She frightens me. But she makes me want to stop being polite.
I shouldn’t say anything to her. It’s against the rules, and the rules are there for a reason.
It only happens because I can’t stop myself.
“It’s a shame you had to have such an awful friend, Judy,” I say, looking straight into the red-haired girl’s eyes. “I suppose we all have to suffer in our own ways.”
The red-haired girl stiffens. Everyone in the classroom is staring at us.
As soon as the words are out of my mouth, my nervousness returns. This girl may be too smart to throw rocks in the parking lot, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t just as dangerous as the rest of them. Smarts can do more damage than strength.
But if this girl is really so smart, why does she believe in segregation? There’s nothing logical about keeping people separated by their skin colors.
She’s as bad as the governor. Everyone says he’s an intelligent man. He’s a lawyer who argued in front of the Supreme Court, saying it would be too dangerous for colored children and white children to go to the same school. Then he got elected to the highest post in the state. Governor Almond has got to be one of the smartest men there is, but he believes in segregation, too.
I should’ve been smart enough not to talk back to this beautiful, dangerous girl.
It scares me, the way she makes me feel. I need to get away from her.
I slip around the red-haired girl while she’s still distracted and leave as quickly as I can. The rest of them spill out behind me. They don’t seem to be following me, though. They’re talking to Judy and her friend.
“It’s true,” one of them says. “Those agitators are just awful. I can’t believe that one had the nerve to talk to you that way, Linda.”
Linda. That must be the red-haired girl’s name. It suits her.
“What was it like speaking French with the nigger?” a boy asks Judy.
“Yeah, did she speak some of that coonjab to ya?” another one says.
“I don’t know,” Judy says. “I couldn’t understand what she said. It was in French.”
“No way,” a boy says. “You know that nigger don’t speak no French. They don’t say no ‘parlez-vous’ in Africa.”
Everyone laughs.
I’ve still got my back to the group. To be safe, I really should speed up to get away from them, but I want to hear what else Judy says. She’s the only white student all day who’s seemed like she might be all right.
“Does she stink even harder up close?” a boy asks her. “Man, I bet sitting next to one of them is worse than being on a pig farm in August.”
“I didn’t smell anything,” Judy says.
There’s a long pause where all I hear are footsteps. Then one of the boys says, “What’s the matter, Judy, you turning into a nigger-lover?”
There’s another long pause.
Then Linda speaks up. I’d recognize her voice anywhere.
“Don’t feel like you have to protect her, Judy,” Linda says. “You don’t owe her anything. They’re the ones who messed up this whole year for all of us, remember?”
There’s another pause. Then Judy’s voice falters. “Well. She talked real fast. Like how people up North sound.”
Some of the boys chuckle.
“I bet she wasn’t really saying anything in French,” Judy says. “I bet she just making a bunch of noises.”
No. No.
Everyone’s laughing now. One of the boys makes a honking sound.
“Yeah, do that again!” another boy says. “That’s what nigger French sounds like.”
Soon all the boys are doing it. Their laughter howls down the hall.
But they’re getting drowned out now by the other shouts. The usual ones. The circle has started to form around me, the way it always does in the halls. There are too many catcalls of “Nigger!” and “Ugly coon!” to distinguish one voice from another.
In a way, I’m relieved.
When it’s this loud it’s hard to hear the voice in my head.
The one that’s saying I was wrong. That Judy isn’t all right.
That every white person in this school is just as bad as every other.
“LOOK AT THAT ugly face.” The white girl behind me in the lunch line is talking to her friend, but she’s gazing straight at me. “I guess there ain’t nothing she can do about it, though. They don’t make no black lipstick.”
Her friend stares at me, too.
I want to tell the white girl she’s uglier than I’ll ever be, with her fat ankles and her rat’s nest hair.
Instead I keep my eyes on the wall.
I’d expected the name-calling. The spitting. The shoving. I wasn’t ready for it, but I’d known it was coming.
What I didn’t plan on was the staring.
Everyone stares at me. Boys, girls. Freshmen, seniors. Teachers, secretaries.
Everyone. All day long. If I so much as move my little finger, fifty people watch me do it.
Maybe they think I can’t see them. That I’m blind as well as black.
“There she is!” a man’s voice booms. “There’s our young Miss Sarah Dunbar!”
I start to panic. Then I remember none of the white people know my name.
Mr. Muse is coming toward me, a bucket swinging from his hand and a wide smile on his face.
“Mr. Muse!” I grin up at him. He’s the tallest man in our church, nearly a foot taller than Daddy. His wife is in the choir with me, but I’d forgotten he worked at Jefferson. He sets his bucket down on the floor, peels off one of his rubber gloves and holds out his big hand to me. I clasp it, ignoring the looks and snickers from the white people. Mr. Muse’s hand is warm in mine.
“Bless you, Sarah,” he says, beaming down at me. “You know we’re all real, real glad to see you here.”
I can’t find words to tell Mr. Muse how glad I am to see him, too. His is the first friendly face I’ve seen in I don’t know how long.
“Now you just remember, we’re all so proud of you.” Mr. Muse drops my hand. He bends down to retrieve his bucket with the mop handle poking out the top. “And you’re surely making your mama and daddy proud, too.”
“Thank you so much, Mr. Muse, sir,” I say.
“Sir?” the girl behind me snickers in a high-pitched voice that she probably thinks sounds Northern. Like me. “Leave it to a doggone dirty nigger to call the doggone dirty janitor ‘sir.’ You get on out of here with your stinking bucket, boy.”
Mr. Muse acts like he didn’t hear the girl. He smiles at me again, then turns to leave the cafeteria, whistling that jazz tune they’ve been playing on the radio all winter.
I wish I could keep clasping Mr. Muse’s big warm hand for the rest of the day.
Usually