“A—a sweater. I think I left it on the ground when I was jumping Double Dutch the other day.”
“Did you find it?”
“No.”
“Maybe you left it at home.”
Dee was silent.
“Are you sure you were not looking for something else?”
Dee froze. “What do you mean?”
Osei nodded over at Blanca and Casper by the gym. She was sitting in his lap, her arms around his neck, talking and laughing, and O felt the sharp lance of envy at their happiness pierce him.
“What about them?”
“Look at Blanca’s backpack.”
Dee squinted. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to see.”
It was hard to spot it from where they were, unless you knew what you were looking for. “Climb to the top—you will see better from there.” Osei began pulling himself up the bars of the jungle gym.
Dee hesitated below. “Why don’t you just tell me what to look for?”
“Come up,” Osei insisted.
She still stood there, reluctant.
“Dee, if you do not come up here…”
Dee began to climb, slow and careful, until she reached the top, where she sat on one of the metal bars and held tight to two others. “I got stuck up here once in fourth grade. Mr. Brabant had to carry me down.” She looked expectant, then disappointed when Osei didn’t say anything. “So it’s a big deal that I’ve come up here for you,” she added. “What did you want me to see?”
“There. Look at what is in the pocket of Blanca’s backpack. Is that what you have been searching for?”
Dee looked for a long moment, then gripped the bars even tighter. “How did that get there?”
“You told me you left it at home during lunch.”
“I thought I had.”
“Did you—really?”
Dee sighed. “I didn’t know where it was.”
“So you lied to me.”
“I—I thought I would find it—that I left it somewhere and would find it. I didn’t want to upset you by telling you I didn’t know where it was.”
“So that is what you were looking for in Lost and Found.”
Dee nodded. “I know it was your sister’s and you wouldn’t like it if I lost it. I was trying to find it so you didn’t ever need to know it was lost.”
For a brief moment Osei believed her. He wanted to, and she seemed sincere, and sorry. Then from the corner of his eye he caught a movement—Ian was sitting on the pirate ship with Rod; they were dangling their legs over the side, swinging them back and forth.
“Or so you say,” he persisted.
“I was!”
“How did Blanca get the case, then?”
“I have no idea. Let’s ask her.”
“I do not need to—I already know. She got it from Casper, who you gave it to. You gave my sister’s pencil case to another boy.”
“No! Why would I give it to Casper?”
“I do not know. Why would you give it to Casper?”
She looked at him, puzzled, with a flash of anger directed at his cheap trick of throwing her words back at her. If he weren’t so angry he would be embarrassed at himself.
“You are two-timing me, aren’t you? You are going with Casper.”
“What?!”
“You probably already were before today. Probably everybody knows and thinks it is so funny how you are lying to the black boy.” He looked around the playground, which had turned into a battleground, with many enemies.
“Osei, no!”
“Ian is the only one with the decency to be honest with me. At least he told me what is really happening.”
“Ian? What’s he—” Dee’s face shifted from incredulity to a sudden understanding. She shook her head. “You know you shouldn’t always believe what Ian says. He says what he does for his own gain.”
“Do not try to defend yourself by putting down others.”
“But…” Dee made a visible effort to gather herself together. “Osei, I have never gone with Casper,” she said carefully. “I’ve known him all my life, but I don’t feel like that about him the way I do—I did—do about you. And look”—she gestured toward Casper and Blanca—“you can see for yourself he’s with Blanca.”
O listened to her stumble over her tenses and left a silence before he spoke. “Why did you keep talking about him to me so much?”
“Because he could be a good friend to you. He could help you. Ian said—” She stopped.
“Ian said what?”
But Dee was staring over at the pirate ship, where Ian and Rod were casually tossing pebbles at the boys playing marbles.
The rage surged in Osei again, so angry her attention was straying from what was important that he wanted to shake her. He began to reach across to grab her arm, but Dee was already stepping down to the lower rung so that she was just out of reach. “Dee,” he said.
