Free Kizzy Ann Stamps by Jeri Watts Page B

schools — white kids go to private schools, the ones who can afford it, and the black kids and the poor white kids get no education at all. At least here I can sit in the classroom and hear what’s being taught. And there’s some good teachers fighting to get the grades and rolls thing looked at — maybe these jerks can’t stay in place but for so long. Just keep quiet about it and be thankful for your teacher you got.”
    So, thanks again, Miss Anderson. I sure do appreciate you.

    Gosh, I hope you say I’m not a trial — I know you’ll say you understand, even though you won’t agree about the other kids. Of course you won’t. You’re the teacher!
    I’m in
another
group with that Laura Westover. I know I’m not supposed to complain, Miss Anderson, but couldn’t you keep us apart? If she tells me to get makeup to cover my scar again, I think I’ll deck her! Today she had everybody in the group talking about scars. Keith showed us the back of his head.
    “We were playing at College Lake, see,” he said. “My brother invented this game where he throws a bottle into the lake at the same time I dive in, and I see if I can get the bottle before it sinks to the bottom. I’m a fast diver, and I can always get it before it sinks.” He’s so smug, I swear.
    But Laura put him in his place. For once I was happy to have her around. “But not fast enough when your left-handed cousin from New York threw the bottle, right? You didn’t move the right way that time, and
whack,
right across the back of your noggin!”
    At least his hair covers the scar. He let us all feel it — even the black kids. It does raise up pretty nasty; his doctor wasn’t near as careful as mine, but I reckon he needn’t be, since he knew his hair would cover it. Still, it’s all lumpy. I thought Laura was going to lose her lunch. I was far more interested in the texture of his hair, though, to tell the truth. It’s like the softest satin I’ve touched — reminded me of Shag’s fur after her baths. I guess not all white folks have hair like it because Daisy Simmons commented on it. “Cheese and crackers, but you got nice hair, Keith,” she said. “I’d give a lot to have hair like this. I wash my hair in egg whites once a week to soften mine up, but it don’t feel nothin’ like this. What you doin’, boy?” Keith jerked his head down like it was a hot potato, and for once I wasn’t the focus of the stares and the butt of the jokes. I felt a little sorry for him but was grateful all the same for someone else to be getting the attention, especially after Laura had talked about scars so much.
    And the cafeteria! I didn’t even realize the school had a cafeteria! The few days we haven’t eaten outside, we’ve eaten in our room, so I just didn’t know it existed. You got to eat with other teachers, so of course it was nice for you — I’m really glad. I’m sure the others liked it too — we could sit with other classes from our grade if we wanted. I sat by myself, at least until David Warren came on down and joined me, and then the Stark twins too. They asked about Shag, and it was like you knew, because you came and told us we could go check on her, and I was so worried, but of course she was fine. Still, it made me feel good to go see her then. David played fetch with her, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that’s rather beneath her, but she did it anyway because she’s a kind dog. And he did mean well. Of course that left me to make small talk with the Stark twins. Peesh! At least it got me out of that echoing cafeteria! It was really loud. And I missed Shag.

    I cannot believe the upside-downness of the world. One day your biggest problem is whether you feel like you can work with a man whose eyebrows are alive, and the next minute your problem is that your country’s president is dead. When the principal came to the door and then you told us school was closing because someone had killed the president, I