New Boy

by Tracy Chevalier

  If Duncan were awake and it were the beginning of the day, when she and Osei were still happy together, the four of them—even prissy Patty—could have made fun of Mrs. Randolph—their imitations of her voice and recitations of her words lasting for days and becoming inside jokes. Instead they said nothing, but worked doggedly on their cards while all around them Dee heard her classmates having lighthearted fun.

  Patty asked for a bathroom pass, and didn’t come back to her own desk on her return, but lingered with friends across the classroom, comparing flowers and avoiding her grim cluster. Dee wanted to beg her to rejoin them, or kick Duncan awake, just to have a buffer of other students between her and Osei. Instead they had to sit stiffly, pretending each other wasn’t there.

  From the corner of her eye she watched his card take shape—a cluster of three strawberries glued to the front, the white card colored the same pink as the pencil case. Inside he wrote very formally, in handwriting that looked European, with long full loops on the Hs and Ps and Ys: “Dear Mother, I am wishing you a very happy Mother’s Day, from your son, Osei.”

  Was that what his anger was about—the pencil case? Dee wondered where it was. She’d surreptitiously checked inside her desk on returning from the nurse, hoping that somehow it had reappeared, but it wasn’t there. Though Osei hadn’t turned his head, she felt sure he’d know what she was searching for. Had she dropped it somewhere? She would have to check Lost and Found.

  Ten minutes before the end of school, Mrs. Randolph clapped her hands and asked the students to leave the cards they had made on their desks and walk around looking at everyone else’s before starting to clean up. Dee jumped up, relieved. The last half hour had felt like punishment for a crime she did not know she had committed. And she had ended up making a stupid card with blueberries on the front, when her mother didn’t even eat blueberries. It looked like she was copying Osei’s card.

  He too seemed eager to get away from their cluster of desks. As she walked around admiring the tissue-paper flowers and drawings of flowers and a few pieces of fruit (but no vegetables), Dee found herself hyperaware of where he was in relation to her. Soon he seemed to disappear altogether, until eventually she found him in the reading corner, sitting on a beanbag and flipping through a Mad magazine someone had left there.

  “Osei, we have to clean up now, before the bell rings.”

  He merely nodded, then got up and slouched toward their desks. Dee recalled how confidently he had walked across the playground that morning. Where had that confidence gone?

  As they worked together, dumping paper and crayons and bottles of Elmer’s glue and pipe cleaners into a cardboard box, Osei said in a low voice, “Meet me on the playground after school.”

  Dee nodded miserably. Her mother was expecting her home, but she would tell her she’d stayed after to jump rope.

  When the bell rang, she murmured, “I’ll be there in a minute.” Then she hurried out of the classroom and down the hall to Lost and Found, which was in a box outside the principal’s office.

  As she knelt to rummage through what seemed to be a tangle of the same blue cardigans, interspersed with single sneakers, Dee could hear Mrs. Duke on the phone: “No, he hasn’t actually done anything wrong. Not anything punishable. But he was involved in an incident with a girl—no, not that kind of thing, she fell and bumped her head.” Pause. “I simply wanted to make you aware of it.” Pause. “I understand that. Of course it can take time to settle in to a new school, especially for someone of your son’s…circumstances. He may not be used to behaving in the ways we expect of our children.” Pause. “No, I’m not implying—” Pause. “Of course. I am not suggesting you have not done your job. Let’s just give him time to settle in, shall we? We will keep an eye on him.” Pause. “That won’t be necessary. Give it a couple weeks, Mrs. Kokote, and we’ll speak again, all right? Now, I’m afraid the bell has rung and I have a staff meeting. Goodbye.” When she’d hung up she muttered, “Lord, give me strength!”

  The school secretary who worked in the adjacent office chuckled. “Giving you a hard time, was she?”

  “Uppity, is what I’d call it. Thank God we only have him for a month. Let the next school deal with him.”

  “You think he pushed Dee Benedetti?”

  Dee froze. If she moved, the secretary would see her.

