At last—something that worked. O stood a little straighter, the better to step into his role as noble, protecting boyfriend. “I would give them two black eyes.”
Dee slid her hand into his and laced their fingers together as they moved forward with the line to head up to their classroom. “Then you’ll understand why we have to support Casper. He didn’t do anything wrong.”
O seemed to slump, and made to pull his hand away, but Dee held on to it—until Mr. Brabant frowned at her and shook his head. If she weren’t careful she too might be suspended. She let go of O’s hand.
As she followed him up the stairs to their classroom, her teacher stopped her. Dee wanted to call out to Osei to stop too, but Mr. Brabant might tell them both off for holding hands. She knew he didn’t like the new boy and would use any opportunity to show it.
But Mr. Brabant surprised her. “What has happened to your hair?” he demanded.
“Oh! I—I took out the braids.” Dee blushed. Mr. Brabant had never said anything about her hair; but then, he had not had reason to. Until now, she had kept it bound up and tidy.
“It looks messy.”
Dee opened her mouth to apologize, then stopped, recalling her earlier defiance on the playground with Mr. Brabant. “It’s not against the dress code to wear my hair like this.”
Mr. Brabant frowned. “No, but it’s not like you.”
Dee shrugged. “I like it this way.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.” Actually it tickled her neck and kept getting in her mouth, but Dee was not going to tell him that.
“That’s a shame, because it doesn’t suit you. Trust me.”
Dee hung her head, not wanting to meet her teacher’s eye. She felt as if she were being told off by her father.
“All right. Go on up to the classroom.”
Dee hurried away, holding back a shudder.
At their desks, she could not help glancing at Casper’s empty seat at the cluster of desks next to hers, hoping he would magically reappear. She could hear Blanca, sniffing back tears across the room, taking advantage of a new setting in which to play out her drama.
“That’s enough, Blanca,” Mr. Brabant said. “Settle down. Let’s leave playground events out of the classroom. Now, pop quiz on the American presidents. Get out your pencils. Osei, you can take it too, though I won’t record your grade. It will show you where your gaps of knowledge are so that you can start filling them. You may only be in my class for a month, but it won’t be wasted time.”
Dee frowned. She wanted to chide him for assuming O wouldn’t know about American presidents just because he was African. She wished she could stand up for her boyfriend the way Casper had stood up for Blanca. But she couldn’t, not after how Mr. Brabant had just spoken to her. Besides, Osei didn’t seem bothered by the assumption: he simply nodded and brought her Snoopy pencil case out from his desk, surprising her for a moment until she remembered their swap.
She reached into her bag and came up with—nothing. She rummaged around, pushing aside books, a cardigan, a pack of tissues, a little bag of jacks. No strawberry case. She opened her desk lid, knowing it wasn’t there but looking anyway. She could feel O’s eyes on her.
“Can I borrow a pencil?” she whispered.
“Don’t you have the strawberry case?”
“I do.” Dee answered too quickly, she knew, and tried to pace her next words. “I took it home at lunch and must have left it there. In fact, I remember now—I showed it to my mother. It’ll be on the kitchen table.”
She would never have shown the case to her mother, who would have said it was too frivolous and taken it away. Dee had had to keep the Snoopy case hidden for that reason.
As she took the pencil Osei offered, she found she couldn’t look him in the eye. Already she’d told him her first lie.
Teddy bear, teddy bear Turn around
Teddy bear, teddy bear Touch the ground Teddy bear, teddy bear Show your shoe Teddy bear, teddy bear That will do
Teddy bear, teddy bear Go upstairs
Teddy bear, teddy bear Say your prayers Teddy bear, teddy bear Turn out the light Teddy bear, teddy bear Say good night!
Mimi pulled Ian aside as they were heading out to afternoon recess. He was not expecting her to do such a thing. She was not the type to initiate—and in front of their classmates. Separating him from the rest like that made him look weak and out of control. It was the sort of thing he should do to her, to show everyone who was in charge. Annoyed, he stood apart from her in the hall. “What?” If he didn’t get out to the playground quickly, the kickball teams would form without him being captain.
“I wanted to say something.” Mimi had that soft look girls got when they wanted to talk about their feelings. Ian shuddered. That was the last thing he needed right now.
He cut her off. “Did you get something of Dee’s?”
Mimi paused and ran her tongue over her braces, clearly thrown off the track she had been about to head down. She was looking pinched and unhappy, and her face was blotchy. “I did.” She continued to hesitate.
“Well? What did you get?”
Mimi pulled from her bag a pink plastic rectangle with strawberries dotted on it.
“What the hell is that?” Ian demanded. “It’s ugly, whatever it is.” His tone made her cringe, which was what he wanted—it put him back in the driver’s seat.
“It’s Osei’s—the new boy’s pencil case. He gave it to Dee. She accidentally dropped it and I picked it up. I know you said you wanted something Casper gave to Dee, but will this do instead?”
Ian’s attention swung onto the pencil case like a spotlight moving to rest on a character onstage. Mimi shifted uneasily. He smiled. This was exactly the right thing, and she had no idea that it was. Mimi did not think strategically like him. She had no understanding of the playground and how it worked, and how disturbing the appearance of a boy like O could be to its natural order. It wouldn’t occur to her to try to fix things the way Ian was going to. Really she should be thanking him.
“Who knows you have it?”
“No one.”
“Good.” Ian held out his hand. “Give it to me.”
There was a long pause as Mimi stood, holding the pencil case and looking like a trapped animal—an animal that has willingly walked into the trap and now regrets it. Ian waited patiently; in the end she would give it to him.
But first came the bargaining, which he had not expected, nor what she asked for. “I don’t want to go with you anymore,” she said. “I’ll only give it to you if you agree to break up with me, and leave me alone.” Her face was full of misery—a long way from the pink cheeks and flare of interest by the flagpole a few days before.