Jason Reynolds

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author

Illustartions by Zeke Peña

Marvel

Miles Morales Suspended

A Spider-Man Novel

For Adrian

—J. R.

For Diego

—Z. P.

Perhaps I stand on the brink of a great discovery, and perhaps after I have made my great discovery I will be sent home in chains.

—Jamaica Kincaid, from Wingless

SPIDER FACT

It’s said

that nobody

is ever more

than ten feet

from a spider.

They be everywhere

you and me are.

And even though

we see them only

when they

big enough

to see, or when

they move,

like a cursor

across the blank white

page of a wall,

or when we trip

the web-like wire

of a booby trap,

or when they

fang our flesh,

we should probably

assume most

just be right there,

right here,

looking at us,

looking over them.

Miles Morales has had quite a week.

(QUITE A) WEEK IN REVIEW (SORT OF):

Last MONDAY, Miles received a letter from his cousin, Austin. From jail. Miles never even knew Austin existed. (More on this later.)

TUESDAY, Miles was accused of stealing sausages from his campus job. Yes… sausages. He was in the dean’s office with his parents, on the brink of expulsion. Fortunately, that didn’t happen. Phew. An extra life. (More on this later.)

Later that day, still angry about the accusation and disgusted by his racist history teacher, Mr. Chamberlain, Miles, unaware of his own strength, accidentally broke his desk in history class. But that’s as far as he went.

The next day, WEDNESDAY, Miles’s crush, Alicia Carson, also Black, also in Chamberlain’s class, also upset about the teacher’s racist rants, staged a protest in the middle of the history lesson and was suspended. (More on this later.)

SATURDAY, Miles’s father took him to a correctional facility to see Austin. (More on this later.)

That night, the school threw a Halloween party. Two things happened: (1) Miles made his move and gave Alicia a poem he’d written for her. And (2) Miles, full of suspicion—his Spidey Sense had been wonky all week—snuck away and discovered the villain of all villains, the Warden, who also happened to be connected to Miles’s history teacher. The racist one. (More on this later.)

SUNDAY, he defeated the Warden. (More on this later.)

When Miles got back to his dorm, his best friend and roommate, Ganke, gave him a poem left for him by Alicia. Yes, that Alicia. It was in response to the poem Miles had written her. (More on this later.)

MONDAY in history class, Mr. Chamberlain told Miles he had to sit on the floor—the floor!—the duration of the class since Miles had broken his desk a few days before. (More on this later.)

Miles refuses. (More on this now.)

ON DAYS LIKE TODAY (TUESDAY)

I wish I was:

looked over,

looked at,

looked in,

looked like.

Anything

other than

locked up.

Okay, not exactly locked up, but definitely locked in.

IN-SCHOOL SUSPENSION

I’m only here

for telling the truth.

I’m only here

because when you

upset or upstage or

upside-down

any authority figures,

like teachers who

can’t figure out who

you are but think

they know who you are,

and don’t know you

know who you are,

they name you a

bigmouth boy,

a trouble, a lie.

It could be said, depending on who you ask, that Miles is the bearer of good conscience. It could also be said that he’s a magnet for bad luck. What else would be the reason he landed himself in In-School Suspension after telling Mr. Chamberlain he was not going to put up with his crap anymore, besides telling Mr. Chamberlain he was not going to put up with his crap anymore? Well, that’s not exactly how Miles worded it, but it was definitely the gist of what he’d shouted. While sitting at the teacher’s desk. In the middle of class.

But who could blame the kid? Mr. Chamberlain had been disrespecting Miles all quarter and finally pushed him too far: tried to make him small by ordering him to sit on the floor—again… the floor!—to do his classwork. And Miles, drowning in embarrassment and fuming with anger, went off. Told Mr. Chamberlain he was not (1) a pincushion, or (2) a punching bag, or (3) a puppet, or (4) a pet, or (5) a pawn. None of those things.

But the truth about Brooklyn Visions Academy is that, here, sometimes Miles felt like all those things.

MY BROOKLYN

And even though

I am a bigmouth boy

and can be trouble,

I ain’t no troublemaker

and I ain’t no lie.

And just because I’m

at this fancy school,

Brooklyn Visions Academy,

don’t mean I ain’t the

vision of a different Brooklyn

where we talk loud enough

to be heard over car horns

on Fulton Street, or the grind

of the A train against the rails,

or the sirens, red, white, and blue

lights flashing in our eyes.

Little girls flash smiles at

their flashy older sisters,

doobie-wrapped and

trash-talking geniuses in

tights and sneaks. Little boys

flash middle fingers because

it’s funny, and their older

brothers’ lives flash before

their eyes before their time.

