New Boy

by Tracy Chevalier

  Ian could have said more, but there was no time—Dee had spotted O and was rushing across the playground to him. “I managed to come back early,” she said when she got to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I told my mother there was a rehearsal for the end-of-the-year play, and she believed me!” Dee had the incredulous tone of someone who is not used to lying and is surprised that it worked. “Hey, maybe you can be in the play too.”

  “What are you doing?” O asked.

  “Shakespeare—A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We’ve been rehearsing for a while, but there are lots of parts. You could be a fairy, or one of the peasants putting on a play.”

  “What part are you playing?”

  “Hermia—one of the lead girls.”

  “Doesn’t she fall in love with one boy after another?” Ian interjected. “She’s fickle like that. Lucky boys.”

  “Only because of what you do. It’s just magic,” Dee explained, as O’s face darkened. “It’s a comedy, so it turns out all right at the end.”

  “Who do you play?” O demanded of Ian.

  “He plays Puck,” Dee said. “The head fairy who makes all the mischief happen. Now, look what I’ve got.” She held up a paper bag. “Strawberries! The first of the season. I brought some for you.”

  “Only for me?”

  “I didn’t know if you’d had them before. Do they grow strawberries in Ghana?”

  “I have had them—in New York, in Europe. Not Ghana.”

  “Well, try one. You won’t believe how sweet they are.” Dee reached into her bag and held out a glistening strawberry, bright red, in a perfect heart shape.

  “I am not hungry.”

  Dee laughed. “I eat strawberries because I like the taste. Doesn’t matter if I’m hungry.”

  Ian was watching with satisfaction. The simple power of his words had transformed the black boy into a cold statue, the white girl hanging off him, carried along by the giddiness of her emotions so that she seemed willfully unaware of any change in her boyfriend. Ian waited to see the hurt enter her like a knife.

  But then, O relaxed. “All right.” He took the strawberry, grasped it by the leaves, and bit into it. After a moment he smiled. “Wow. That is good. Very good. Your mother grows these?”

  Puzzled surprise crossed Dee’s face, mingling with the pleasure she’d had at O’s response. “How did you know that?”

  Ian stepped forward. “Can I try one?”

  “Oh. Sure.” As Dee pulled a strawberry from the bag and dropped it into his outstretched hand, Ian studied O. His smooth brow furrowed again, those lines deepening as Ian bit into the strawberry and let the juice run down to his chin. It was good, Ian could tell, even though he was not fond of strawberries, or anything sweet.

  “Did Casper like his strawberries too?” he asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Dee frowned, matching her boyfriend. “Yes. Come on, let’s go over to the trees.” She directed this only to O, taking his hand and pulling him toward the sandpit and the cypress trees, leaving Ian alone.

  Not for long, though: Rod scuttled over from where he had been waiting by the arm wrestlers on the pirate ship. “Did it work?” he asked, his longing look following the couple. “It doesn’t look like it did!”

  Ian considered O and Dee, holding hands under the trees as she fed him another strawberry; and Casper, watching Blanca with a proprietary air as she jumped Double Dutch. They were like characters in a play who needed an extra scene, a thread to pull them tight. And Ian held that thread. It would be satisfying to take them all down—not just the black boy, but the golden boy and golden girl of the school too. Casper and Dee were like the Teflon pan his mother used to fry eggs in—nothing stuck to them. He had never been able to touch them—they were on a level above Ian’s kind of activity. Everyone admired them in a way he would never experience. It would be an end-of-school present to himself if he could conquer them. Of course, there was a clear danger that he could fall with them; but the risk of that was as exhilarating as the power he wielded.

  He glanced at Rod, so eager to take part, and made a quick decision. “Go over to Casper and say something to him to make him hit you,” he improvised. “But don’t say anything about me telling you to if the teachers ask you afterward. Which they will.”

  Rod’s mouth dropped open. “What? Why? I don’t want to get hurt! And what does Casper have to do with it, anyway?”

  “It’s indirect—the best way. The black boy won’t know you or I have anything to do with it.”

  “To do with what?”

  “We need him to think Dee is two-timing him with Casper. The best way to do that is to get Dee to talk about Casper a lot to O. To defend him. It’ll drive O crazy. He’s already a little suspicious of Casper. This will push him over the edge.”

  Rod shook his head as if dazed. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about—it’s too complicated. Why don’t we just hit the black boy?”

  “Because that won’t accomplish anything. You don’t want him being the victim—it will just make Dee like him more.” Ian was having a hard time explaining a strategy he had not fully figured out himself, but felt in his gut would work. He had always been a good judge of such things. “Look, you want a chance with Dee or not?”

  Rod gazed at Dee and O, who were now sitting on the sand. O had his arm at her back and was laughing, teeth bright white against his black skin. Rod turned to Ian. “What can I say to him? Casper never gets mad.”

  “Say something about Blanca. Something dirty.”

  Rod’s red cheeks flushed deeper.

  “I’m sure you can think of something,” Ian added. “Go on. Just do it. Otherwise that new boy will have stolen your girl. Is that what you want? A black boy going with Dee? Trust me—that will keep happening unless you fight Casper.”

  Rod took a deep breath, pumped his fists, and stumbled toward the girls jumping rope.

  Ian sighed. It would have been better to have someone more reliable doing his work for him.

