“You can call me Roger, miss,” he said.

“Why?” she said. “Rajiv is a simply beautiful name, which probably has a significant meaning in India. Do you know what it means, Rajiv?”

“It means Roger, miss.”

A couple of the children giggled.

Miss Kelly pulled down the roll-up world map above the board and pointed. “This is India. Columbus was trying to find India when he came here. That’s why our Indians are called Indians. Indians from India were originally a mixture of Aryans, white blond people from the north, and Dravidians, who were”—she hesitated—“indigenous.”

“You mean they was Negroes, miss?” This had come from Aaron Fitzhammer, a big lumpish boy in a YFA cap. He wasn’t being cruel but was genuinely confused. Annie wished Miss Kelly would stop this and move on. Raj had crumpled into himself.

“Can anyone tell me what indigenous means?” Miss Kelly asked.

Annie put up her hand. “It means they were there first, Miss Kelly.”

“Right. Like the Osage were here in Missouri first.”

“The Negroes weren’t here first,” Eileen Metzler declared sharply. She had a strawberry birthmark in the shape of a mitten over her left cheek; her father was secretary of the Missouri chapter of the KKK.

“We’re not talking about them right now,” Miss Kelly said.

“I thought Negroes came from the jungle.” Aaron’s utterly perplexed expression set off a general titter of laugher.

“They do have a jungle in India.” Miss Kelly was getting flustered. “In fact they have elephants like they have in Africa, but the elephants have larger—or is it smaller?—ears.”

“Why would they have different-sized ears?” Aaron was almost crying with the strain of all this.

Miss Kelly was in quicksand and Aaron had become a weight around her neck.

“Anyway,” she stammered, “what I was saying is that Indians are a mixing together of Dravidians and Aryans.”

“How did they mix together, Miss Kelly?” asked Seamus Haliday, a sly sharp-witted boy with pure red hair, his naked eyes like two blue marbles pushed into white clay.

Miss Kelly ignored him. “So, what I’m saying is that America is now like what India was all those thousands of years ago. Lots of different people from all different places mixing together on this continent.”

“White folks shouldn’t mix with Negroes,” Eileen Metzler shouted furiously.

Miss Kelly didn’t know what to do now. This was clearly not how she had intended things to turn out. Acting as ever from kindness and empathy, she had foolishly thought that if she could introduce Raj with some sort of historical and geographical background it would help him fit in a little better.

Seamus, sensing the kill, said, “So you’re saying that in like a thousand years we’re all going to end up looking like Roger?”

“Better than looking like you, carrot top,” Annie said.

“Well, you’re already halfway there, dago girl.”