Free The Buffalo Soldier by Chris Bohjalian Page B

with Tien. He wondered where she was living.
    Alfred knew a little history, just enough to sense that no one here discriminated against him because he was black. No one called him names, no one wanted him to have less of anything. No one expected him to use a different water fountain. It wasn't like those pictures from the South they'd looked at in Ms. Huntoon's class when he was in the third grade in Burlington.
    But he also felt as if the people here, teachers, too, were always staring at him when he was on the playground or in the lunchroom, and that may have been because he was black--although it may also have been because he was a foster child. A person just dropped into a school filled with kids who'd been together since the very first day of kindergarten.
    Either way, some of the kids still kept a certain distance, even now when he was involved in one of their games. He was part of the group that was playing Capture the Flag during recess. Immediately after lunch the teachers had herded everyone outside because it was so warm for November and the sun was out. Schuyler Jackman had made sure that Alfred was on his team, which had made him feel better than if he'd wound up as a spectator with his back to the brick wall of the building--something that had happened twice before. But he still found that he could reach the opposing team's flag almost at will, as if the other kids didn't want to tag him. His team had won both games so far, because with a minimal amount of darting and ducking he had raced through the defense and grabbed the red art smock that was serving as their flag.
    He couldn't figure out whether they were being nice to him, or whether it was something else entirely. No one, he could not help but notice, had clapped him on the back or asked for a high five when he'd crossed back onto Schuyler's team's side with the smock--not even Tim. That had certainly been a part of the victory celebration in the games he had witnessed from the sideline. In his case, however, both times there had been a few small cheers and a few kids had pumped their fists into the air, but then he had simply been expected to hand the jersey back to the losers so they could begin a new game.
    Certainly Peter Wolcott should have held up his palm and offered some skin. Both times Peter had been the teammate nearest him when he'd returned, victorious, with the opposing team's flag. Instead Peter had ignored him.
    He wondered what would happen if he just gave them back the jersey and walked back inside the building to his classroom. A teacher would probably stop him--probably his own teacher, Ms. Logan--but there was no way one of the kids would make the effort. He felt himself growing angry, but he couldn't stop himself and he didn't care. Would it have been so hard for Peter or Schuyler or anyone to ask him for five? For Tim? Of course it wouldn't.
    It wasn't his fault that his mother had gone AWOL on him when she had another child, and that no one seemed to know who his dad was.
    And so after racing around Liam Freeland and a pair of girls who were offering next to no defense of the flag, he swiped the red smock from their goal, sprinted back to his side of the field, and then thwacked the cloth hard against Peter Wolcott's fat back. The boy yelled, more in surprise than in pain, and when he turned Alfred thwacked him again. This one got him on the side of his head, and would probably redden that pale, pale ear in a matter of seconds. Alfred apologized--he knew how much an ear could hurt--and was about to say something more because he really hadn't meant to nail the kid there, but he saw one of the teachers walking purposefully across the playground field toward him and he realized there wasn't a thing more he could say at this point that would do him a bit of good.
    "I informed Sergeant Rowe of the order I'd received that henceforth the company would be kept fifteen yards from the white soldiers during inspection and would no longer