Dee almost snorted, but held it back. Boys said things like that about girls all the time. Why was this time any different?
As if reading her thoughts, Blanca dropped her hands and added, “He said it so loud, in front of all the girls. In front of fourth graders! It’s so embarrassing! And now that Casper’s hit him, everyone’s talking about it. And they’re all going to think I’m trashy!”
“Blanca, it’s Casper you should be worried about,” Dee retorted. “He’s the one who may be suspended.” She could not imagine what it must be like to be suspended; her own school record was unblemished, as Casper’s had been until now. Blanca, she recalled, was suspended in fifth grade for wearing hip-huggers to school that showed off not only her belly button but her hip bones too. Only students like Rod had been suspended regularly, for throwing rocks or setting fire to leaves on the playground.
Blanca was looking at her strangely. “What happened to your braids?” She must have been recovering to ask such a thing.
“Osei wanted to see my hair loose,” Dee replied, embarrassed. The braids had made her hair wavy, and it sprang out from her head like a hippie’s. Her mother would be angry if she saw it. Dee would have to rebraid it before she went home.
“By the way, Dee, you dropped your—” Mimi broke off as Ian approached.
“You all right, Blanca?” he said.
Blanca wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I am upset,” she replied, mustering a dignity that made Dee want to smile because it was so out of keeping with her usual ebullience. “And I’m worried about Casper,” she added. “He might be suspended!”
“Rod’s an idiot,” Ian said. “It’s just a shame what Casper did. No one will trust him now—not even his friends. Like your boyfriend.” He nodded at Dee.
“What do you mean?”
“He was really shocked. Casper had been so nice to him—you know, he didn’t have to be nice to a bl—a new boy. So O doesn’t know what to think now he’s seen Casper’s other side.”
“Casper doesn’t have an ‘other side’!” Dee protested.
“Tell that to your boyfriend, then, ’cause he’s confused.”
“I will.”
Mimi was frowning at Ian. Dee had been surprised when she’d found out they were going together. They were so different: Mimi was unusual, sensitive; Ian—well, he was a bully, though he had never bothered Dee except for once in third grade when he had smeared paste on her skirt and told her he was going to chase her home, and even then it had felt almost like he was going through a list and being mean to everyone, one by one.
Now it bothered her that Ian seemed to have inside information about Osei. While Dee approved of her boyfriend becoming friends with Casper, seeing him talking to Ian had made her uneasy. Dee didn’t dislike Ian, exactly, but she didn’t trust him either.
This made her more determined to talk to O about Casper. He would be much better off hanging out with Casper than with Ian. She would reassure him that Casper’s hitting Rod was out of character, that he had done it to defend Blanca. O would understand that, she was sure. He too was honorable.
She left Mimi and Blanca and Ian to get in line. A few other classmates were standing behind Osei, but without a word they stepped back to let her in. She smiled at O, and was startled when he didn’t return it, his expression stern. He must be wondering about Casper, she thought. At least this I can fix.
“Don’t worry,” she reassured him. “I bet they won’t suspend Casper. Once they hear what Rod said about Blanca…” she trailed off, stunned by the ugly look that flashed across O’s face.
“Why would I be worried about Casper?”
“Well, he’s a friend.”
“Of yours, maybe. Not of mine.”
“Of course he’s your friend!”
O grimaced. “Dee, I have been here for one morning. No one is my friend.” He softened when he saw her face fall. “Well, you, of course. But I do not know anyone else enough to be friends with them. I am the new boy—the new black boy. I will be lucky to get through the day without getting beaten up.”
“You’re exaggerating. The teachers wouldn’t let that happen.”
Osei sighed. “Dee, I am going to tell you a story about teachers. When I was at school in New York, a teacher asked me to give a report on Ghana to the class. Not just a short report like what I did for your class this morning, but longer. I was to report on its history, its culture, what crops it produces and exports. All of the facts, you see. So I gathered information. Some of it I knew anyway, and I also went to the library and read about it, and I asked my parents too. And then I gave the report. And do you know what grade the teacher gave me for all that work? A D! If she could have given me an F I think she would have, but you get an F when you do not do the work at all, and I had clearly done the work.”
“Why did she give you a D?”
“She thought I was making up some of it.”
“What were you making up?”
“I did not make up any of it! Part of my report was about slavery. You know many Ghanaians were captured by slave traders and taken to America and the West Indies.”
“I—yes,” Dee answered, because it was easier to. She had not known slaves came from Ghana, though they had probably been taught it and she had forgotten. “So…that’s not made up, what you said.”
“No. But I also explained that there were chiefs of tribes who made deals with the white traders and handed over some of their people in order for the rest of the tribe to be left alone. And the teacher thought I was lying, and gave me a D. She even called me a racist against my own people.”
“So that’s true? The chiefs did that?” Dee tried to hide her surprise.
“Yes, yes, but that is not the point.”
“What did you do? Did you get your parents to speak to her?”
Osei did not answer for a moment, a grim smile crossing his face. “It was my father who suggested I tell the class about the tribal chiefs, to make the story more balanced, so that they would not feel so bad about the slavery part. To be diplomatic. I said nothing to my parents. I was not going to tell him what happened to his diplomacy. So you see, even the teachers are not on my side, but are looking for ways to trip me. I cannot trust teachers, or students.”
“That’s not true! You can trust me. You can trust Mimi—she’s my best friend.” Dee pushed from her mind the warning Mimi had given her about going with O. “And you can trust Casper,” she added.
“Why do you say him? He just gave someone a black eye for no reason.”
“He did have a good reason for hitting Rod—he was defending Blanca. I bet you would too, if someone said the things about me that were said about her.”