Lies We Tell Ourselves: Shortlisted for the 2016 Carnegie Medal

“What happened?” I nod toward the blonde girl.

Ennis sits down, shrugs and stirs his applesauce. “I don’t know. I walked by her, and she took one look at me and started screaming. You’d think she’d never seen a colored man before.”

Oh. I hadn’t thought about that. I wonder how many other girls at this school are going to scream whenever one of the Negro boys crosses their paths.

For years now, ever since we moved down here, I’ve been listening to Mama and Daddy talk about integration. Sometimes at night Ruth and I sneak out of our room and sit on the top step in our nightgowns, listening to our parents’ voices drift up the staircase. Mostly they talked about the court cases. That part was boring, but sooner or later they’d stop talking about injunctions and petitions and hearing dates and start talking about what integration might really be like for us. Once, when it was so late Ruth had fallen asleep, I heard Mama whisper to Daddy that what worried her most was our Negro boys. The white parents might give a dozen reasons for opposing integration, she’d said, but what they were really worried about deep down was their girls being around our boys. She never said exactly what worried them about that, though. Intermarriage, I suppose. The idea that black boys might get their nice white girls in trouble.

I don’t like to think about that sort of thing. It makes me blush. Besides, no Negro boy I know would ever risk going near a white girl. A few years ago a boy down in Mississippi got killed for doing a lot less than that.

“Hey, I saw your sister after second period,” Ennis says. “She was all right.”

I jerk up in my seat. “You’re sure? She wasn’t hurt?”

“She looked great. Walking down the hall with her nose in the air. From the way she acted you wouldn’t even know there was anyone yelling.”

I’m relieved, but at the same time I want to cry. “People were yelling at her?”

“Well, yeah. But no worse than the rest of us.”

I nod. “Thanks for helping her this morning. With those boys on the way in. I was so worried.”

“Oh. Sure.” He shrugs like it was nothing.

“I wish I could see her,” I say. “During the class breaks, just to make sure she’s all right. Then I wouldn’t have to worry all day. But I don’t even know where the freshmen classes are.”

“They’re all mixed together.” Ennis opens his notebook and turns to a blank sheet. He sketches out the school’s first floor, second floor, third floor and basement. “This is where I saw her this morning. She must have a class near there.”

He draws blocks around the Math, English, History and Science sections of the school, then draws in the stairwells and puts stars next to the gym, cafeteria and auditorium.

“How do you know all this?” I ask him.

“Mr. Muse snuck Chuck and me in during one of his shifts last summer. He wanted to make sure we knew our way around in case there was trouble.”

Right. Just in case.

“This is the main entrance.” Ennis draws a big X. “Where we’ll never go in again if we can help it.”

“You really think it’ll make a difference?”

“I think we’ve got to try.”

I can’t tell whether Ennis means what he’s saying. Whether he really thinks there’s any point in hoping things will get better.

But there are only five months left until I graduate. I can do this for five months.

I have to graduate from this school. It means so much to Mama and Daddy.

To me, too. I want to walk across that stage in front of all those white people and get that diploma. Show them there’s nothing they can do that I can’t.

But once I’m gone, Ruth will still have another three years in this place.

I squeeze my eyes tight against that thought.

A tray clatters down on the table beside mine, making me flinch.

“Sorry I’m late,” Chuck says.

“What happened?” Ennis fixes Chuck with a look.

Chuck shrugs. “Some guys hassling me. I got rid of them.”

“Got rid of them how?” There’s a warning in Ennis’s voice.

“It’s not important,” Chuck says.

I don’t want to know how Chuck got rid of them. I wonder if fighting is the sort of thing boys always talk about at lunch.

I’ve never sat with a boy in the cafeteria before. Girls and boys don’t usually do that after elementary school. But everything in my life is different now, so I suppose this might as well be different, too.

I wonder what will happen when word of it gets back to our old school. I wonder if the girls will talk about me. Say the sorts of things that get said about girls sometimes.

I had my first boyfriend last year. His name was Alvin. We went to the movies and held hands and walked around the park. We even kissed a little, but we never French-kissed. Girls aren’t supposed to do that until after high school.

I don’t mind that. I try not to even think about things like kissing and holding hands. When I do, I get confused and upset, and I have to stop thinking about it fast before I start thinking the wrong things.

