“Stay away from Hannah,” Michael, the frowner, says.
“Who?” I turn the volume down on the portable CD player clipped to my belt.
“My sister Hannah,” Robert says, still glaring.
Who even is she?
“I don’t know who…”
Pale skin. A mass of freckles. Dark brown, tightly coiled ringlets. Looks away quickly every time I catch her looking at me.
“I barely know your sister,” I say with a shrug. “But okay.”
“Let’s keep it that way, Fraction.” Paul laughs.
Fraction. A new one, more inventive than Zebra or Oreo, but just as insulting. Lava percolates in my belly while Big Boi is reduced to a defiant murmur in my ears.
“Yeah, let’s keep it that way.” Robert thumps my forehead and snatches my yarmulke. “You don’t need this messing up your ’fro, do you, Stern?”
“Stop playing.” I reach for the cap, but Robert tosses it to Paul.
Paul’s smirk spreads into a full-blown grin when he catches my yarmulke and twirls it on his finger. “Look, it’s spinning like a basketball. You like basketball, right, Stern?”
All three of them are taller than I am, but I’m the one who would play basketball? I’ve never played in my life. I roll my eyes, but stretch for the yarmulke. Paul holds it over his head out of my reach and tosses it to Michael.
“Give it to me,” I say, my words rattling against the cage of my gritted teeth.
“Take it from me,” Michael counters, his frown lifted, but meanness still shadowing his eyes.
“That’s the problem, right?” I ask, settling back onto my heels, no longer reaching for the yarmulke. “You think I’m going to take something from you?”
“What?” Michael’s spiteful smile slips.
“Yeah,” I say, stepping closer to him until only an inch separates our noses. “You hate that I speak Hebrew better than you do after months when you’ve been learning for years. And you hate that your sister likes me. Well, you can sleep at night because I don’t like her back.”
He pushes me hard enough that I almost fall, but I catch myself before I hit the ground. My hands slam into the concrete, palms scraping, but keeping me from landing on the sidewalk. My will and body overrule the wisdom of my mind, and I spring toward him without thinking, without weighing the odds. Three against one. I shove him back.
“This little shvartze pushed me,” Michael spits, his glare reigniting.
Shvartze.
I’ve lost count of how many times Big Boi and Dre used the N word on the Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik album blaring through my headphones, and it slid right past my ears, a stingless barb never meant to harm. But hearing it wrapped in Yiddish from these boys who have everything and want me to have nothing? It’s not the same. Coming from this boy, so proudly wearing his resentment and superiority, it’s a knife hurled right through my insecurities. It’s a slur that slices through every part of me, not just the black part.
Michael shoves me toward Robert, and Robert shoves me to Paul; they’re tossing me between each other in a game of keep-away.
Keep your head down. Keep your head down. Keep your head down.
I try my best to grab hold of my father’s warning, but my hands are raw and my ego is bruised and I’m tired of everything. Caution slips through fingers greased with rage. When Paul pushes me again, I slam my hand into Michael’s face. Blood gushes from his nose.
“Shit!” Michael cups his face, blood running between his fingers. “You’ll be sorry you did that. Hold him.”
Robert grabs one of my elbows and Paul grabs the other.
“Hit me now, shvartze,” Michael growls through the blood streaming over his lips. The first punch to my stomach steals all my breath, pain radiating from my middle. I slump for a second, giving the two boys holding me all my weight while I try to breathe. Another punch comes harder than the first, or at least more painful, and I wheeze, all the air trapped in my throat. When the third punch comes, I’m glad I can’t breathe enough to speak because I’d beg him to stop.
He draws his fist back, ready to go at me again, but Robert drops my elbow and yelps. Paul drops the other, crying out in pain.
Michael looks over my shoulder, eyes widening. “What are you—”