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  “That’s not true! You can trust me. You can trust Mimi—she’s my best friend.” Dee pushed from her mind the warning Mimi had given her about going with O. “And you can trust Casper,” she added.

  “Why do you say him? He just gave someone a black eye for no reason.”

  “He did have a good reason for hitting Rod—he was defending Blanca. I bet you would too, if someone said the things about me that were said about her.”

  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.

  Ian hid his irritation. Nor would he ever let her think he was hurt at being rejected, or wanted to know what she didn’t like about him. For he already knew what it was: they were nothing alike. He was hard and she was strange.

  It was not that he liked her much. But Ian did not want the others to find out Mimi had dumped him. Later he would spread the word among the boys that she had refused to go all the way with him. Or maybe he would say she’d done it with him, and then he’d dumped her. He would have to think about how to get the best out of this situation. Still, he wanted the pencil case. “All right,” he said.

  Mimi didn’t move.
“You don’t badmouth me, or say things like what Rod said about Blanca.” It was as if she’d heard his thoughts.

  “I won’t say anything. And you won’t say anything either,” he added, then gestured impatiently. “Now, are you gonna give it to me or not?”

  Mimi bit her lip. As she held out the case, he could see that her hand was shaking. She was not good at this sort of negotiation, had held nothing back to keep him in line. He would have no problem turning the breakup in his favor.

  “Go on out,” he said, taking the case. “I’ll be there in a little while.”

  Mimi was staring at the pencil case, now safe in Ian’s hands. She looked frightened, her eyes sparking with the strange flecks that made them swirl. “What are you going to do with it?”

  But Ian was already turning into the cloakroom attached to their class. “Nothing for you to worry about,” he said over his shoulder. As he rummaged on the coat hooks for his jacket, he could feel her still in the hall, and gritted his teeth. “Idiot,” he muttered. He now felt miles removed from the desire he’d had for her at the flagpole. He found his jacket—plain, navy blue, unused for the past few weeks as it had grown warmer. Before pocketing his new possession, he unzipped the case to look inside. There wasn’t much of interest: pencils of various lengths and colors, a couple erasers, a plastic pencil sharpener, a short ruler, a dime, a piece of Bazooka bubble gum, a scrap of paper, a plastic egg full of Silly Putty. He kept the dime, unwrapped the gum—dropping the brightly colored comic that came with it without reading it—and stuffed it in his mouth. He glanced at the paper: written in a peculiar loopy style was O’s name, address, and phone number. He envisaged the crank phone calls he could make and smiled; the opportunities had been handed to him on a platter.

  Ian dumped everything else into a cardboard box full of a jumble of classroom detritus: broken chalk, old blackboard erasers, gray metal bookends, scraps of construction paper. He pulled a sheaf of leftover mimeographed worksheets on the main agricultural products of the United States (corn, wheat, cotton, beef) over the case’s contents. No one would find them for weeks, until Miss Lode cleaned out the cloakroom when school finished for the summer. He would be long gone by then—on to another school and other victims.

  Once it was empty, Ian examined the case. God, it was hideous. Only a girl could stand to use something as lurid as this. The only interesting features were the embossed strawberries, with knobbly points poking up from the plastic that reminded him of nipples. He had seen nipples dimpled like that in the copies of Playboy he’d stolen over the years. The girls’ nipples he’d caught glimpses of—when he spied on them changing for gym, or the fifth grader he’d pressured into lifting her top for him—were tiny and smooth like birds’ beaks. Ian touched one of the knobbly strawberries and smiled as the sensation traveled to his groin. Maybe this was why the black boy had had the pencil case, if it had the same effect on him.

  He mustn’t keep it, however. It would be much more useful in stirring things up out on the playground rather than exciting him in the cloakroom. Ian could get that feeling from other things. What could he do with the case, though? It needed to be in Casper’s possession to have the most effect on O, as concrete evidence that would confirm the suspicions Ian had already planted. But Casper wouldn’t carry around something like that; no boy with any self-respect would hold on to a pink plastic pencil case covered with strawberries.

  If not Casper, then someone close to him. Yes. Ian smiled and nodded to himself, knowing now what to do. Shrugging on his jacket—it would be warm outside but he needed a hiding place—he tucked the case in the inside pocket and headed outside.

  The sixth graders had gathered for their afternoon game, when girls and boys played together. The usual captains—Casper and Ian—not being there, two alternatives had taken on the roles: Rod—and O, to Ian’s surprise. How could a new, black boy have wormed his way into the playground hierarchy so quickly and easily? Ian expected more of his classmates, but they seemed to be pussies, willingly rolling over and allowing the new boy to dominate. Ian would have to act fast, or O would take over completely.

  The moment Rod spotted Ian, he ran over, calling, “Ian! Ian’s on my team.” The skin around his right eye was turning inky blue where Casper had punched him, but he was otherwise intact. Ian felt a moment’s disgust.

  “I got detention,” Rod whispered when he was close. “Mrs. Duke said she would’ve suspended me except the black eye is punishment enough. It hurts!”

