“What’s your name, sweetheart?” the taller boy asked. This one in worn jeans particularly frayed at the edges the way the Geechee Capitans wore theirs when they went crabbing. His head was shaved to keep from the ringworm, Indigo surmised. But the boy had such a pretty head. It was not flat in the back, a pancake head, nor was it all forced up above his eyes, a waterhead. No, this boy had a pretty nutmeg head. He was still slipping that stick round Indigo’s ankle though, & she’d told him to stop. The other boy was real stocky, a flathead, but high cheekbones. Indigo recognized the blood of that colored family married Chinese. They all looked like that. Still there was no doubt she’d told them to leave her be & they didn’t. Indigo closed her eyes tight like she was fixing to run or scream; instead she said: “Falcon come in this fiddle. Falcon come in this fiddle. Leopard come in this fiddle. Leopard come in this fiddle. I’m on the prey. I’m on the prey.” ’Fore she knew it, Indigo was so busy bowing the daylights & jungles out her violin, she didn’t notice the two boys duck down on the other side of the fence. When she opened her eyes, she realized she’d stood her ground. & that stick was no longer ’tween her legs. She smiled a tiny smile, peered over the fence, tapped the tall boy’s shin with the tip of the bow.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” Indigo chirped, so fulla herself. The boys brushed the sand from their knees, grinned self-consciously.

“I’m Spats,” the tall boy answered, “& this here is Crunch. We Junior Geechee Capitans.”

Indigo held her tongue. “Why imagine that. Y’all Junior G.C. Ain’t that somethin’. I’m Indigo.”

Spats jumped over the fence first. He reached for Indigo’s fiddle. She pulled it away gracefully. “I can’t let anyone touch my instrument. It’s bad luck.” Spats shrugged his shoulders. “Hey, whatever ya say. Ain’t that right, Crunch?” Crunch hanging tough in the alleyway was hardly enthusiastic. A girl with a violin had got him down on his knees in broad daylight.

“What the hell was ya doin’ on that damn thing?” Crunch grumbled, messing with his elbows, his thick crop of black hair meeting his furrowed indignant brow.

“I was fightin’ back in my own way. That’s what I was doin’. & you know it. Come puttin’ a stick ’tween my legs like I ain’t got no better sense than to let you do it ’cause you boys. Um-humph. Uncle John, he spoke to me on that. He said, ‘Indigo, when trouble come, get your fiddle.’ ”