teeth.
    “Oh, I’m quite sure you have a few.”
    The thing is, having the mom I do, I have a lot of experience with people saying not-so-nice things to me, eitherblatantly or in a backhanded way. But I still manage to give them the benefit of the doubt. So I take a few seconds to process the nun’s words. Who knows, maybe she didn’t mean them the way they came out. But then I look around the class and see some kids giggling, and I see Keisha’s “Oh no she didn’t” expression, and I know what I heard is actually what that nun said.
    Now, I’ve always been a little suspicious of Sister Margaret Theresa Patricia Bernadette, and it’s not just because she has four first names and she makes us call her by all of them. Not just Sister Margaret. Not Sister Margaret Theresa. Not Sister Mags Terry Pat. It has to be Sister
Margaret Theresa Patricia Bernadette
. And even though servants of the Lord are supposed to be caring and compassionate and nonjudgmental, this woman’s just plain mean and petty. Case in point: the bizarre beauty contest she had all us girls take part in a few weeks back—which of course Charlene won even though it wasn’t supposed to be a test of outward beauty. Something about examining the virtues of prudence, justice, restraint, courage, faith, hope, and charity. Still, Sister was judge and jury, and somehow all the pretty girls ended up on top while the girls like me ended up down at the bottom. I mean, what the hell does beauty have to do with religion class, anyway? I’m completely convinced Sister is Satan’s kin.
    “An example of bad karma,” I say. “Okay. Well, I did cut Mass one time and used my offering money for soda and chips. And now I’ve been put in a horrible religion class with a crazy, frustrated, mean old nun.”
    I see Keisha quickly look away. There is mostly silence. But then someone in the back of the class laughs. Satan’s daughter does not. Her face just becomes rock hard. She stares at me awhile, like she’s trying to figure out whether she should turn me into a pillar of salt like Lot’s wife and risk blowing her demonic cover. But instead, she walks back over to the blackboard and stands next to the word
karma
again.
    “Let’s talk about karma as it relates to Christianity,” she says. “Proverbs eleven eighteen. ‘The wicked man earns deceptive wages.…’ ” She fixes her eyes on me as she says this, then turns to Charlene as she adds, “ ‘But he who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward.’ ”

The minute school
is over, I’m flying through the hallways like a bat out of hell. I hardly even shoot a second glance at Anthony “Curvy” Miller—my future husband in the event that Michael Jackson is unavailable. I dash through the doors and run out into the streets of Crown Heights, trying to make it to the bus stop, almost taking out a Hasidic boy who’s not watching where he’s going.
    “Sorry!” I yell as his black hat goes blowing down the street.
    But there’s no bus to be found, and I have all this karma crap floating around in my head, and I know there’s something I have to do or I’ll just burst, so I take to running past the main library and alongside the gated-off Botanic Garden. I glimpse the Ebbets Field apartments as I get to Empire Boulevard, where Flatbush and Ocean Avenues intersect. The smell of cheese and garlic and sauce bursts from Antonio’s Pizzeria as someone opens the door to go in. I decide to go down Ocean Avenue, where I take turns fast-walkingand running through Prospect Park. A guy strolls toward me holding a giant, mailbox-sized boom box on his shoulder. It’s covered with a black plastic garbage bag, to protect it from the weather, I guess. The thing must weigh at least a hundred pounds. I don’t know how he doesn’t get a cramp in his arm. And I really don’t know how he