  “Did you mention me?”

  “No, I said I wouldn’t and I didn’t.”

  “Good.”

  “Hey, it’s not your turn, Rod!” a couple others cried. “It’s O’s turn.”

  Ian stood waiting as O considered which student to pick next for his team. He had already chosen a few others, including Dee and Mimi. Despite his antipathy to the black boy, when O’s eyes came to rest on Ian, the attention thrilled him—positive attention, unlike the cringing unease he was more accustomed to from the others.

  O nodded at him. “Ian.”

  Ian nodded back, and walked over to join the team as Rod muttered, “Damn!”

  While O and Rod continued picking teammates, Ian found what he was looking for: Blanca, sitting alone on the pirate ship, sulking. She would not be playing but preferred to lick her wounds very publicly. Perfect.

  They lost the toss and went out to field. Ian didn’t wait for O to tell him what position to take, but headed to the outfield, close to the pirate ship near third base. Luckily Dee was far from him on the other side of the outfield, and O had his back to Ian, pitching. They were unlikely to spot the strawberry case. Ian was able to sidle over to Blanca, who sat with her arms across one of the bars on the ship deck, her head leaning on one arm. She had her platform sandals up on the lower bar, and if Ian were at a different angle he could see up her skirt. He didn’t move to a better spot, however, for he needed to concentrate. “Blanca,” he whispered.

  When she didn’t respond, he said her name a little louder. She glanced over, indifferent. Throughout their years at school together, Ian had never been able to control or scare her. Blanca was too self-absorbed to be afraid of him; she had her own force and created her own calamities. Ian was nothing to her—or had been nothing. Now he would change that.

  “I’ve got something for you,” he continued, then paused, taking his time. A girl kicked the ball straight to the shortstop for the first out, and Ian clapped along with his teammates. “From Casper,” he added eventually.

  Blanca snapped her head up and let her feet drop to the ship deck. “What?” she cried.

  “Shhh. It’s a secret—something just for you.” Ian didn’t want her drawing attention to herself just yet—not until he was safely out of the picture. He moved closer. “I saw him when he went to the bathroom while he was in the principal’s office. He asked me to give this to you.” Ian pulled out the pencil case from his jacket pocket and handed it to her.

  Blanca breathed out. “Ohhh. It’s so cute!” She ran her fingers over the strawberries just the way Ian had. “Wait till I show the other girls!”

  “Don’t! Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  A boy kicked the ball toward the outfield in between first and second and ran to first base.

  “Casper wanted it to be a secret between you two—something only you and he share. Just for now. Besides, you should thank him first before you show it to everyone else.” With any luck Casper wouldn’t be back for a few days, and by then the damage to O and Dee would have been done, if Ian could show the black boy who had his case. He was freewheeling, he knew, like cycling down a hill without touching the brakes. But that was part of the fun, knowing he could crash.

  “OK…” Blanca looked puzzled. “Is Casper all right? Has he been suspended?”

  “I don’t know,” Ian was able to answer honestly.

  “Is he worried about me? He should be. I have to be out here with everybody knowing what Rod said a
bout me.” When Ian didn’t make the sympathetic noises she was expecting, she added, “It’s awful! It’s so hard being a girl. You have no idea.” She tossed her dark curls for emphasis.

  “I’m sure it is,” Ian agreed, because it was easier to.

  Rod was up. “Make sure you get that jerk out,” Blanca hissed. “I could kill him for hurting Casper!”

  As if her words were a magnet, Rod kicked the ball high toward Ian. Another time he might have deliberately fumbled the ball, but now he stepped forward to meet it, catching it with a satisfying thump against his chest. Blanca cheered as loudly as if she had been on their team, which filled Ian with unexpected pride.

  They got a third out easily and switched sides, heading in to kick with Rod’s team going out to field. As O’s team gathered around their captain to hear the order of the kickers, Ian murmured to him, “Usually we let a girl kick first. You could ask Dee. Everyone will expect you to choose her to go first.”

  O nodded. “Dee, then Duncan, then Ian, me, and…” He pointed to the rest of the teammates in order.

  Up first to kick, Dee made her usual short bunt and dash to first base, where Rod was baseman. She stood as far from him as she could, to demonstrate her disdain at his part in insulting Blanca and inflaming Casper. In fact, most of the girls were freezing him out, even the ones he had chosen for his team. Rod hung his head, clearly unhappy with his new role as playground pariah. Ian was smirking about it as he went to stand next to O.

  But now he must get to work. “You’ve put together a good team.”

  “Thanks.” O had his eyes on Duncan, the next kicker.

  “I see Blanca’s got something from Casper,” Ian remarked. “I guess he’s pretty crazy about her, giving her a present.”

  “Huh.” O was not paying attention. Ian would have to be more obvious.

  “I never thought of her as a strawberry girl, somehow,” he said. “She prefers cherry Now and Laters, if the color of her lips is anything to go by.”