At recess, Annie, Raj, and Nora sat together in the lunchroom. Lew had left. He said his dad needed him for the hay harvest, but Annie wondered if he was just ashamed he had no lunch with him. Annie liked to watch Nora eat because she did it so primly, which she certainly hadn’t learned from her family. She had started to use an astringent for her acne, which would cause her whole face to go red and peel, and was thinking about getting the new radiation treatment.

Seamus, Aaron, and a couple of other boys brought their lunch to the next table. It was clear they were curious about Raj. For a while they whispered and laughed. Finally Walter Novus, whose dad owned the shoe store, called over, “Hey, Roger, we’re kicking your ass in Korea.”

“He’s from India, you muttonhead,” Annie said.

“I’m from England.” Raj was clearly tired of all this.

Seamus spoke. “Roger, which one’s black then, your dad or your mom?”

“He’s—” Annie began, but Raj cut her off.

“My mum.”

“Where is she, then?” Seamus asked.

“She’s dead.”

“How’d she die?”

Raj didn’t answer for a moment. Finally he turned to the boys, his face full of sad gravity, and said quietly, “We lived in a small tribe near the Pungabini Mountains in the north of India. She was the youngest daughter of the chief and was sacrificed to Kali the Destroyer because we’d had two years of bad harvest and they blamed it on her marrying an outsider.”

All the boys looked at him astonished.

“Sacrificed?” Seamus said.

For a second Raj appeared close to tears. “They staked her to the ground and stampeded a herd of elephants. My dad—he was a mercenary and a hunter—hid out and tried to shoot the elephants as they came close, but there were too many.”

Staring off into space, he took a sad bite of his sandwich. The boys had gone completely quiet. Annie couldn’t keep from smiling, though. Seamus spotted it and realized that Raj had put one over on them. Furious, he said, “Your mom was a nigger, nigger boy.”

“Why don’t you just leave us alone, you knucklehead,” Annie shouted, turning herself around.

“Drop dead, garlic breath.”

Annie was just wild now and gave Seamus a glancing slap that caught his cheek. He reacted by throwing a hard punch right beneath her eye. She tried to get up to hit him, but her sweater snagged on one of the bolts holding the bench together. Taking his chance, he punched her again, hitting the side of her mouth. Nora got up and Seamus ran, Nora chasing after.

Annie freed her sweater and covered her face. She hated it that she was crying but couldn’t stop herself. All the boys who had been having lunch with Seamus stood awkwardly around, calling him a knucklehead and a no-ball man. Everybody liked Annie. Raj nervously touched her shoulder and said he was sorry. Nora returned, flushed and out of breath. She pushed in next to Annie. As efficient as she had been with the death, she eased Annie’s hands away and examined her face. Her eye was already swelling, and blood leaked from her lip.