Metal groans, and the blue sedan flips toward the rescue crew. They jump back to avoid being crushed, and the wheels hit the ground. The students on the bus cheer. A pale face soaked in blood lolls against the cracked window. The ticket seller rushes back to the car with a crowbar and jimmies the door open. A skinny white man in a dark-brown suit slides onto the road like a rag the maid uses to clean the floors. The man’s right eye is swollen shut, and both his legs are twisted in different directions.

My mouth opens, and a high-pitched squeal comes out. I am not alone. Lottie is frightened too. Her fingers curl around mine, and I squeeze tight. She acts tough, but underneath it all she’s a sixteen-year-old girl who hates the sight of blood, just like me. I go to untangle our hands. Not in a mean way, but nicely. I don’t want her to think our being close goes beyond this minute. And that’s when I realize my mistake. Lottie’s hands are neatly folded in her lap. I am the one who’s reached out to grab her. I am the one doing the clutching, the holding.

I jerk my hand away from Lottie’s, and my face flames.

4

Know Your Place

We tumble out of the bus and onto the dusty grounds of Keziah Christian Academy, hours late. The car crash affected us all differently. Most students are subdued and exhausted. Others are excited and energized. Lazy-Eye Matthew and the Green brothers can’t stop talking about the accident: the roar of the car engine, the spinning wheels, and the driver’s bloodied face.

“You saw it,” Lazy-Eye Matthew says. “White people aren’t special. They’re meat, just like us.”

I can’t wait to get off the bus and forget the day that passed. Plus, I’m starving. In first class, I would have swapped Delia half an orange for a boiled egg, or a piece of buttered bread for roasted peanuts. But Lottie had nothing. Not a carrot or a turned-brown banana. Nothing! Eating in front of her would have been awkward, so I kept my impago box closed and starved instead. When I get to the big-girls’ dormitory, I will gorge on whatever Mother packed me for the trip. It’s bound to be better than the stewed meat and cabbage they serve us in the dining hall.

The skinny black man who packed the suitcases onto the roof of the Ocean Current throws them down to the skinny black man who originally threw them up to him. They fall into a rhythm. Grab, throw, catch, place in a row. Grab, throw, catch, place in a row. I stand back with the other students and wait for the unloading to finish. Only then can we pick up our suitcases and go to our dorms.