Read Online The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine - Free Book Online Page A

eerily calm. The feather was still in my pocket. Liz would be here any minute. What could go wrong?
    Miss Taylor didn’t say another word until we were in the hallway. “Marlee, I’m afraid I have to tell you that Elizabeth will not be returning to West Side Junior High.”
    I stared at her. I mean, I heard the words, and I knew what they meant, but they didn’t make any sense. Why would Liz leave West Side?
    â€œLiz is very ill, and she . . .” Miss Taylor paused. “I’m sorry. I will give you a few days to write down your report and turn it in.”
    She turned and walked back to the classroom, leaving me in the hall. The bell rang, and students swarmed around me, but I didn’t move. I was a balloon that had been blown into a cactus. One
pop,
and all my confidence was gone.
    I couldn’t concentrate in math. Mr. Harding called on me twice, and I didn’t even answer. At lunch, JT and Sally and Nora sat down at my table. “So what did Miss Taylor say to you?” JT asked.
    I shook my head.
    â€œShe said Liz isn’t coming back to West Side,” reported Nora, peering over the top of her glasses. “I was standing by the door and heard her. She said Liz is real sick. But I don’t think that’s true, because Liz was in school last Friday and she was fine.”
    JT thought for a moment. “My cousin got the stomach flu last week. That can come on real sudden.”
    â€œYes, but that only lasts a few days,” said Nora.
    â€œLiz isn’t coming back because she’s a Negro,” said Sally.
    We all turned to look at her.
    Sally flipped her hair to make sure we were all paying attention. “That’s what my mother told the principal. They were talking outside the teachers’ lounge.”
    That’s ridiculous, I said, but not out loud.
    â€œWhat?” JT sounded confused.
    â€œMy mother and I saw Liz last night.” Sally leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Way down by Ninth Street.”
    That was the colored part of town.
    â€œWhat were you doing there?” asked Nora.
    â€œOur maid, Sue Ann, was sick. We had just dropped her off at her house when I saw Liz come out of the Baptist church on South Chester. She was holding hands with a colored boy.”
    â€œYou’re kidding,” breathed Nora.
    Sally shook her head. “I was so surprised, I called out her name, and I think she heard me because she looked right at me. Then my mother saw her and recognized her from the football game. Mother was so surprised, she almost ran into a lamppost. She wouldn’t say one word about it all the way home, but first thing this morning, she came in to talk to Principal Watkins.
    â€œBut then,” Sally continued, “when we got here this morning, the principal said Liz had already withdrawn from school. She didn’t even come by to pick up her records. When he heard our story, he said it all made sense. She must have been colored.”
    JT shook his head.
    â€œLast week I even loaned her my hairbrush,” whispered Sally.
    â€œEwww,” squealed Nora.
    â€œI know,” Sally said. “Of course I already threw it away.”
    â€œCan you believe it?” JT said. “A nigger at our school?”
    I stood up, suddenly furious, but I wasn’t sure at whom. JT, Miss Taylor, Sally, Liz, myself?
    â€œWhere are you going?” asked JT.
    My thumb was throbbing. “I . . .” I shook my head and ran out of the room.
    In the bathroom, I thought I was going to cry, but I didn’t. Just stood in front of the sink and took the bandage off my thumb. I was careful not to glance in the mirror and see my brown hair and brown eyes that looked so much like Liz’s.
    Could it be true? Can a girl be white one day and colored the next? It seemed much more likely that she was sick. Or maybe she was moving. But if she were moving, why wouldn’t she have told me? She