Macey laughed. “Austin. Well, I’ve thought about it.”

“You can’t think about a crush. You have one, or you don’t have one.”

“I don’t have one, then.”

“You should. He’s a cutie.”

“That’s what my grandmother says.”

“You live with your grandmother? Me too. My mama’s getting well, but she can’t help us till she’s all well. She did drugs, and they messed her up. She loves us, see, but she can’t quite be a mama. So we live with our grandma. How come you live with your grandma?”

Austin and Isaiah walked in before Macey had to come up with an answer. “Just wanted to check out your color,” said Austin, looking at their yellow walls. “Yours isn’t as good as ours.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Macey. “Our color is sunshine and crowns of gold.”

“Whoa,” said Venita. “Sounds like Shakespeare.”

“You studying Shakespeare?”

“Yup. Mr. Santangelo, he can photocopy a Shakespeare play, see. There aren’t enough classroom copies of anything that we can all read the same book, so even though it’s American lit this year, we’re doing Hamlet. The boys love Hamlet ’cause everybody dies in the end and the stage is all stabbing and poison.”

“ ‘Oh, I die, Horatio, the potent poison quite o’ercrows my spirit. I cannot live to hear the news from England,’ ” said Isaiah unexpectedly.

Venita shoved him to the floor, put her foot on his chest and said in a voice as elegant as her hair, “ ‘Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet Prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.’ ”

“The girls love clutching their hands together and crying, ‘Good night, sweet Prince,’ ” explained Isaiah from the floor. “They don’t even let you say your whole speech before they bury you.”

Austin was laughing. He reached a hand down to haul Isaiah up, but Venita seemed reluctant to remove her pink-sneakered foot. “What does photocopying have to do with it?” asked Austin.

“Copy places won’t let you copy a book that’s new, so we can only read old, old stuff that they do let you copy,” said Isaiah.

“Here’s the part I like in Hamlet,” said Venita. “Where Hamlet says”—and she lowered her voice, drew out her syllables and hissed evilly across the room—“ ‘ ’Tis now the very witching time of night when churchyards yawn and Hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood and do such bitter business as the day would quake to look on.’ ” Venita took her pink sneaker off Isaiah’s chest. “See,” she said in an everyday voice, “that’s right outside the door. Bitter business the day would quake to look on.”

The words crept backward through Macey’s heart, breathing contagion. When churchyards yawn. What a horrible image—churches paying no attention while the day quaked.