"I will not."
"If you don't take it off, I'll rip it off," Nicole threatened. I looked toward the doorway. The other girls were blocking it. All I could do was back into the stall.
"Leave me alone," I cried.
"Why, cause you got a white mother?" Alicia asked.
It weakened me in the knees to know Beni had told them. I couldn't keep the tears from my eyes.
"Oh, look she's crying," Nicole said, with laughter in her voice.
"Black or white tears?" one of the girls asked.
"Can't tell. They're gray, I think."
They all laughed.
Nicole reached out and seized the collar of my blouse. I dropped my books and grabbed her wrist to pull her fingers away, but she held tight and we struggled like that for a moment.
"Stop it!" I screamed.
The girls started to cheer. The first button of my blouse popped and then another and another. I screamed again when Alicia took hold of the back of my blouse and pulled it so hard it sent me back against the cold metal wall of the stall. Nicole tore the blouse down.
"Now I want that bra, too," she demanded. When she reached toward me, I kicked out and caught her in the stomach. It took her by surprise and backed her up, but that made her even more furious. After she straightened, I knew I was in for great trouble.
Just at that moment, Beni came into the bathroom.
"What's going on?" she asked. The girls cleared a view for her and she saw me squatting, holding my blouse together, and crying in the stall. She looked at Nicole and Alicia. "What are you doing to her?"
"Just trying to borrow some of her clothes," Alicia said. The girls laughed.
"Leave her alone," Beni snapped. "Leave her be!" she shouted. The laughter stopped. "I didn't tell you to do this. Get away from her."
"What are you worrying about her for?" Nicole asked. "She ain't your real sister. You said so."
"She isn't my blood sister, but she's my sister. Get the hell away from her," she ordered the girls around her. Glaring at them, she hoisted her shoulders and raised her fists.
They backed off.
"Whose side you on, girl?" Alicia demanded.
Beni gazed at me and then stepped up to her.
"You shouldn't have done that, Alicia. My mother's going to be upset and I don't want my mother to be upset. It makes me mad," Beni added, her eyes filling with fire. She clenched her hands into fists again. Alicia looked at Nicole and a deep moment of silence passed. Beni wasn't backing down.
"Let's get outta here, before we get in trouble for nothing," Nicole said.
They sauntered past Beni and out the door, the other girls following as if they were a tail to Nicole and Alicia's comet.
I sat down on the toilet seat.
"You all right?"
"No," I moaned. "Look at me. Do I look all right?" I shouted hysterically at her.
She hurried to pick up my books.
"They just don't like you," she muttered. "They never will."