“Oooooohh!” Ruthester rushed to Horace, snatching some tissue from the principal’s desk, and, falling to her knees before him, dabbed at his swollen lip. “Are you all right, baby?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said demurely.

Horace remembered now, looking through the window on this peculiar scene, how he had felt at once rescued and sorry for Willy. He sat there on that hard wooden judge’s bench, no longer the mean and hateful accuser, but a mere boy with a busted lip, alone and with no lion aunts to rush to his aid. And because he had felt this ambivalence, Horace had sensed he was wrong, inside, for not feeling the way he should. There was still anger, but there was an odd sense of unfairness, unequalness, and all in his favor.

Bewildered and outdone, Mr. Stubbs relegated Horace into the capable, as he termed it, hands of his aunts for “stern and complete reproachment” for fighting. Promising, with all the trustworthiness at the disposal of a white Southern gentleman in the face of three regal black Furies, that he would personally call Mrs. Smith and make sure little Willy received “equal and just” punishment. Which Horace thought meant nothing would happen to either of them.

Later his aunts congratulated him for standing up for himself­—­and regardless of what “that man” said, if he must fight, he must fight and damn the consequences, for not to fight would hold graver, more shameful consequences than any punishment the principal could ever dole out. There was an armor one wore to beat the consequences, invisible, but powerful and evident; an armor he heard in the edge of his grandfather’s voice, in the stoop of his great-aunt’s walk, in the glint of their eyes when they encountered white people. Integrity. Dignity. Pride. At the time these words had not been available to him. But he felt it, saw it, in their carriage, heard it in their speech. Not to have this quality would be, must be, like being lost. It became clear to him that he had to achieve this mysterious state, to learn this shielding knowledge, and thus avoid the consequences.

The images in the office faded as mist dissipating on a mirror, and Horace turned to continue walking around the building. A car zoomed by on the highway, but being seen did not cross his mind, now distracted by the hellhounds who were fighting just at the steps of the school or the blue horses galloping to and fro in the schoolyard.