  “I know he did. Several of the children told me they saw him do it. But Dee won’t say he did, and that makes any accusations awkward.”

  “What, he’s turned her head, has he? Given her a taste for chocolate milk?”

  Mrs. Duke grunted. “So to speak.”

  “It won’t last. These kids get together at recess and break up at lunchtime. It’s the age.”

  “I don’t know. Diane told me Dee had taken her braids out and let him touch her hair. Her mother won’t be pleased. I’m dreading making that phone call. You know what Mrs. Benedetti’s like.”

  “Oh yes.” The secretary laughed again. “Dee hasn’t actually broken a rule, though, has she? So you don’t have to call her mother.”

  “I do, to tell her about the bump to her head. But all I have to say is that she tripped. I don’t have to bring up the boy, thank God. Never mind. I expect I’ll catch him out eventually, Dee or no Dee.”

  Then the secretary looked up and saw her hanging over the Lost and Found box. “Dee, what are you doing there?”

  “Nothing! Just looking for something. It’s not here.” As Dee got to her feet she heard a chair scrape, and footsteps, then Mrs. Duke appeared in the doorway, her perfume preceding her. She seemed startled.

  “Dee, have you been eavesdropping?”

  “No, Mrs. Duke. I was looking for something in Lost and Found.”

  “What were you looking for?”

  “A—a pencil case.” Dee found it impossible to look her in the eye, so kept focused on her pearl necklace. Mrs. Duke alternated it with a spider brooch or, during the winter, a snowflake brooch studded with rhinestones. Dee and her friends called her “Spidey,” “Flakey,” or “Pearly,” depending on which she was wearing.

  “What does it look like?”

  “It’s pink, with strawberries on it. But it’s not here. It’s…lost.”

  “Right. Off you go, then.”

  Dee hurried away, but stopped when Mrs. Duke called after her, “Wait a minute.”

  She turned. “Yes, Mrs. Duke?”

  The principal folded her arms over her chest as adults often did when they talked to children. “How’s your head?”

  “It’s OK.”

  “I am concerned about you, Dee. Concerned that you may not be telling the whole truth about what happened this afternoon.”

  Dee scowled. “I am telling the truth. I tripped and fell.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Mrs. Duke held her gaze for a long moment, during which Dee pressed her mouth tight and stuck out her chin. At last the principal turned away. “All right. That’s what I will tell your mother,” she said over her shoulder. “I’m going to call her now. You go home.”

  As she walked down the hallway, Dee shuddered at what her mother would say if she knew what had really happened today. At the exit she paused. Osei was waiting by the jungle gym. She took a deep breath and stepped outside.

  Ian never went home right away unless it was raining. There was nothing to do at home. His older brothers didn’t arrive back till later, and anyway they were not interested in doing things with him. When he went out into the neighborhood, to shoot hoops or throw a baseball or play kick the can, he’d noticed that after his arrival the other kids would find excuses to leave, saying they had homework or their mothers needed them to go to the store. One time Ian had ridden his bike around and discovered the same boys who’d left the local park ten minutes before had reconvened in a vacant lot to continue their softball game without him. He had hidden, too humiliated to let them see him. But he’d placed each name on a mental list and systematically gone th
rough it, punishing them over the next few weeks. Not with his usual bullying: squeezing out money or physically hurting them or making his presence felt. Instead he was stealthier, meaner—slashing bicycle tires, touching a sister in a crowd, dumping paint in a desk during recess.

  He preferred to remain on the playground after school. Though many children left to go home, it was open for an hour for those who wanted to stay and play, with one of the teachers as a monitor. Today it was Miss Lode. That was good—she was too scared of him to interfere much. At the moment she was talking to the parent of a younger student from the other playground. Soon she would sit and read a book, glancing up now and then.

  Ian spotted O by the jungle gym—a frame of metal bars bolted together at right angles to make box shapes up to a height of twelve feet, which could be climbed all over. There were a few other students around, but none on the jungle gym. Maybe they were avoiding the new boy.