And the sidewalk’s like a runway

for whatever’s fly at the moment,

and also the possibility

we just might lift off and

take flight at any time.

There was a stark difference between Miles’s school and his block. Brooklyn Visions Academy was a boarding school or, as Miles called it, a bored-ing school, which meant the students actually stayed on campus. Ate there. Slept there. Which meant they lived at school, a concept only a lunatic could’ve come up with. Of course, this was also the basic premise of college, which technically was what this school was supposed to be preparing its students for. A pipeline. But Miles was sixteen, and at sixteen, nothing sounds worse than living at school. Especially when you’re from where Miles is from.

MY BLOCK

Morning is for the birds.

And the buses.

And the occasional

chunky heel clacking

toward the workday.

And the call to prayer.

And the raucous rattle

of security gates lifting.

And eyelids lifting to meet

a sun that barely breaks

the brownstone roofline.

Everything orange.

Afternoon is for the birds.

The pigeons picking at

pizza and leftover heroes.

Crosswalks like drawbridges

for the fresh-outta-school

and the old ladies coming

from rubbing pennies

against scratch-offs before

the kids rule the bodega,

buggin’ out, talking tough

like smiles are a dead giveaway,

but not juice stains or barrettes.

Night. Is for the birds.

On Miles’s block there was Ms. Shine, a woman who faithfully got up every day to water the flowers she’d carefully planted in beds in front of her house. Everyone knew she was waiting for her son, Cyrus, to return home, though no one knew where he’d gone. Somewhere high, somewhere low. And Mr. Frankie, the block’s handyman, always covered in dust or paint. A walking abstract art piece. And Fat Tony, who sat on his stoop all day bumming cigarettes and stealing lighters. Only dude in the neighborhood with a basset hound. And a young woman named Frenchie who managed the dollar store like it was a million-dollar store. Or her son, Martell, who was probably one of the best ball players in Brooklyn. At least that’s what Frenchie hoped. Or Neek, who had seen more than anyone would ever know—war, real war—and peeked at the block through the blinds of his apartment as if waiting for a tank to roll by.

And, of course, Rio and Jeff, Miles’s mom and dad.

HOME

My mother

keep a bodega

hanging off her shoulder.

And I swear my pop’s

the chin-up champ.

I’m from them.

I’m from there.

That’s my Brooklyn,

and I’m Miles

away from home.

Miles was the perfect combination of them both. His mother’s ability to make much out of the minuscule, his father’s ability to keep his head up regardless of the weight he kept tucked under his Yankee fitted.

Boricua and Black and Brooklyn as hell.

HERE

Ain’t no uniforms here, but this school

still feels buttoned-up button-up. Still

feels like a button-down collar, a blazer too tight

in the shoulders, all structure, no place

for movement. No wiggle room or flare or flavor.

This school feels like loafers in lockstep,

even though I’m more sneakers, loose laced,

tongue out, scholarship-bopping like

one foot on the sidewalk, and one in the street.

Most days I just wear a T-shirt and hoodie,

and it still feels like a tie around my neck,

with the Windsor knot my father taught me

to tie for church. But his way always

leaves space to undo the top button

and breathe some. But not here. Not at

this school. Here, the knot, though invisible,

is tight tight and pressed right up

against my voice box so I can barely

speak. And if I do say something, every

word gotta fight its way outta me,

outta my oil slick of a neck, because they be

sweating and sweating me like I ain’t cool.

Yes, Boricua and Black and Brooklyn as hell, but that didn’t necessarily mean Miles was oozing with what some of the men in his neighborhood had. What his dad and his uncle Aaron had. Guys like them seemed to have subway tracks running down their forearms. Cab smoke in their lungs. The types of fellas who styled and smiled like they were addicted to floss, whose hands curved just the right way for dap to feel and look and sound like an extension of their natural hi.

That wasn’t Miles. He had something, for sure. But not that.

AND FORREAL, I AIN’T COOL

But I am me.

Before here.

Before the hallways

and the bunkbeds.

Before the millions of

million-pound textbooks.

Before the delicious food (pizza)

and the disgusting food (pizza with pineapple).

Before the passionate teachers

and the paychecked terrors,

and even the spider bite,

and the itchy scar it left behind.

I been me.

Been.

However, Miles did have something cool about him. He might not have called it that, but Ganke definitely would’ve. And the evidence of it was an irritated hand. A dime-size scar, slightly raised.

You probably already know the story, but in case