Took my hand in his and guided it between his legs where he was swollen, fattish.

Don’t pretend, Vio-let Rue. Dirty girl!

The face was contorted. Of the hue of a cooked tomato, about to burst. Eyes about to burst out of their sockets. Breath in gasps. Like a bicycle pump, my brothers’ bicycle pump, pumping air into a tire, that wheezing sound it makes if you are not doing it correctly, and air is escaping.

The hand gripping my hand, so that it hurts. Pushing, pressing, urgently, faster and faster, jamming my hand against his swollen flesh, my numbed hand, as he groans, rocks from side to side, eyes roll in their sockets, he is about to faint . . .

But no. None of this happened. For none of this was witnessed.

ONE DAY IN SECRET I WROTE ON A SCRAP OF PAPER—DEAR TYRELL, I love you.

It was not true that I loved Tyrell Jones. I did not love anyone except my parents. And possibly Katie, and Miriam. (Though my sisters were not very nice to me any longer.) (But I would forgive them and immediately love them again, if they were nice to me.) But if I were to write a note to Tyrell Jones I had to say something and I could think of nothing else to say that would justify a note.

This piece of paper I folded over several times. Forced it into Tyrell Jones’s locker when no one was in the corridor to see.

Afterward I never looked in the direction of the locker (which was across the hall from my own, near Mr. Sandman’s classroom) if I could avoid it. In this way I had no idea if Tyrell ever found the note.

I did not want to know. I did not want to know indisputably.

If he’d found the note, and read it, he would have been shocked. Would’ve crumpled the note in his fist, and shoved it into his pocket.

But it isn’t a joke, Tyrell. Not a cruel joke.

I am not like Mr. Sandman. I am not making fun of you.

I was too shy to speak with Tyrell Jones. I could not even bring myself to smile at him encouragingly, when Mr. Sandman called him to the front of the room to solve a problem on the blackboard.

Fortunately, Mr. Sandman never made Tyrell Jones walk the plank. But I hated it when Mr. Sandman tormented him at the blackboard.

Mr. Sandman’s goon squad was entertained. Husky boys, with loud laughs. They were not so skilled at algebra as Tyrell Jones but they could laugh at the nervous black boy, for they had the teacher’s permission.

Tyrell was one of a half-dozen students in the class who did the math homework correctly. But Tyrell was so intimidated by Mr. Sandman’s interrogation, he could not think clearly. His glasses slid down his sweaty nose. So nervous, he fumbled the chalk. Once at the blackboard he began to gasp for breath, seemed to be choking before our eyes, and Mr. Sandman quickly took mercy on him— “Hand over that chalk to Violet, Ty-rell. Let’s see if a slip of a girl can solve the problem that eludes you.”