She kept climbing down, and when she reached the ground she began striding toward Ian on the ship.
“Do not walk away from me, Dee!” he shouted.
His tone made the boys look up from their marbles and the girls stop jumping Double Dutch. He had all of their attention, though he had not asked for it. But now that he had it, he could use it to punish her.
“Do not walk away,” he repeated, raising his voice. Then he added a word he had heard before but never imagined he would ever use, or know how to use: “Whore!”
The word cracked across the playground like thunder. Anyone who hadn’t been listening did now. Even Blanca and Casper surfaced from making out to look around.
Dee stopped, one foot frozen behind her, her single braid an emphatic line down her back. Rod jumped up from the ship deck, but Ian restrained him.
Across the playground Miss Lode dropped her book. “Did I hear—” She looked puzzled, and embarrassed too, as the children turned to stare at her. She gulped, bowed her head, and picked up the book.
“You know that this girl is a whore?” O hissed, directing his words at his audience: the boys with their marbles, the jump-rope girls, Casper and Blanca, Ian and Rod. It felt powerful, having the right kind of attention at last. He smiled, exposing his side teeth; he looked like a wolf growling. “You know she said she would go all the way with me,” he continued, his voice rising again, “the way she already has with Casper!”
There was a gasp from Blanca, who jumped up from Casper’s lap as he began shaking his head.
Dee turned around slowly, eyes huge, mouth open and trembling, and stared up at Osei at the top of the jungle gym. She held her hands out, palms up. “Why are you saying that?” she cried.
Guilt flicked through him, but the power of speaking and being heard at last was stronger, and took him over so that O hardly understood what he said now. “She has even touched my dick, that is how much she wants it. How much all white girls want it.”
The marble boys shouted, then burst into nervous laughter. There was a collective gasp from the jump-rope girls, and Dee’s eyes darted to them, her tribe. They were clearly shocked, some putting their hands over their mouths, others turning to whisper to their neighbors. Then they began to titter—apart from Mimi, who was shaking her head as if to shoo away a persistent bee.
That was when Dee crumbled. With a shriek she turned and ran, faster than O could have imagined, her feet slapping across the asphalt. Fumbling with the gate that opened onto the street, she got it open at last, ran through, and slammed it behind her. As she disappeared around the corner, Rod jumped off the ship and stumbled after her, though Dee had too much of a head start for him to catch up, and he soon turned back.
When she was gone the playground changed, as if the sun were cloaked by a cloud. The children on the playground began talking at once.
“Jesus H. Christ. First Casper, then Dee. What’s going on today?”
“Can you believe he said that?”
“I can believe it.”
“No!”
“
I wouldn’t mind if she touched my dick.”
“Shut up!”
“No, you shut up.”
“Poor Dee!”
“Dee wouldn’t do such a thing. Would she?”
“I don’t know. She had her hands all over him this morning.”
“And she kissed him at lunch—did you see?”
“What were they doing over there in the sandpit, anyway?”
“She’s kind of slutty. I’ve always thought so.”
“Yeah.”
Mimi was standing among the jump-rope girls, glaring at Osei. Blanca had crossed her arms over her chest and was shouting at Casper. Miss Lode was no longer reading, but standing uncertainly. In the midst of the tumult, Ian continued to lounge on the ship, smiling.
How am I ever going to explain this to Sisi? Osei thought. She would know what to say to all these white people. “Black is beautiful,” he murmured. Never had he wanted to believe it more.
He wished he could put his head on his sister’s shoulder now and cry.
As she stared at Osei, Mimi experienced déjà vu, that curious feeling of having already lived through something. The sensation was more the feeling of familiarity, as well as a disconnection from the flow of reality. Sometimes Mimi got déjà vu several times a day, and it began to seem as if she were juddering through dreams interspersed with shafts of reality. Now she felt she had already experienced Dee’s humiliation and the new boy’s misplaced triumph on top of the jungle gym—though of course she hadn’t. Dee had never been humiliated before, Osei never triumphant.
