Free P.S. Be Eleven by Rita Williams-Garcia Page B

someone had decided that we were family and couldn’t be separated. The only difference was that the head of the classroom wasn’t a woman in snappy, mod clothing but a short man in a dark suit who wasn’t from Brooklyn.
    Mr. Mwila raised his hand, his palm side showing and fingers spread wide. “Time.”
    It was at that moment that the classroom door opened and Ellis Carter walked in looking lost and happy and confused all at once. Lost after having wandered the hall. Happy to see his old boys from last year. Confused to see Mr. Mwila and not Miss Honeywell. His arms and legs seemed extra gangly and he loped around like he didn’tknow what to do with the extra inches he had grown.
    â€œDo you belong in grade six, classroom three?”
    Ellis shrugged, but Mr. Mwila didn’t like that. “I don’t understand this,” Mr. Mwila said. He imitated Ellis’s shrug, but sharper. “Either you belong in grade six, classroom three, or you belong elsewhere.”
    Ellis was a shrugger. He did it again. The boys laughed, thinking he was talking back, but with his body. “Here. I guess,” Ellis said meekly enough to save him from walking the paddle mile to Principal Myers’s office.
    â€œFind a seat,” Mr. Mwila said.
    Ellis circled around long-legged and doofy. We all laughed through sealed lips to keep from laughing full out.
    The only desks available were on the girls’ side. Ellis probably thought if he circled around long enough, a seat would magically appear next to Danny the K or by one of the Jameses. He was out of luck on the boys’ side, so he turned toward the desk all the way in the back of the class, behind Yvonne. Ellis Carter knew what was best for him. He didn’t want to see the side of my face any more than I wanted to see the side of his squirrelly face from now until June. His jaw probably still stung every time he looked my way. He took a step to the back, but Mr. Mwila stopped him.
    â€œRight here, young man,” Mr. Mwila told him in a voice that said Don’t test me . “The time for choice has passed.You’ll sit where I tell you to sit and you’ll be on time for the start of class.”
    The boys broke out into, “Oh-ho, snaps!” Then Mr. Mwila shushed them without making a sound. Just a sharp eye and a finger to the lips.
    â€œBut . . . I don’t want to sit with these . . . girls.” Ellis looked like he was about to cry. He crunched himself down into the desk chair. One sneaker in each aisle.
    Like it or not, I couldn’t look to my left, in the direction of the teacher’s desk, without seeing Ellis Carter.

The Subject Was Zambia
    Usually the teacher played a name game on the first day of class, or she made name cards for our desks. Mr. Mwila placed a sheet on Rukia’s desk. He told her to write her name in the first row, first column, then pass the sheet to the person behind her.
    I waited for the sheet to reach my desk. There were only two male teachers in our entire elementary school, and none of us expected to have one until junior high school. I couldn’t see why we needed a male teacher. Male teachers were for classrooms with rough and rowdy boys who needed a firm hand to keep them in line. The boys in our class were bigger pests than they were rough and rowdy. Last year Mrs. Peterson kept them in line easily with herpine “board of education.” Mr. Mwila didn’t carry a pine board. There was something about his voice that made the boys in our class straighten up and sit taller. Except for Ellis Carter. The sloucher.
    He looked to Lucy and said, “Miss . . .”
    â€œLucy Raleigh,” she said, happy to be called on.
    He nodded. “Lucy Raleigh. You asked about Miss Honeywell. Now, I’ll answer. Have you heard of exchange students?”
    â€œYes,” Lucy answered. “When a student from here, the US, switches places