  Ian took his time to make his way over. There was no need to rush; that would be undignified. Instead he paused briefly by the girls jumping their inevitable Double Dutch, a mix of grades now. Mimi was with them, turning for a fourth grader who jumped as the other girls sang:

  My mommy told me

  If I was goody

  That she would buy me

  A rubber dolly

  My sister told her

  I kissed a soldier

  Now she won’t buy me

  That rubber dolly

  He didn’t stay any longer to watch—she was too young to have breasts that bounced when she jumped. As he left they were still singing:

  Now I am dead

  And in my grave

  And there beside me

  A rubber dolly

  Ian went on to a group of boys playing marbles, standing so that his shadow fell across the circle. The boys looked up, annoyed and ready to complain, but said nothing when they realized whose shadow it was. Ian remained just long enough for the shooter to miss before he moved on.

  He had not yet reached the jungle gym when Rod caught up with him, his black eye even more prominent after a few hours of swelling. Rod was seriously getting on his nerves—had been even before today. Didn’t he need to fight his own battles, win his own girls? Hadn’t he learned enough from Ian to do so on his own? He had been the sidekick for too long, and Ian preferred to go it alone now.

  “Man, I don’t understand something,” Rod began. When Ian kept walking, Rod ran ahead and stood in front of him to make him stop. Anger flared, but Ian pulled back from slamming a hand into Rod’s chest. Rod was not important; he should save his actions for someone else.

  “You promised I would go with Dee,” Rod continued, whining. “But now I don’t know who my competition is. Is it him or him?” He waved one skinny arm at O by the jungle gym, and the other at Casper, lurking over by the entrance to the school gym, out of sight of Miss Lode. Ian smiled to himself: Casper the golden boy, belatedly discovering how to break the rules. He had been suspended; he should be across the street now, getting punished by his parents—being grounded and having his allowance docked, as his parents were unlikely to use the belt he deserved. Instead he had come back to school and was probably waiting for Blanca. Now that he’d had a taste of bad behavior, he was indulging in it.

  “I don’t even understand why I picked that fight with Casper,” Rod added. “He’s going with Blanca—anybody can see that. You saw them kissing at recess. Why’d you have me go after him? It’s him”—he waved again at O, who frowned—“who’s going with Dee. And he hurt her! I should be fighting him.” He clenched his fists in a show of bravery, but it didn’t conceal his fear as he contemplated his rival. “I don’t know, though—I might get hurt even worse than with Casper.”

  “You probably would,” Ian agreed. “But don’t worry—I think it’s all gonna change soon. Just hang on a little longer. And leave O to me.” He began walking again toward the jungle gym but stopped, putting his palm out to halt Rod as he made to follow him. “Just me.” Rod dropped back, an injured animal left behind. Ian was going to have to find a way to shake him loose. Tomorrow. Today he had another target.

  O had been watching him. When Ian joined him at the jungle gym he said, “What did he want?”

  Ian sat down on one of the metal bars and rested his hands on the ones on either side. “Rod? Nothing. He’s nothing.”

  O had his eyes on Rod, now mooching toward the pirate ship. “It does not seem like nothing. What does he want with me?”

  Ian let himself sag into the boxy frame. “Rod likes Dee. So he’s jealous. The green-eyed monster, my father calls it. And”—Ian calculated for a moment, then decided to try it—“Dee likes him too.”

  O stiffened, his eyes wild. “What? Him too?!”

  Ian smiled to himself. O was in such a state that he’d believe anything—even that a scrawny nothing of a boy like Rod could catch Dee’s eye. “Looks like you picked the wrong girl. I could’ve told you that.”

  O crossed his arms over his chest and tucked his hands under his armpits. He seemed to be trying to contain his anger. “She picked me.” He paused. “She is meeting me here in a minute. I was ready to tell her that it is OK, I am not angry anymore. But I cannot trust her, can I?” He looked at Ian as if he wanted a reminder of the evidence.

