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doing here? Why in the world would he sit in this dark room and put together part of an old puzzle, shutting Ras up while he worked on it, as if it were some big secret?
    Odd looking—Ras had seen a lot of puzzles, but none so bright as this one. And that dragon, when you looked right at him he seemed to move.
    Only, you could not be sure you saw him do that, you only felt so.
    This was the puzzle Sig had fought him for. Yet he had gone now and left it lying here. Ras put out his hand, intending to sweep it all into the waiting box. It would serve Sig right if he took it home with him.
    Only, he discovered that he could not touch those pieces, move them.
    Abruptly he turned and went out of the room. Let it stay right there, then.
    Who wanted that old puzzle, anyway? It wasn’t worth anything.
    Ras hurried through the house and climbed out of the window. He was halfway down the drive when he saw Sig pass under the street light on his way back. Ras pushed into the bushes. Was he coming back for his precious puzzle?

    As Sig went straight to the window and crawled through, Ras dodged along behind, watching. He was up on the porch as soon as Sig was inside.
    Now he could see the other’s flashlight beam illuminating the basement door. Sig had laid the light on top of the table as he tugged and pulled at it. Then he disappeared through the basement door. He must have gone a ways down the stair. But he was not going to find what he hunted for.
    Ras ran for home. Let whitey stay there and hunt—do him good. But why had Sig come back—to fight again? Ras was puzzled.
    Luck was with him, he was able to get in and up to his room without being seen. Shaka’s voice, and Mom’s, came from the front of the house.
    Mom sounded upset, as she was a lot lately when Shaka talked about what his protest crowd planned. Ever since Shaka had dropped out of college Mom had taken it hard. Just as she took it hard when Shaka stopped going to church and spoke mean about what the preacher was trying to do with the Head Start classes.
    Ras sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at the posters Shaka had given him for the wall. One had a big black fist raised against a red background and a lot of foreign words printed under it. Shaka said that was Swahili, their own language, and they ought to learn how to speak it.
    It was being taught now in the Afro-studies school Shaka had helped to start.
    But Ras hardly saw that familiar black and red now, just as the voices from below were a meaningless murmur. What he continued to think about was the puzzle laid out on the table, that silver dragon which had seemed to move when you were not looking at it squarely, but was firmly fixed when you did.
    There had been four dragons pictured on the lid of the box, he now remembered. A red one, a yellow one, and a blue. The blue one—once he had thought of it Ras could not get it out of his mind. Yet he had no clear mental picture of it at all—just the bright blue color.
    Sig had gone down in the cellar on his return, to see where Ras was, he was sure of that. But would he also take away the puzzle? Suddenly Ras was uneasy. What was the matter? That puzzle, it was not important.
    But—he did not want Sig to take it! He, Ras, wanted to see it again!
    Tomorrow was Friday, and after school Mom was going to pick him up and go and get some new shoes. There was no getting out of that.
    Saturday morning—it was going to be a long time until Saturday morning, that was for sure.
    A loud banging of the door broke through his plans. Shaka was going out. He always banged that door when he was angry. Now Mom would be upset all evening, and Dad, when he came home, would be worse than Mom, because he got really sore at Shaka. Ras shook his head and stood up to put away his jacket. He wished there was not all this arguing, but the things Shaka said did make sense. Look at Dad, he worked hard all his life, never got better jobs—just because he was black. Nowadays people