Outside, it feels as if they’ve been released from prison. Most of the boys go directly to the basketball court. Deja and Rosario join them.
“You guys have foursquare,” Khufu says, passing the basketball to Richard. Richard pivots and tries to make a basket. The ball bounces off the rim.
“Room Ten has two areas this week,” Deja says. “Which means we can play either one.”
“What if everyone in the class decided to play basketball?”
Deja looks around. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Fine, then,” Richard says. “We’re not going to go easy. We’re going to play our regular game.”
“I want you to play your regular game. But me and Rosario get to be on the same team,” Deja says, pursing her lips. Richard shrugs. “Fine. We’re still going to play our regular game.”
So they do. Which means keeping the ball out of Deja’s or Rosario’s hands. As soon as Richard shoots and makes a basket, he elbows Deja out of the way.
“Foul!” Deja exclaims, surprising him. “I get a free throw!” She grabs the ball and dashes to the free throw line. The two teams take their places along the sides. Deja dribbles the ball a few times, then brings it to her chest and shoots. It bounces off the rim, to a burst of laughter from Richard’s team. Gavin even jumps around in a circle.
“Girls can’t play,” he announces.
Deja ignores them and focuses on her second shot. She dribbles, brings the ball to her chest, and gazes at the net with squinted eyes. Then she shoots the ball in a perfect arc toward the basket. It goes in with a swish.
The boys are so shocked, they stay frozen in place while Rosario gets the ball and passes it to Deja. Gavin easily steals the ball away from her and dribbles it around the court until he can shoot. It bounces off the rim and lands near Deja’s feet. As she tries to grab it, Richard elbows her out of the way again.
“You can’t do that!” Deja protests.
“It’s called basketball!” Richard yells as he passes the ball to Carlos, who shoots and makes the basket.
Now it’s four to one—in favor of Richard’s team.
“That shouldn’t count because you fouled!” Rosario says.
“Did not!”
“I watch basketball with my dad! I know when a person fouls!”
“But . . . you’re a girl. So you don’t even know what you’re watching!”
Rosario opens her mouth to counter that, but no words come out for a few seconds. “You’re . . . you’re . . . That doesn’t even make sense!”
Gavin dribbles the ball toward the basket, stops, takes aim, and sinks the shot just as the bell rings for lineup.
“Whoo-hoo!” Carlos yells. “We won! We won, plus we knew we were going to win! ’Cause we’re the best!”
“That’s okay,” Rosario says. “We’ll get you at lunch recess. Kickball—boys against girls.” She walks away.
Richard enters the class feeling good. Then he sees what’s written on the board, and his heart drops. He remembers the sloppy job he did on the Statue of Liberty writing assignment. Maybe if he just doesn’t make eye contact with Mr. Blaggart, someone else will have to go up and stand before the class to read what they wrote.
But after everyone is seated, Mr. Blaggart claps his hands once and looks directly at Khufu. Eventually, everyone is looking at Khufu.
“Well, Khufu . . . I’m afraid I couldn’t get in touch with your dad.”
“That’s because last night he had to go out of town. I’m staying at Miss Lee’s. She lives downstairs from us.”
“And how is it you neglected to tell me this?”
“I forgot,” Khufu says simply.
“You forgot.”
Khufu nods.
Mr. Blaggart shakes his head slowly. “Take out your Social Studies books and turn to page one hundred twenty-two.”
Once everyone has taken their Social Studies books out of their desks, Mr. Blaggart announces, “I’m looking for someone to share what they wrote about the Statue of Liberty.”
Richard stares out the window. Don’t call on me. Please don’t call on me. He’s hoping that just thinking this will keep Mr. Blaggart from focusing on him.
“Looks like I’m going to have to ‘volunteer’ someone.” He turns to Richard just as Richard chances a glance away from the window at him. It’s as if he knows that, more than anything, Richard does not want to read his homework on the Statue of Liberty.
“Richard,” Mr. Blaggart says.
Richard sits there for a few moments while Mr. Blaggart goes through the papers in the homework basket. He finally plucks out Richard’s paper. He hands it to Richard. It’s as if Mr. Blaggart already knows that Richard did a slipshod job and he wants the rest of the class to know it as well. Richard gazes at the paper in his hand. Everyone stares at him.
He begins:
“Um . . . I like the Statue of Liberty because it is for liberty. It’s for freedom and people getting to come to America and . . .” He squints at his writing. “And . . .” He can’t make out what he’s written. Ms. Shelby-Ortiz has told them over and over that the most important thing a person can do after writing anything is to read it over. You’re likely to discover skipped words, misspellings, illegible handwriting, and a bunch of other stuff. But he’d been so anxious to be finished so he could see at least some of the Monday Night Football game, he hadn’t bothered to look his work over.
