After that first half hour of writing, we had a math lesson, and then we were back to writing again ’cause Colby raised her feather and begged, “Can we have more time on our essay? Please?”

I’m guessin’ she’d had a Thanksgiving worth writing about.

I watched her feather do the mad flap for a while, and then I guess I was staring at Rayne’s paper, ’cause she asked, “Why aren’t you writing?”

I hunkered down, shielding my blank page after that. And I tried to come up with something, but I was tangled up inside. All I had for my essay when the recess bell rang was a title: “My Thanksgiving.”

When Ms. Miller released us, I busted out of the room and cut across the blacktop toward where Isaac said he’d meet me. I was hoping his class had to write a Thanksgiving essay. I thought maybe he could help me figure out what to do.

I was almost at the spot when Troy Pilkers stepped in my way. “I do declare!” he said. “If it ain’t the Missing Link.”

He was making fun of me being from the South.

He was also baiting me.

I didn’t bite, but my heart was beating fast as I tried sidestepping him.

He sidestepped, too. “Whassamatter, sugar? Cat got your tongue?”

I tried sidestepping again, but when he blocked me again, I squared up and said, “It’s not my fault you got thrown off the bus.”

“Well, shut my mouth! If that don’t put pepper in the gumbo!”

“What?” I gave him a good, hard squint. “That makes no sense.”

He dropped the Southern thing. “Yeah? So who was it?” He shoved me. “Who got me thrown off?”

The shove wasn’t that hard, but it set something off in me. I wanted to run. Find a corner somewhere and wait for it to be over.

But my feet stayed planted, and I drilled him with a look that said he was dumber’n dirt. “You did. Driver’s got a mirror, you know.”

Before Troy could answer, Isaac stepped in. “Hey! Why’d you shove him?”

Troy zeroed in on him. “You really taking me on, Dweebly?”

Out of nowhere, Kandi was there, too, with a four-square ball tucked under her arm. “Oh, grow up, Troy.”

Troy took in the three of us, then stared at her. “These two? Seriously?”

“You don’t know anything about them, okay? Maybe if you did, you wouldn’t be so mean.”

“I was just goofing around,” he said with a shrug. “He could have asked me to stop, you know.”

I stretched up an extra inch. “Like you need to be asked to quit flingin’ tuna in someone’s hair?”

“Yeah,” Kandi said. “Only an idiot would need to be told that’s not cool.” And then she did the most surprising thing I’d ever seen at school. She softened her voice like Gloria always does to calm down the oldies and said, “I don’t think you’re an idiot, Troy. So just be nice, would you? It’s not hard.”

He stared at her some more, then grumbled, “Whatever,” and walked away.

“Wow,” I said, watching him go.

Isaac nodded. “That was unexpected.”

Kandi smiled at us, then looked out at the four-square court, where kids were waiting for her to return with the ball. “You guys want to play?”

“I’m terrible,” Isaac said, shaking his head.

“Me too.”

Kandi punched her free hand to her side. “Oh, just come, would you? Everyone’s terrible. It doesn’t matter. It’s just fun.”

I looked at Isaac and shrugged.

He shrugged back.

And we followed Kandi to the four-square court.