New Boy

“Well, well,” Mr. Brabant remarked. “I think I hear drums.”

Ian would always notice anyone new who stepped into his territory. For the playground was his. It had been all year, since he had started sixth grade and there were no older boys to rule it. He’d had months to relish this domination. Any new boy posed a challenge. And this new boy, well . . .

“If you’re gonna go with me, you better not even look at those boys. Will you go with me?”

Mimi nodded.

“Then open your mouth when we kiss so I can stick my tongue in.”

In his London school there had been one other black student—a girl with Jamaican parents, who never once met his eyes, who stayed as far from him as she could, as if they were two magnets pushing away from each other. She had found her own precarious perch and did not want to get pulled into his struggle to find a safe place.

Osei packed his things into Dee’s case, though now that they had made the swap he felt a little regretful about giving away something of his sister’s.

“You don’t even know what he’s like.”

“I know, but . . . it would be strange.”

Mimi opened her eyes and looked at Bianca. “What would be strange?” She enjoyed watching Bianca squirm.

“Well, like, what would it be like touching his hair? Isn’t it—greasy or something?”

Mimi grimaced. Everything Dee did and said would now be related back to the new boy; she would mention him whenever she could, eager to say his name aloud, savoring its special meaning while all around her remained ignorant of the effect.

“He seems nice enough. But you’re gonna get a lot of hassle if you go with him.”

“And I like him because he’s different.”

Mr. Brabant’s desk was at the front of the class, and he sat behind it like a soldier at attention, which made all the students sit straight and still as well. He wore a suit and tie and seemed no-nonsense. Osei preferred that in teachers; you knew where you were when they were strict. It was when they tried to be your friend that misunderstandings arose. On the other hand, Mr. Brabant’s cool gaze was not welcoming, but wary, as if he were waiting for O to do something he could punish him for. Osei was familiar with that drill; he would have to watch himself.

It was only when he had joined them that Ian said, “Black people are good at sports, right?”

The other boys whistled through their teeth and laughed.

Osei didn’t grimace, or hit him, or walk away. Here was a straight talker. It was almost a relief to hear the prejudice out in the open.

Ian stared at his girlfriend. “I didn’t see that. Did he just touch her?”

“Not Mimi. Dee. He was touching Dee under the trees. And she was touching him.” Rod was working himself into a rage, his cheeks bright red.

“He touches all the girls,” Ian muttered. “He’ll be going all the way with them soon. That’s how boys like him are. Unless we stop him.”

There was a Casper in every school, popular enough that he could afford to be genuinely nice to people. He was probably nice even to the three losers at the other table, because he could be. Casper had entitlement. Osei’s father liked to say it was always better to befriend a man whose family has been wealthy for generations than a poor man who has worked his way up and will be nasty to those who remain where he has come from. The latter would be Ian.

[A] white girl’s silky-smooth long hair was a novelty every bit as curious as his bushy Afro was to them. He’d briefly touched Pam’s hair before he’d broken up with her, but running his hand over Dee’s head during recess was the first time he’d touched a white girl’s hair properly. Even then, hers was in braids, so he hadn’t had the true experience. When she came back from lunch he was going to ask her to take it out of the braids so he could feel it loose and get his fingers tangled in it.

It would be satisfying to take them all down—not just the black boy, but the golden boy and the golden girl of the school too. Casper and Dee were like the Teflon pan his mother used to fry eggs in—nothing stuck to them. He had never been able to touch them—they were on a level above Ian’s kind of activity. Everyone admired them in a way he would never experience. It would be an end-of-school present to himself if he could conquer them.

“[I]t’s not like you.”

“I like it this way.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” Actually it tickled her neck and kept getting in her mouth, but Dee was not going to tell him that.

“That’s a shame, because it doesn’t suit you. Trust me.”

Partly it was the incongruity—that a white stranger could be holding something O so strongly associated with his sister, back when she was younger, happier, more communicative, more sisterly. Now it was being passed around the playground, untethered from its personal history, as if it didn’t matter that it had belonged to Sisi—as if Sisi didn’t matter, when actually she mattered to Osei more than anyone. More than Dee, he realized. Dee had not yet earned her place in his heart. Now he was not sure she ever would.

He did not want to have to confront her, to have her get in his face, talking to him, telling more lies, treating him like her boyfriend and then like the black boy on the white playground. The black sheep, with the black mark against his name. Blackballed. Blackmailed. Blacklisted. Blackhearted.

She had rarely seen Dee’s hair free from braids. It seemed a shame to confine it again. Still, it clearly bothered the adults.

“Don’t be silly, you’re the most interesting person I know—apart from Osei, now.”

Mimi felt the sharp tooth of jealousy bite, and was tempted to yank hard on the braid she held.

He had a right to be angry at her, she felt, to shout and push her away. He was black, and all day they had treated him that way, differently from how they would treat another new student. Dee knew she herself found him interesting because he was black, and that was not necessarily a good reason—to like someone for their skin color.

“How did Blanca get the case, then?”

“I have no idea. Let’s ask her.”

“I do not need to—I already know. She got it from Casper, who you gave it to..”

“She has even touched my dick, that is how much she wants it. How much all white girls want it.”

“Why have you done this thing?”

Ian shrugged. “Because I can.”

“You know what?” he said, not loud, but penetrating nonetheless. “Black is beautiful.”