“What’s the matter, witch? Can’t think of a good spell? Are you going to turn me into a frog?”

One after another I measured my breaths, deep and slow. “I wish I could. We eat frogs around here.” Well, I’d never eaten any personally and I didn’t know anyone who had, but I’d heard that it was something that rednecks did.

She laughed out loud. “Jesus,” she blasphemed happily. “Nothing you people do would surprise me. Shit, I want out of here so bad.”

“Then go home. Or one of these days I’m gonna send you home airmail,” I threatened, fists beginning to shake.

“I believe it, too. My dad says you guys are the worst kind of southerners.”

I couldn’t stop myself. I had to ask, even though it meant asking a question when I already knew the answer. I just wanted to hear her say it. I probably should have kept my mouth shut, but that’s the story of my life.

“What do you mean, you guys?”

“I mean,” and she drew her mouth up to my ear once more. I hadn’t yet faced her and she wanted to make sure she still commanded my attention. I believe she would’ve crawled inside my head if she could have, to make sure I heard her. “You guys who aren’t all white and aren’t all black. You’re not anything except the worst mix of a bad lot, and it don’t surprise my dad at all that a family like yours would have something crazy like this going on.”

“Thank you,” I said quietly.

“For what?”

“For making this really easy.”

Later she called it a sucker punch, but she knew it was coming. She practically begged me for it. Right beneath the ribs. My knotty little knuckles slammed into her stomach and then, as she fell, my other hand came up and caught her square in the face. Blood spurted from her nose, surprising me but not stopping me. She reached out and tried to grab my hair but I knocked her hand away and shoved her backwards. Back she went, onto a couch in the lobby and then over it.

Her head must have hit something somewhere along the way, for she did not get up again. Instead she lay there moaning, wiping at her face until scarlet streaked her cheeks and the sleeve of her shirt, even smearing the lovely marble floor.

It was only then, when I stood there panting, fists balled and feet parted, that I realized the old man had quit talking. Silence filled the lobby, despite the crowd gathering in a cautious circle around the scene. Our teacher ran to April’s side and lifted her to a sitting position, where she cried and snuffled.