  So Ian provided it. “The pencil case, remember? How did Casper get it?”

  Even as he said it he knew that the power of the case was only going to last as long as no one asked questions. Once O or Dee asked Casper or Blanca about where the case came from, Ian’s involvement would be uncovered. That was the flaw in his strategy—he was likely to be pulled into it. The damage had to be done now—enough damage that afterward it wouldn’t matter what part Ian had played.

  At that moment Blanca ran out of the building and around the corner to where Casper was waiting for her by the gym. As they embraced, Blanca let her backpack drop. The strawberry case, stuffed into the open front pocket, was just visible.

  “What did Dee say about the case when you asked her?”

  O’s face fell. “She said it was at home.”

  “So”—Ian nodded toward Blanca and the case—“why is Dee lying to you, then? Is it because she thinks it doesn’t matter if she lies to you because you won’t get it? Because you’re stupid?”

  He didn’t add “because you’re black.” He didn’t need to—O had reached that point all by himself. His whole being seemed to hollow out, like a sandcastle at the beach collapsing in on itself. “Do not say that.”

  “I’m just being honest. Dee’s usually a nice girl. I’m trying to figure out what she’s up to, and why. She’s not used to black people, see. So maybe she’s trying you out like a new flavor of ice cream.”

  O closed his eyes.

  Enough, Ian thought. I’ve said enough. Perfect timing too.

  “Here comes Dee,” he said. “I’ll leave you guys alone.”

  In the past when kids had said or done things—left bananas on his desk or made hooting noises like monkeys or whispered to each other that he smelled different or asked him if his grandparents had been slaves—Osei had preserved enough distance to cushion himself from the blow so that it didn’t hurt. Often he could even laugh it off—repeat it to Sisi later, make fun of the ignorance or lack of creativity in their prejudice. “Can they not think up something more original than a monkey?” he’d say to his sister. “Why don’t they ever call me a panther? It is darker than a monkey.”

  Sisi had chuckled. “ ’Cause honkies are scared of Black Panthers.” She raised her fist in the salute.

  In some ways overt racism based on ignorance was easier to deal with. It was the more subtle digs that got to him. The kids who were friendly at school but didn’t ask him to their birthday parties even when they had invited the rest of the class. The conversations that stopped when he walked into a room, a slight pause reserved for his presence. The remarks made and then the addendum, “Oh, I don’t mean you, Osei. You’re different.” Or a co
mment like “he’s black but he’s smart,” and the inability to understand why that was offensive. The assumption that he was better at sports because black people just—you know—are, or at dancing, or at committing crimes. The way people talked about Africa as if it were just one country. The inability to tell black people apart, so Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier were mixed up, or Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin, or Flip Wilson and Bill Cosby—though none of them looked anything like the other.

  He was angrier at himself than at Dee. For a brief time—a morning—he had let his guard down, allowed himself to think she was different, that she liked him for himself rather than for what he represented—a black boy, exotic, other; an unknown territory to be explored. He watched her walking toward him on the playground now and felt his emotions zigzag between sorrow, anger, and pity. If he ignored what Ian said, he could feel something more positive: gratitude for her attention, physical attraction, interest in her interest in him. But how could he ignore the strawberry case? The lie that changed everything. He had opened himself up to Dee and already she couldn’t be trusted. Suddenly he wished Sisi were at home and he could say to her, “Why does being black have to hurt so much?”

  “Go back to Africa, little brother,” she would answer, “where being black is normal and white skin is made fun of.” It was tempting. His parents would probably love it if he asked to go to boarding school in Ghana.

  “Hey,” Dee said as she reached his side, hesitant, fearful.

  O twisted his mouth into an ugly smirk. “Where were you?” he demanded, sounding more imperious than he felt.

  “Nowhere. I was just…looking for something in Lost and Found.” Dee was reluctant, and shifty, and miserable.

  “What did you lose?”

  There was a pause that told him all he needed to know as he watched her trying to think of something, her face transparent. Another lie was about to join the first.