Free Kizzy Ann Stamps by Jeri Watts Page A

we’ve broken into groups to eat. Naturally, the white students eat separate from the black students, but also the boys eat separate from the girls. Even then, there are certain groups of boys who always eat together and certain girls who never eat with other girls. I’m one of the ones who moves from group to group. I don’t have one particular group I belong to. To be honest, I don’t really fit anywhere, but I don’t
not
fit either. I’m not a loner, exactly. I can work with anybody or work alone, just depends. I sit with Shag a lot, just us, when it’s still nice enough for us to eat outside. To be honest, that’s my preference, but I know my mama worries if that’s all I do, so I try to sit with other people, so that when I go home and she says, “Who’d you eat lunch with?” I can honestly say someone’s name besides Shag’s. For instance, you’ll see me eat sometimes with Sarah and Mildred. They’re okay, but they are pretty silly. Plus Mildred is scared stiff of Shag, even though I have told her Shag will not hurt her unless I tell Shag to or unless Mildred tries to hurt me. Mama says you can learn something from everyone in the world, but I don’t know what I can learn from them. I know what I learn from eating with Omera and Ovita, the twins. They hardly say boo, except when they talk to each other in their twin language, so what I learn is Christian patience. I am exhausted after eating with them, and also more than a little annoyed. But Granny Bits says it is good for my soul to be tried by fire. Well, I am getting a good workout on my patience, that’s for sure. Do you ever get lonely, eating by yourself? I’d come and eat with you, but I’m sure that would set the tongues wagging, making me look like a teacher’s pet, plus you’d get in trouble eating with one of the black kids. And maybe you like to eat alone, so you can think and have a few minutes not to have to talk. Maybe I’m a trial to you. Hmm, I hadn’t thought of that.
    I know I’ve mentioned my brother to you before, but I’m getting really worried about him now. I’ve talked a lot about how angry James is about the football players not being treated fairly. You probably don’t see a good side to James from my writing of him, I suppose. The other night I was surprised by him myself. At dinner, I talked highly of you, how kind you’ve been to me, the interest you’ve shown in Shag. James never looked up. But after we finished the milking, we turned the cows out and walked back up the drive — all the chores done, we were in the dark and I couldn’t see his face — he started talking quietly about school for him. He doesn’t have just one teacher, being in high school, but it’s pretty much the same, in all his classes: bad.
    “Most of the teachers won’t even look at us kids,” he said. “They don’t call our names on the roll, and you can’t take tests since you didn’t show up on the roll according to the way they call it. If anybody asks, they say you didn’t come to class, because you didn’t answer the roll. But of course, you didn’t answer because they didn’t call your name. I heard them talking — they call it their ‘silent protest.’ They say that Dr. King isn’t the only one who can have a nonviolent protest. They don’t give us textbooks so we can’t study, and they don’t call on us in class, even if we raise our hands. It’s like we’re invisible.
    “The one time a teacher did speak to me, he said, ‘Mister, they may tell me I have to let you in my room, but they can’t make me teach you. So there.’”
    I told James he should tell Mama and Daddy. We were almost back to the house, and I could feel Shag circling near, hear her panting as she kept close.
    James snorted at my suggestion. “I thought about it, but what good would it do? You still can’t make them teach us. You can’t replace every teacher, Kizzy Ann. Heard about Prince Edward County? They closed all their public