The Stars Beneath Our Feet

At night, Lolly and four of his friends are eating fries, smoking, and talking about girls in St. Nicholas Park. Suddenly they see what looks like a grey and white wolf staring at them. Mohammed, one of Lolly’s friends, throws his bag of fries at it. As the animal eats them, they sneak away.

While they walk, Lolly looks it up—it was a coyote. The article says that coyotes have been coming to Washington Heights and Harlem from Westchester to look for a place to live and eat since humans are driving them out of their forests.

Lolly decides he won’t report their coyote to the police. He and his friends feel lucky and “excited and extra alive” to have seen it (94). The coyote deserves to be free just like everyone else.

Lolly has started to build a new, expanded version of the House of Moneekrom in the storage room in the community center. He calls it “[his] world” (95). Nobody in after-school except Vega knows what he is doing in the storage room. When he builds, he feels like Jermaine is in the room with him.

One day, when Ms. Jen forgets to lock the door to the storage room, Rose comes in and sees what he’s doing.