He makes up something. “. . . And, uh, wanting to be free and find jobs and nice houses.” Yes. He did sort of repeat a bit of his original writing—which he now thinks is better than when his mother saw it. He goes on reading, and when he finishes, it’s quiet. Richard glances at Mr. Blaggart. Mr. Blaggart opens his mouth and closes it again. Finally he says, “Do you think . . .”—he pauses—“that your work reflects the homework assignment I gave you?” Richard feels his face grow warm. Mr. Blaggart points to the whiteboard. “Read what you were supposed to do. Out loud so everyone can hear it.”
Richard reads, “Give the history of the Statue of Liberty. Then write what the Statue of Liberty means to you.”
“Is that what you did?” Mr. Blaggart asks.
Richard doesn’t say anything. He feels the eyes of his classmates on him. He feels their relief at not being him. Mr. Blaggart takes a book off his desk and walks over to Richard. “You may borrow this book, What is the Statue of Liberty?, and keep it overnight. You need to do this assignment again. I know you can do a better job.” Reluctantly, Richard takes the boring-looking book while everyone keeps their eyes glued on him. “Oh. And I’d better not see any evidence that you’ve copied any passages from it,” Mr. Blaggart warns.
Richard stares at the book. The cover shows just the top half of the Statue of Liberty—mainly the head and the crown and the torch. This is going to require more thinking—more than he’d planned on doing.
In his peripheral vision, he sees Antonia waving her hand eagerly at Mr. Blaggart. The teacher turns to her.
“Can I read mine, Mr. Blaggart? I made sure I followed what you wrote on the board. So can I read mine?”
“Take it away,” Mr. Blaggart says.
“And I didn’t copy, either. Everything is in my own words,” says Antonia as she makes her way up to the front of the class—even though Mr. Blaggart didn’t instruct her to do this.
He takes Antonia’s paper from the basket and hands it to her. She positions herself in front of the whiteboard. “First, I have to say that most people don’t even know why we have a Statue of Liberty. I’ll give you the definition of liberty first. And that means ‘free.’ Now, there were a lot of people in this country who were not free. Then they became free. And two Frenchmen were happy and impressed that America made these people free and even fought over it. One’s name was Edouard Rene de Laboulaye." She slows there to pronounce every bit of the man’s name. Probably because it’s French and long.
“And the other guy was named Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi. And he was the one who was going to make it. He was a sculptor. Does everyone know what a sculptor is?” She looks around.
Nearly the whole class looks bored enough to take a nap. There are a few moments of silence while Antonia squints at her paper. Finally she says, “They make things, like, out of different materials and sometimes out of clay. So they wanted to put it on this island—right where it is today. And it was okay because the island belonged to the country and not the city of New York. They made the statue of a woman and that came from Libertas, the goddess of freedom. Some people think he made it—this Bartholdi guy—to look like his mother. She has a crown with seven rays and some people say it’s for the seven seas or the seven continents: North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica.
“The statue means a lot to me because it’s about freedom and everyone wants to be free.” Then she adds in a quiet voice, “Because a long time ago a lot of people weren’t free.”
Finally, she’s finished.
“O . . . kay . . .” Mr. Blaggart begins slowly. It’s as if he hasn’t finished thinking about what Antonia’s said, but it’s time to say something. “Good job, Antonia. Good job. Uh . . . are there any questions for Antonia?”
Khufu is the only one who raises his hand.
“Okay, Khufu.”
“I don’t have a question,” he says. “I have a statement.”
There are tiny frown lines that grow on Mr. Blaggart’s forehead. “Go ahead,” he says.
“Well,” Khufu begins. “I don’t like the way the statue looks. I think her clothes are old-fashioned and her head is too big.”
As he talks, frown lines begin to form on Antonia’s forehead as well. “Her head is just right—for her body,” she responds. “No one would want to see a little head on that big body.”
“That would be scary,” Nikki says under her breath. Luckily, Mr. Blaggart doesn’t seem to hear her.
But then Antonia turns to Nikki and says, “It wouldn’t be scary. It would be strange.”
Mr. Blaggart steps in then. “Well, thank you, Antonia. I think we can move on now.”
Moving on means more reading and answering questions in their Social Studies books while Mr. Blaggart reads the paper. Boring stuff. Richard can hardly wait until the bell rings for lunch.