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Summary
Chapter Twenty-Two
Bri calls Aunt Pooh immediately after the robbery. Aunt Pooh and Scrap hurry to the scene. Bri tells Aunt Pooh that the Crown pointed the gun in her face. When Aunt Pooh hears this, she resolves to get revenge and signals to Bri and Malik to get in the car. Malik doesn’t want to go with Aunt Pooh, saying he’ll walk home. Bri asks Malik not to tell Aunt ‘Chelle (his mother) about the robbery because she is afraid Aunt ‘Chelle will tell Jay. Malik warns Bri that going after the Crown is dangerous, but Bri gets angry and yells at him.
Bri gets in the car with Aunt Pooh and Scrap. She thinks they are going to track down the Crown and get the chain back, but Pooh drops her off at home instead. Bri realizes that Aunt Pooh plans to murder the Crown and is trying to protect Bri from retaliation. Then Bri realizes that Aunt Pooh herself could get killed or go to jail. She tries to convince Pooh not to go after the Crown, but it’s too late. Just before she drives away, Pooh tells Bri she could have called Jay or Trey or the police if she wanted a different kind of “help” after the robbery. She says Bri called her because she knew Pooh would “handle” the Crown.
Bri thinks about what will happen to the Crown’s family if Aunt Pooh kills him. She speculates that he will have people mourning him, just like Bri and her family mourned Lawless. She also thinks about how Aunt Pooh will be portrayed publicly if she’s caught: as a murderer, not as a beloved person. Terrified that she could lose Aunt Pooh, Bri begins to cry.
In the morning, Jay comes and checks on Bri in her bedroom. When they start to make breakfast, they discover that the power has been shut off, even though the electric company said they would give Jay more time to pay the bill.
Chapter Twenty-Three
On the bus to and from school, Bri can’t stop checking her phone, counting the hours since she last heard from Aunt Pooh. To distract themselves from their problems, Jay, Trey, and Bri play a card game. They are interrupted by Bri’s grandparents, who show up at the apartment after hearing about Bri’s song and the negative media attention. When they find out that the power is off and that Jay is on food stamps, Grandma demands that Bri come back to live with them. Bri refuses. Granddaddy gives the family some money to get the power turned back on.
Supreme calls and tells Bri that he got her a spot on DJ Hype’s extremely popular national hip-hop radio show. Bri feigns excitement, but all she can think about is Aunt Pooh.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The school holds a PTA meeting with the superintendent to discuss the issues with the security guards and bringing cops into the school. Students from the coalition are at the meeting, holding protest signs. Malik and Bri sit on opposite sides of the auditorium. Malik is still angry, and they have not spoken since the robbery.
As students and parents with varying opinions talk to the white superintendent, he repeatedly stonewalls, claiming he can’t give information because of an ongoing investigation. Shana speaks up on behalf of the coalition. She points out that the school gets grant money to bus in students of color from other neighborhoods. She implies that the district uses these students to get money but doesn’t treat them like other students.
Jay takes the microphone and tells the story of Bri’s assault by Long and Tate. She sets the record straight and says that Bri was never a drug dealer, that she was only selling candy. The crowd erupts in applause. After the meeting, Dr. Cook and Jay talk privately, and Dr. Cook apologizes for failing Bri. The apology touches Bri. Dr. Cook praises Jay for overcoming addiction and admits that he too is a recovering addict. Dr. Cook invites Jay to apply for a job as a secretary in his office.
Analysis
Bri’s response to the robbery signals that her angry, violent rap persona has begun to dominate her character. For most of the novel, Bri adamantly defends her violent lyrics by claiming that she is merely condemning the racist stereotypes that cause people to misunderstand her. But Bri’s conscious decision to call Aunt Pooh and incite her to revenge suggests that Bri is beginning to adopt the violent, vengeful mindset of her rap persona, which is also personified in the character of Aunt Pooh. When Aunt Pooh asks Bri about the robbery, Bri deliberately crafts her response in a way that she knows will light the “spark” of Pooh’s fury. Bri knows full well how Aunt Pooh will “handle” this situation, and she realizes too late that her actions could put Aunt Pooh, or herself, in danger. Bri could lose Aunt Pooh to prison or to gang violence, and she herself could become an accessory to murder.
After Aunt Pooh leaves, Bri feels immediate remorse for wanting the Crown dead, and feels isolated and cut off from her family. When she imagines the Crown’s death, it stirs up traumatic memories of Lawless’s death: how her mother was destroyed, her grandparents heartbroken, her brother full of rage, and Bri herself left alone, without her father’s guidance and support. When Bri thinks about how the Crown’s family will mourn him after his death, she is tormented by the implications of her actions. But she continues to bear this burden alone. When she rejoins her family in the apartment, she pretends everything is fine in front of Jay and Trey. When Jay senses that something is wrong, Bri decides to hide the fact that the chain has been stolen and that she “ordered” the Crown’s murder. Bri’s feelings of overwhelming guilt are clear when she admits to the reader that she is “piling up secrets” from Jay, not wanting to “break her heart.”
Jay’s impassioned defense of Bri at the PTA meeting is steeped in irony given Jay’s ignorance of all Bri’s secrets. Jay effectively shames Dr. Cook for his bureaucratic stonewalling and paints Bri as an innocent child who was unjustly targeted and manhandled for the so-called crime of selling candy at school. She forcefully argues that Bri is hardly an “aggressive” or threatening person, and that her past suspensions and other punishments have been unjust and unfair. She echoes Bri’s own justification of the violent lyrics in “On the Come Up” as a response to the violence that Bri herself has suffered. In the meeting, Dr. Cook attempts to deflect Jay’s arguments with polite non-answers and legalese, but when Jay successfully confronts him and gets a private meeting, she manages to extract an actual apology for the school’s failure. Dr. Cook’s openness in the private setting contrasts sharply with his public evasiveness. When he compliments Jay on her sobriety and confides that he too is a recovering addict, he demonstrates an ability to look past labels and stereotypes, which shocks Bri as well as Jay. His subsequent job offer to Jay demonstrates that his intentions are genuine and that he is not the enemy his public persona would suggest.