She rubbed her face to clear it of the scene she had just witnessed, then walked over to the jungle gym. From the corner of her eye she registered Ian scrambling down from the ship, and knew she didn’t have long.
“Osei, why did you lie?” she called up to him. “You know it’s not true.”
O gazed down at her from his perch as newly crowned king of the jungle gym. “I know what I know,” he answered. “I have proof.”
“What proof? It better be good for you to say that about Dee.”
“Come up and you can see the proof for yourself.” O gestured toward the corner of the playground by the gym.
Mimi frowned, wondering what he meant but concerned she might see actual evidence that he was right. She couldn’t bear that. She had been best friends with Dee nearly all her life; she did not want to discover that she didn’t know her friend at all.
But curiosity, and the sense of Ian bearing down on her, made her climb. Mimi had only gotten six feet off the ground and was saying to O, “What am I looking for?” when she felt hands grab her ankle and then a sharp tug that dislodged her from the bars of the jungle gym. She was only in the air for a brief moment before landing hard on her neck, and the jolt of pain that flooded her body was so overwhelming she didn’t even feel her head bang against the asphalt. Stars burst and swam before her eyes like tadpoles, and she blacked out for a moment.
When Mimi came to, her head hurt, much worse and more focused than any headache. She lay still, barely breathing. The pain was so acute that she couldn’t even yell or cry, but hoped it would wash through her and recede like the tide. Then she opened her eyes and Ian was standing over her, his face flat, shaking his head with the tiniest of movements, a gesture meant just for her. Hanging over him like a dark moon, high above on the jungle gym, was Osei’s worried face. “Are you OK, Mimi?” he called.
Then Blanca was pushing Ian aside and kneeling by her, her backpack dropping off her shoulder and landing near Mimi. “Oh my God, Mimi!” she cried, cupping her cheeks. “Are you dead?” At the same time Casper was shoving Ian away and saying, “What the hell did you do that for?”
Mimi’s eyes slid to the backpack and the strawberry case stuffed in the outside pocket. She tuned out the buzzing and the yelling so that she could focus on those strawberries so close to her face. She was relieved to see them. They were not where they were meant to be, but she couldn’t remember where that was. She shut her eyes for a moment to think.
“She’s dead!” she heard Blanca scream. “She’s dying right here in front of me!” Mimi did not open her eyes to reassure them, or shut Blanca up, but lay in the darkness, riding the pulsing pain.
She heard Miss Lode’s voice then, shouting at the children to stand back, but she was drowned out by the boys arguing.
“How could you do that to Mimi?” Casper was yelling. “Look, you’ve hurt her!”
“Hands off, asshole,” Ian retorted. “What makes you the playground police? Besides, you should talk. Rod’s black eye is turning green.”
“Hey, man, we all saw you pull Mimi down. You’re in big trouble now.”
“More trouble than you’re in? Aren’t you suspended? If I recall, suspended students can’t be on school property. You’re not even supposed to be here. If the teachers see you, they’ll expel you. Your ass is grass, amigo, so do us all a favor and get the hell out of here.”
Anger. Disdain. Fear. Cunning. With her eyes shut, Mimi’s hearing became so heightened that she could monitor every shifting tone in Ian’s voice as he tried to move the focus onto Casper. And he was swearing, when he never swore. Why did I ever go with him? she thought. The most mismatched couple ever.
“Boys! Stop that! Blanca, move aside.” Miss Lode was kneeling now and patting Mimi’s cheek.
Her eyes blinked open. “She’s alive!” Blanca cried.
“Mimi, how do you feel? Does anything hurt?”
“My head hurts, but I can’t feel anything else.” Mimi tried to move her legs but couldn’t tell if she succeeded. She felt frozen.
“Rod, run and tell Mrs. Duke to call an ambulance.” Miss Lode kept her voice calm, but Mimi could hear the panic underneath. “Oh, where’s Richard? He’d know what to do!”
