Dad that there weren’t that many brown faces walking down the street? I mean brown
legs
,” I say, trying to correct myself.
Mom laughs. “As a matter of fact, we happened to
see
a number of brown faces that first day,” she says. “Maybe that gave us a mistaken impression. We were both exhausted at that point, what with your dad’s teaching and you two little rascals to take care of. He just threw himself into the house hunt, and
ta-da
! But we’ve all made good friends here,” she adds. “And your dad feels that Oak Glen is becoming more diverse every year.”
Not this year’s third grade class at Oak Glen Primary School, I think, frowning.
But that’s okay, because skin color isn’t the reason I choose my friends.
“EllRay?” Mom is saying. “Everything is okay, isn’t it, honey? I mean, you’d tell me if—”
“I’d tell you if,” I say, nodding.
Before I’d tell my dad, I add silently.
“Everything’s okay, Mom,” I tell her as the oven timer dings and my stomach starts growling again. “Honest.”
And it is. But
man
, I hope she doesn’t mention this conversation to Dad.
2
BLENDING IN
“Pass me that brown crayon over there, okay?” I say to Corey, who is hunched over his white paper plate, dotting in a few of the three hundred freckles that cover his face. He swims every single day except Thanksgiving and Christmas, so he’s outside all the time.
These round paper plates are for our self-portraits. A self-portrait is a picture you make that stars yourself, Ms. Sanchez says. It’s like a selfie that you draw, Emma McGraw explained to Corey and me. She’s a girl in our third grade class.
Corey is frowning, and his tongue is sticking out. He says drawing is hard, and his face shows it. He could swim a mile, easy, but sitting-down stuff knocks him out. “I want the
dark brown
crayon,” I add, to make things easier for him.
It is Tuesday afternoon, and it’s still raining. From big to little, all I can think of right now is Christmas, and next weekend, and my after-school oatmeal cookie snack, and finishing this goofy drawing of myself before the buzzer sounds so I don’t have to work on it at home.
Our drawings are for the P.T.A. meeting. It is being held this Thursday night in the Media Center, which used to be called the library, someone said. Each month, a different class’s artwork decorates the walls—in case the parents get bored, I guess.
This month comes our all-school holiday assembly. After that comes Christmas vacation, which we are supposed to call “Winter Break.”
Today, our teacher, Ms. Sanchez, is standing in the corner of the room, laminating some old drawings and paintings for the Media Center walls, to go with our paper-plate faces. She must think the drawings and paintings look more important that way.
So we kids are basically on our own for a while.
“But you’re not
dark
brown, EllRay,” Fiona McNulty says, looking up from her own self-portrait.“You should start with raw sienna. Then maybe use some burnt sienna, and a little chestnut for your cheeks, and
then
brown, but only for shading. Pass me the pink sherbet crayon, please, so I can do
my
cheeks.”
Fiona is the best artist in our class. Maybe in any class at Oak Glen.
Or the world, for all I know.
She knows every color by name, like they are her own private pets.
“Ha ha,” Jared Matthews cackles. “Burned sienna, EllRay. You’re
burned
. Like toast, dude.”
And his friend Stanley Washington pushes his glasses up on his nose, and he laughs, too. Most of the time, Stanley is like Jared’s echo.
“Hey,” Emma McGraw objects, and she stops drawing circles for her tangly hair. I can tell by her serious expression that she thinks Jared is making some crack about me having brown skin. She likes to stick up for the underdog, Ms. Sanchez said once, a couple of weeks after school started, and maybe Emma thinks she’s doing that now.
For one crazy second, I thought
legs
,” I say, trying to correct myself.
Mom laughs. “As a matter of fact, we happened to
see
a number of brown faces that first day,” she says. “Maybe that gave us a mistaken impression. We were both exhausted at that point, what with your dad’s teaching and you two little rascals to take care of. He just threw himself into the house hunt, and
ta-da
! But we’ve all made good friends here,” she adds. “And your dad feels that Oak Glen is becoming more diverse every year.”
Not this year’s third grade class at Oak Glen Primary School, I think, frowning.
But that’s okay, because skin color isn’t the reason I choose my friends.
“EllRay?” Mom is saying. “Everything is okay, isn’t it, honey? I mean, you’d tell me if—”
“I’d tell you if,” I say, nodding.
Before I’d tell my dad, I add silently.
“Everything’s okay, Mom,” I tell her as the oven timer dings and my stomach starts growling again. “Honest.”
And it is. But
man
, I hope she doesn’t mention this conversation to Dad.
2
BLENDING IN
“Pass me that brown crayon over there, okay?” I say to Corey, who is hunched over his white paper plate, dotting in a few of the three hundred freckles that cover his face. He swims every single day except Thanksgiving and Christmas, so he’s outside all the time.
These round paper plates are for our self-portraits. A self-portrait is a picture you make that stars yourself, Ms. Sanchez says. It’s like a selfie that you draw, Emma McGraw explained to Corey and me. She’s a girl in our third grade class.
Corey is frowning, and his tongue is sticking out. He says drawing is hard, and his face shows it. He could swim a mile, easy, but sitting-down stuff knocks him out. “I want the
dark brown
crayon,” I add, to make things easier for him.
It is Tuesday afternoon, and it’s still raining. From big to little, all I can think of right now is Christmas, and next weekend, and my after-school oatmeal cookie snack, and finishing this goofy drawing of myself before the buzzer sounds so I don’t have to work on it at home.
Our drawings are for the P.T.A. meeting. It is being held this Thursday night in the Media Center, which used to be called the library, someone said. Each month, a different class’s artwork decorates the walls—in case the parents get bored, I guess.
This month comes our all-school holiday assembly. After that comes Christmas vacation, which we are supposed to call “Winter Break.”
Today, our teacher, Ms. Sanchez, is standing in the corner of the room, laminating some old drawings and paintings for the Media Center walls, to go with our paper-plate faces. She must think the drawings and paintings look more important that way.
So we kids are basically on our own for a while.
“But you’re not
dark
brown, EllRay,” Fiona McNulty says, looking up from her own self-portrait.“You should start with raw sienna. Then maybe use some burnt sienna, and a little chestnut for your cheeks, and
then
brown, but only for shading. Pass me the pink sherbet crayon, please, so I can do
my
cheeks.”
Fiona is the best artist in our class. Maybe in any class at Oak Glen.
Or the world, for all I know.
She knows every color by name, like they are her own private pets.
“Ha ha,” Jared Matthews cackles. “Burned sienna, EllRay. You’re
burned
. Like toast, dude.”
And his friend Stanley Washington pushes his glasses up on his nose, and he laughs, too. Most of the time, Stanley is like Jared’s echo.
“Hey,” Emma McGraw objects, and she stops drawing circles for her tangly hair. I can tell by her serious expression that she thinks Jared is making some crack about me having brown skin. She likes to stick up for the underdog, Ms. Sanchez said once, a couple of weeks after school started, and maybe Emma thinks she’s doing that now.
For one crazy second, I thought
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