  He knew he shouldn’t be openly watching Rod and Casper now—that could give away who was behind the fight. Plus it would be painful seeing Rod make a mess of it—which he was likely to do. If he did, Ian would deny any involvement, and with his word against Rod’s, he knew he would always win.

  He walked over to the arm wrestling on the ship. The boys had made it into a kind of tournament, with two sets simultaneously competing in the semifinal round. Ian watched as two boys won and turned to face each other.

  “Taking bets now,” Ian announced. When he set up betting he took a 40 percent cut of the candy or money handed over, arguing that he was taking the risk of being suspended if any of the teachers caught them. He was surprised sometimes that no one argued with his high cut. They seemed afraid to haggle with him.

  The wrestlers and spectators whipped their heads around at Ian’s voice, and a wave of unease rippled through them. Irritation as well, some boys clearly feeling their fun had just been tainted. Ian noted those looks, for future reference.

  “C’mon, don’t you want to make this more fun?” he continued. “Otherwise it’s boring—just an arm wrestle. You’ll care more about who wins if you bet.”

  He didn’t get to see how much he would have made from the betting, as shouts from across the playground interrupted them. “Fight! Fight!”

  The boys abandoned the pirate ship en masse and ran like rats to join a ring that had formed in the jump rope area. Fights occurred every few weeks, and were the highlight of playground entertainment, especially if you weren’t in it yourself. Ian followed more slowly, for he knew who the opponents were, and what he would see.

  Dee had just finished taking her hair out of its braids for Osei when they heard the familiar chant: “Fight! Fight!” They looked at each other, but the call was too strong. Reluctantly getting to their feet, they went to join the spectators.

  Dee was astonished to find it was Casper and Rod facing each other inside the rin
g of students. Casper was never in fights.

  “What did you say?” he was yelling.

  “You heard me,” Rod replied, bouncing nervously on the balls of his feet.

  “Take it back,” Casper demanded.

  “No. It’s true!”

  “Casper, don’t let him say that!” Blanca cried. She was standing near him, with Mimi holding on to her to keep her from barging in between the boys.

  “Take. It. Back.”

  “No!” Rod seemed to lunge toward him, feinting a blow, and Casper returned with a punch, as much to block him as to hit him. His fist landed true, right in Rod’s face, and he went down immediately. The crowd gasped, and Blanca began to scream. Rod lay on his back, clutching his eye as the victor stood over him, fists still clenched, looking confused, as if he couldn’t take in what he’d just done.

  Dee glanced at Osei beside her. He was watching Casper with a look she could not quite read: surprise, fascination, and something else. Wariness. Distance. Judgment. A darkness she had glimpsed momentarily when Osei first refused to eat one of her strawberries.

  Blanca was busy screaming while being propped up by Mimi. Dee knew she should go to her, but held back, not wanting to get dragged into the drama. Blanca would be talking about it till the end of the school year, and maybe into junior high.

  Two teachers were quickly on the scene—Miss Lode helping Rod to his feet, pressing damp brown paper towels to his eye and leading him away to see the school nurse; Mr. Brabant grasping the culprit by the arms and frogmarching him toward the entrance, Casper with his head bowed.

  Once they were gone, the ring of spectators remained in groups, discussing what had happened. Dee listened in on the conversations around her.

  “Rod didn’t do anything—Casper just hit him!”

  “He must have done something.”

  “Can you believe Casper doing that? He’s never in fights! I don’t think he’s been in a fight all the years he’s been here.”

  “Why would he risk his reputation doing something so stupid?”

  “Rod said something to him. I saw. He went up to him and said something.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “Must have been pretty bad for him to have that reaction.”

  “Really bad.”

  “The worst.”

  “I heard Rod said something about Blanca.”

  “No, it was about his mother.”

  “What about his mother?”

  “Who knows?”

  Mimi gave her a desperate look, and Dee left O to join her in helping with the hysterical Blanca. As Casper was being taken away by Mr. Brabant, Blanca wailed even louder. Anyone would think she had been hit rather than Rod.

  Dee lost her patience. “For God’s sake, Blanca, can’t you be quieter about it?” Even as she said it, she heard in the back of her mind her mother telling her not to take the Lord’s name in vain.

  Blanca sniffed. “Easy for you to say, Little Miss Perfect. It wasn’t you who had awful things said about you. It wasn’t your boyfriend who had to defend you. It wasn’t your boyfriend who will probably be suspended!”

  Mimi gestured with her head, and they led Blanca to a quieter corner, their charge allowing them to now that Casper and Rod were gone and her audience was dispersing.

  “What exactly did Rod say?” Dee demanded.

  “I can’t repeat it—it’s too awful!”

  “Blanca, we can’t help you if you don’t tell us,” Dee persisted.

  Blanca leaned against the brick wall of the school. “He said—he said…” She stopped, her mouth trembling, and caught back a sob. This time she seemed genuinely upset.

  “Take a deep breath, then blow it out,” Mimi ordered. Dee admired her firmness in the face of so much emotion. And it worked: Blanca took a shaky breath, breathed out, and calmed down.

  “Just repeat what he said fast—all in one go.”

  “Rod said I was trashy and had let Casper go all the way with me. But I didn’t!” Blanca covered her face with her hands, clearly embarrassed to have repeated such an accusation.

  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 h
er 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.”