I turn to look at Fiona, to see how she’s processing all this, and find a gleeful smile on her face—she’s living for it. She, too, is down to risk being pushed out of a room she was never wanted in to begin with. And that’s why I love her.

“Um, anyway.” Ms. Kingston rolls her eyes and gives up. “Back to the topic at hand. We’re talking about The Crucible today.”

She fills the center of the room, looking down at her little stack of papers. I notice how her gray turtleneck shrouds every piece of her torso, neck to waist, so only her hands and face are exposed. The hands look older than the face.

She reads something. “Raise your hand if you think the events of the play fulfill the spell Abigail cast in the woods with Tituba earlier on in the play.”

Half the hands go up, and half stay down. Fiona’s stays down, so I keep mine down. I haven’t read the play. It’s never worth it to fake it.

“Anyone care to elaborate on their choice?” Ms. Kingston says, surveying the room with boredom and then landing on Chad, who’s whispering to his friend about something not at all related to the book. “Mr. Roberts?”

Chad snaps to face her. “Oh, sorry, what was that, ma’am?” People laugh—they love his little performance. “Wait, did you ask about Tituba? I think it was all her fault.”

More chuckles. Ms. Kingston rolls her eyes, but there’s a smirk on her face too.

She regains her composure and asks, “And why is it Tituba’s fault?”

“Because everybody knows Tituba bewitched Abigail and forced her to do everything. It was obviously slave revenge.” More laughter.

Like trapped spiders eating my heart from the inside out.

“Soooo,” Chad goes on, knowing how each word will tear me down, relishing in it. “Tituba is basically manipulating everyone to turn against each other so she can enact world domination.”

Black people are always the punch line of a joke—it’s maybe why none of the books we read have Black people in them unless they’re slaves.

Ms. Kingston glances in my direction and then stands up straight, shaking her bangs out of her face a little. “Anyway, no—I don’t think that’s what Arthur Miller actually intended.”

I love how we all just move on.