I used to think the wrong things all the time. Before I knew they were wrong.

It started back when we lived in Chicago. One day I was walking with Mama and Ruth and we passed a movie theater that had a poster out front for Gone with the Wind. The poster showed the girl lying back in the man’s arms. Her green dress was cut low. I looked at that picture and it made me feel—

Something. I don’t know what, exactly. I just know that feeling was wrong.

But I didn’t know that then. And I didn’t know it was wrong when I used to take Mama’s copies of Ebony off the coffee table when she was done with them. I’d take them up to my room and turn straight to the back, where they had the fashion pictures. I’d turn the magazine around to all angles and look at the girls posing. The swimsuit articles were my favorites. I read every word on those pages. Mama was always surprised when she’d take us shopping for swimsuits in June and I knew all about cotton knit Lastex and the new “disciplined” bikinis.

Now that I’m almost grown-up, I know about right and wrong. It was shameful, the things I used to do. That’s why I don’t like to think about things like kissing.

I still have every one of those magazines in a box under my bed, though.

I try to focus on Chuck and Ennis’s conversation. They’re talking about their teachers. None of the others were as bad as Mrs. Gruber.

I tell them about what happened in French. Neither of them knows who Judy is, but when I mention Linda, Ennis knows exactly who I’m talking about.

“That’s Linda Hairston,” he says. “You know about the Hairstons, right?”

I shake my head, but as Ennis starts to explain, I realize I do know.

Linda’s father is William Hairston, the editor for the Davisburg Gazette. He’s the one who writes the editorials opposing integration. He’s also Daddy’s boss.

Daddy reads his editorials out loud at the breakfast table sometimes. They’re mostly about how integration will ruin our state for good. The last one he read us had a section about how Negro children should be taught only by Negro teachers, for our own benefit, because no one else can understand how “uniquely” our brains work.

Daddy says Mr. Hairston is much worse for Negroes than the boys who throw rocks or call us names. People respect Mr. Hairston. Thousands of people read what he writes and think it’s the truth.

Daddy is a copy boy for Mr. Hairston’s paper. He hates working there, but he doesn’t have any choice. He doesn’t make enough money just writing for the Negro paper, the way he used to when we lived in Chicago.

Did I put Daddy’s job at risk when I talked back to Linda? I need to be more careful from now on.

“What other classes did you have this morning?” Ennis asks me.

“Math, Typing, History and French. Every one was either a repeat or remedial.”

“Mine, too,” Ennis says. “And I’m in Auto Shop.”

“I’ve got Shop, too,” Chuck says. “Next period.”

The boys in College Prep at our old school never took Shop. I doubt Chuck and Ennis ever learned how to use tools. Ennis especially. His father is a lawyer, and his mother hires a handyman whenever they need something fixed. I hope Ennis doesn’t wind up cutting himself with a saw or anything like that.

“Why can’t we take the right classes?” I say. “The ones we were supposed to take at Johns?”

“The white teachers don’t know we’re going to college,” Chuck says. “They just put us in the classes they thought colored kids would take.”

That makes sense. Mrs. Gruber seemed surprised I could even read.

“Do you know where you’re going to college?” I ask Ennis. I already know Chuck is going to Virginia State College.

“Howard, if I get in,” Ennis says.

I sit back, surprised. Ennis’s whole family lives here in Davisburg, so I thought he’d go to a school around here. Howard’s all the way up in Washington, D.C. I’m going there, too, but it doesn’t matter so much for me since my family is spread out. My aunt and uncle and cousins are in Chicago and my grandparents still live in Alabama.

“I’m going to Howard, too,” I say. “My uncle’s friend works there. He said he’s sure I’ll get a scholarship.”

Ennis nods and looks down at the chili on his plate. Quickly I add, “Of course, I’m sure you’ll get one, too. Your marks have always been good.”

Good, but not as good as mine. I was first in my class at Johns, and Ennis was only third or fourth.

I don’t say that. It would be rude. Besides, it isn’t right for girls to talk about being smart around boys.

“That was at Johns,” Ennis says. “Who knows what will happen here.”

Oh. I hadn’t thought about getting lower marks now that we’re at a white school. I shift in my seat.