Rod was staring down at Mimi.
“Quickly, please.” Miss Lode raised her voice. “Go! And Blanca, run find Mr. Brabant and tell him to come out here.”
Blanca and Rod shook themselves, then ran toward the school entrance.
The flickering aura from earlier was returning to Mimi’s vision, and she knew she was heading for the mother of all headaches. She fixed her eyes on Osei, still atop the jungle gym. He looked terrible, his dark skin sporting a surprising gray sheen. She did not know black people could go pale.
King of the jungle, she thought. But he is a miserable king.
“Osei,” she called up to him, “is this what you were going to show me?” Mimi rolled her head toward the pencil case, though it hurt.
O nodded.
“Mimi, it’s best not to speak now,” Miss Lode interjected. “Just rest.” She raised her voice again. “All of you—time to go home. And Casper, what are you doing here? You’re suspended!”
But no one was paying any attention to her.
“How do you think Blanca got that case?” Mimi said.
O frowned. “Casper gave it to her, after Dee gave it to him. She is going with him too. He is a two-timer, just like Dee.”
Casper shook his head. “No, man, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not going with Dee. I never have. And Blanca kept saying that too about the case, and wouldn’t listen when I said I didn’t give it to her.”
Ian was also shaking his head. “Don’t,” he mouthed at Mimi.
Mimi ignored him. He had already hurt her. What more could he do? “Osei, I bet Blanca got that case from Ian, who told her it was from Casper.”
Miss Lode looked from one to the other. “What are you all talking about?” she pleaded.
Osei stared at Mimi. “How do you know?”
“Because I gave the case to Ian. Dee accidentally dropped it and I gave it to him rather than back to her.”
“But why? Why did you do that?”
“Do you want to know what Mimi did?” Ian began. “She’s a real little bitch.”
“Ian! Don’t use that language! Stop it, all of you! Oh, where is Richard? Where is Mrs. Duke? I don’t know what to do!??
? Miss Lode was crying now.
“I gave the case to Ian because he wanted it,” Mimi said, speaking only to Osei, “and I used it to get him to break up with me. Otherwise I would always be under his power, and I couldn’t stand that. I’m sorry,” she added. “I didn’t know he would use it against you.” Though even as she said it, Mimi knew she was dodging the truth. She had understood when she gave it to him that Ian would never have used the pencil case for anything other than evil.
Osei was staring at her. Can I not trust even you? his look said.
Mimi blinked away tears, overcome with remorse for playing her part, so against type. She was going to have to live with that.
Now Osei turned his attention to Ian. “Why have you done this thing?”
Ian shrugged. “Because I can.”
Miss Lode had been listening to the children as if she’d been given a math problem she couldn’t make sense of. “Mimi, whose fault is this?” she whispered.
“Ian,” Mimi replied. “It’s all Ian.”
Miss Lode took a deep breath, wiped her eyes, and got to her feet. “Ian, what do you have to say for yourself?”
“Nothing. I have nothing more to say.” Ian pushed his lips tight together, to make clear that he wouldn’t say another word. He reminded Mimi of a young boy caught in the act of doing something naughty—a knave, she thought drowsily—and closing his eyes, thinking if he couldn’t see anyone, maybe no one could see him. He began to back away, his eyes darting here and there, as if looking for an escape route.
The heavy steps of an adult pounded toward them. “What in God’s name is going on here?” Mimi heard Mr. Brabant before she could see him. “Where’s Dee?”
“She went home,” Casper replied. “I think.”
“Is she all right?”
“I guess so.”
“What do you mean, you ‘guess so’?”
Casper was silent.
When Mr. Brabant’s snarling face came into view, it wore the ugliest expression Mimi had ever seen. He hardly looked at her on the ground before turning his fury upward. “Osei, what have you done to Mimi? Come down at once! I warned you!”
His words did not seem to affect O: the new boy remained crouched on top of the jungle gym, gazing impassively at his teacher.