The Jacket by Andrew Clements Page B

Daniel, he asked, “Who’s your grandma? What’s her name?”
    Daniel curled his lip. “None of your business. But her name’s Lucy. Lucy Taylor.”
    Phil’s face reddened. “Hey, look. I’m sorry I grabbed you, okay? You’re right. It’s your jacket.”
    â€œWhat?” Daniel looked sideways at Phil, cocking his head as if he hadn’t heard clearly. “You come and almost pull this thing off my back, and now you say just keep it? What’s that about?”
    Phil looked at the floor. “It’s just that . . . like, I think I know your grandma—that’s all. So the jacket’s yours.”
    Daniel frowned and narrowed his eyes. “ You? Know my gramma? Right!” He smiled, taunting Phil. “Yeah, like, how you gonna know my gramma? Maybe you see her when you go to the same beauty parlor she does, huh? That it?”
    Mrs. Cormier stood up and said, “Boys, that’s enough. This is all settled. Daniel, Phil said he’s sorry, and we know the jacket is yours. So both of you run along to class now. Mrs. Donne will give you notes for your teachers.”
    Daniel stood up. He stuck his chin out and said, “Fine with me. Because this boy just keeps telling lies and lies. Like how he knows my gramma.”
    â€œI do too know her!” Phil almost shouted. “I’m not a liar! I see her all the time because . . . because she’s my mom’s cleaning lady!”
    The words seemed to echo off the walls.
    Daniel looked like he’d been punched in the stomach. He backed toward the office door, his face working angrily. He yanked the jacket open, pulled himself free of it, and threw it on the floor at Phil’s feet. “There’s your jacket! You take it and you tell yo’ momma that my gramma and me don’t need nobody being kind to us!” And looking at Mrs. Cormier, he snarled, “Nobody!”

Part II

F RIENDS WITH
E VERYBODY

T he rest of Phil’s Thursday wasn’t so good. Compared with the thoughts swirling through his mind, decimals and adjectives and Ancient Egypt didn’t seem very important.
    Phil knew that all he had done was tell the truth. About the lunch money, about the jacket, about Daniel’s grandmother. It was all true. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d done something bad.
    He kept thinking about the early morning scene in the principal’s office, replaying it again and again. He kept seeing the look on Daniel’s face, the anger in his eyes as he threw the jacket to the floor. And instinctively Phil knew that his being white and Daniel’s being black was part of this. Maybe a big part.
    Phil had known a lot of African American kids at school, ever since his first day as a kindergartner. And he thought, I don’t care what color anybody is. I never pay attention to that. I’m friends with everybody.
    But being friends with everyone and being someone’s friend, those were two different things. And as he thought about it, Phil knew he had never had a black kid for a friend, not really. The kids on the school basketball team were good guys, but not really friends. Black kids went to his school, but did they live in his neighborhood? Not in his part of the city. That’s just how things were. Every morning Daniel and the other African American kids arrived at school by bus, or sometimes their parents dropped them off. A lot of Hispanic kids too. Phil didn’t know exactly where they came from. It didn’t really matter to him, and he’d never thought about it much. Until today.
    Phil kept arguing with himself. He thought, Yeah, but during school, everyone gets along fine—white kids, Hispanic kids, Asian kids, black kids. No problems.
    Most of the African American kids sat together at lunch, and they tended to hang around together in the halls and at recess. But that didn’t seem weird to Phil. When you eat