PEOPLE DON’T PLAY jacks no more, I tell Miss Saunders. But she never done things the way other people did. She switching things up, she tell us. “Going old-school.”

That cracks me and Maleeka up. For a minute, I wish John-John and Caleb was here. They wouldn’t recognize her sitting on the floor wide-legged. Throwing the ball in the air, Miss Saunders snatches up six jacks. Then puts them down to grab more. She in the lead. I tell her it’s ’cause she the oldest, and this is a old, behind game. After I win, she say it’s because I catch on quick.

When it wasn’t our turn, we had to keep track on paper of how many jacks the person picked up each time. Our job was to take them numbers and make up our own algebra problem. “Solve for x,” she told us, “and x to the second power.” Next week, she making us come up with our own word problems—two each.

“What did you think?” she said when class was over.

“It was fun.”

“Learning should be fun.” She asks us to collect materials and bring them over to where she is. JuJu studies at the kitchen table. Does her homework there too. I asked her once if she was still friends with Miss Saunders or talked to her on the phone. She told me no. It’s because of me, I know it.

“Next time I’ll bring a jump rope.” Miss Saunders packs up her briefcase.

I laugh. “Like you can jump.”

She hops a few times. The floor shaking. Maleeka tell her she overweight, might put a hole in the floor. I like that ’cause it’s something Maleeka woulda said in seventh grade—even without me making her.

It’s like Miss Saunders to profile, strut her stuff across the room like she did that one day at school, like she a model, pretty or something. I remember all the things I said about her face back then. It was because of the birthmark on her cheek. Seem like what I said to her just made her like herself more. Now, that birthmark on her face don’t bother me at all.

I clap. With her hands on her hips, Maleeka follow Miss Saunders, who got both arms in the air, snapping her fingers. I join ’em the next time. I’m making moves, doing a cartwheel that lands me on my back. Maleeka pulls me up. We laughing when Miss Saunders start a Soul Train line.

“Okay. You, you two win.” Out of breath, Miss Saunders sit at the table. After she take a sip of water, she say it’s Tai time. Tai is our old math teacher. She weird, does yoga right there at the board. Arm stretches, leg stand poses. Miss Saunders got a yoga routine from her. We end our day doing that, plus quiet breathing.

“Told you she ain’t the same,” Maleeka whispers.

Miss Saunders told us she wanted us to have all kinds of tools in our box. Different ways to heal ourselves, calm ourselves, take care of ourselves, and learn. It’s weird how she be talking now, like she fixed something inside herself.

I’m almost asleep when I say, “Miss Saunders. You changed.”

“I hope so.”

“You did too, Maleeka.”

“So did you,” they both say at once.

“No. I didn’t.” I tear up because it’s a lie what I just said. I changed but in all the worse ways. Wish I had an eraser and could do away with the trip to Alabama that wasn’t. Then I’d start all over again, sit myself down in class and do what I was told no matter what they asked of me.

“The old Char was too scared to try anything new,” Miss Saunders says softly.

“She was mean too.” Maleeka apologize for that, but she meant it. “I guess sometimes I was mean to Caleb.”

“Girls—quiet.”

“Miss Saunders. You like our hair?” Maleeka asks.

We not bald, just wearing our hair extra short, natural. I even let her wash my hair. It was so dirty I half expected worms to crawl out. Her massaging my scalp, oiling it, almost made me cry. My mother used to do that for me.

“I noticed. You two look beautiful.”

I sniff under my arms. Miss Saunders notices that. I wonder what make her speak up about some things and not others? I don’t ask. She just told us to get quiet again. We close our eyes and breathe.

By the time I wake up, they gone.