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By Root 525 0

the fifth grade, so my day was divided into periods, with different teachers and classrooms for each. For the first period, I had West Virginia history. History was one of my favorite subjects. I was coiled and ready to raise my hand as soon as the teacher asked a question I could answer, but he stood at the front of the room next to a map of West Virginia, with all fifty-five counties outlined, and spent the entire class pointing to counties and asking students to identify them. In my second period, we passed the hour watching a film of the football game that Welch High had played several days earlier. Neither of those teachers introduced me to the class; they seemed as uncertain as the kids about how to act around a stranger.

My next class was English for students with learning disabilities. Miss Caparossi started out by informing the class that it might surprise them to learn some people in this world thought they were better than other people. “They’re convinced they’re so special that they don’t need to follow the rules other people have to follow,” she said. “like presenting their school records when they enroll in a new school.” She looked at me and raised her eyebrows meaningfully. “Who thinks that’s not fair?” she asked the class.

All the kids except me raised their hands.

“I see our new student doesn’t agree,” she said. “Perhaps you’d like to explain yourself?”

I was sitting in the second-to-last row. The students in front of me swiveled their heads around to stare. I decided to dazzle them with the answer from the Ergo Game.

“Insufficient information to draw a conclusion,” I said.

“Oh, really?” Miss Caparossi asked. “Is that what they say in a big city like Phoenix?” She pronounced it. “Feeeeenix.” Then she turned to the class and said in a high, mocking voice. “Insufficient information to draw a conclusion.”

The class laughed violently.

I felt something sharp and painful between my shoulder blades and turned around. The tall black girl with the almond eyes was sitting at the desk behind me. Holding up the sharp pencil she had jabbed into my back, she smiled the same malicious smile I’d seen in the playground.

I looked for Brian in the cafeteria at lunchtime, but fourth-graders were on a different schedule, so I sat by myself and bit into the sandwich Erma had made for me that morning. It was tasteless and greasy. I pulled apart the two slices of Wonder bread. Inside was a thin smear of lard. That was it. No meat, no cheese, not even a slice of pickle. Even so, I chewed slowly, staring intently at my bite marks in the bread to delay as long as possible the moment I would have to leave the cafeteria and go out to the playground. When I was the last student left in the cafeteria, the janitor, who was putting the chairs on the tabletops so the floor could be mopped, told me it was time to go.

Outside, a thin mist hung in the still air. I pulled the sides of my lamb’s wool coat together. Three black girls, led by the one with the almond eyes, started moving toward me as soon as they saw me. A half-dozen other girls followed. Within moments, I was surrounded.

“You think you better than us?” the tall girl asked.

“No,” I said. “I think we’re all equal.”

“You think you as good as me?” She punched at me. When, instead of raising my hands in defense, I kept clutching my coat closed, she realized it had no buttons. “This girl ain’t got no buttons on her coat!” she shouted. That seemed to give her the license she needed. She pushed me in the chest, and I fell backward. I tried to get up, but all three girls started kicking me. I rolled away into a puddle, shouting for them to quit and hitting back at the feet coming at me from all sides. The other girls had closed in a circle around us and none of the teachers could see what was going on. There was no stopping those girls until they’d had their fill.

W HEN WE ALL GOT home that afternoon, Mom and Dad were eager to hear about our first day.

“It was good,” I said. I didn’t want to tell Mom the truth. I was in no mood to hear one of her lectures about the