Ennis gets up to dump his tray. I’m still picking at my food. Chuck tries to tell me a joke about Fidel Castro but I’m too anxious to pay much attention.

Chuck cuts himself off halfway through the joke. His eyes are fixed on something over my shoulder. I turn to follow his gaze.

Ennis is twenty feet from our table, frozen in his tracks. Another blonde girl is running up to him, smiling. She speaks to him, but I can’t hear what she says. Ennis keeps his eyes on the floor and mumbles a response. The girl smiles as if nothing is wrong.

The room is getting quiet. We’re not the only ones watching Ennis and the blonde girl.

This is even worse than the girl who screamed earlier. This time, people are seeing it. A Negro boy who’s seen talking to a white girl could be in for very serious trouble.

Ennis backs away from the girl, keeping his head down.

I’m so focused on them I don’t even notice the boys coming up behind me until one of them knocks into the back of my chair. The table juts under my rib cage, knocking my breath out of me. Then something cold trickles down the back of my neck.

The table behind me bursts into laughter. “She almost looks white now!” a boy calls out.

I reach around and feel wetness on my hair, my neck, the back of my blouse. I pull my fingers back. They’re dripping with milk.

Is it all over me? I jump out of my seat, twisting backward to see my clothes. That only makes them laugh harder. It feels as though I’m soaking wet all over.

“Hey!” Chuck leaps up. His eyes dart around the room, even though the boys who drenched me are long gone. I didn’t get a look at them, and I don’t think Chuck did, either. “What the Hell is the matter with you, picking on a girl? You afraid to go for somebody who’ll fight back?”

“Didn’t nobody do nothing to her,” a boy at the next table says. “She must’a spilled it on herself. You coons ain’t got no table manners.”

Ennis takes my arm. He must’ve gotten away from the blonde girl somehow. He shakes his head at Chuck and pulls gently on my sleeve. “Come on.”

The laughter gets louder as the three of us wind our way toward the exit. The milk drips down into the waistband of my skirt. They must’ve dumped an entire carton on me.

Accidentally, of course. That’s what they’d say if I told a teacher. Which I can’t. I didn’t even see who did it. And it’s not as if any of the white people who saw would say so.

I go straight to the girls’ bathroom. Inside, three girls are standing by the mirrors, talking. Their eyes go wide when they see me. I wait for them to call me a nigger or laugh at the milk dripping from my hair. Instead they look at me, look back at each other and rush out the door without a word.

I close my eyes and savor the quiet. It’s the first time all day I’ve been alone.

As badly as I want to clean myself up, I go into a stall first. I’ve been avoiding the bathroom, afraid of getting trapped inside where I’d have no chance of calling a teacher for help, but I can’t wait any longer.

When I reach for the toilet paper, I pull my hand back, surprised. Then I touch it again to make sure.

The toilet paper here is soft. At my old school, our toilet paper was rough and coarse. I’d thought that’s how all school toilet paper was.

Just colored-school toilet paper, apparently.

When I go back out to the mirrors, the bathroom is still empty. I wonder if those girls told the others I was in here. There could be a crowd forming outside the door, waiting to get me when I leave, but there’s nothing I can do about that now.

I mop up as much of the milk as I can with toilet paper and paper towels. There isn’t much use. I can wipe off my neck but I can’t reach my back without unbuttoning my blouse, and I am not going to do that here, where anyone could walk in. The milk that’s soaked into my hair is a lost cause. I can pick some of it out once it dries, but Mama will still have to help me wash it tonight. For now, I’ll just have to walk around with milk all over me.

This shouldn’t be important. It was just a prank. Boys being boys. I should be able to handle this.

When I look back up into the mirror I’m crying.

I wipe the tears away and stare at my reflection until my face smooths out and my eyes go empty.

This is how they have to see me. If they know I feel things, they’ll only try to make me feel worse.

Maybe if I keep trying, I really won’t feel anything.

Another tear springs up in the corner of my eye. I scrub it away with the heel of my hand.

I stare into the mirror and wait until there’s no more threat of tears.

Everyone is counting on me. I can’t be a failure.

I won’t.

Lie #5

MY AFTERNOON CLASSES are no better than the morning’s. In Home Ec the teacher gives me my own set of pans and bowls and silverware to use for the whole semester so the white girls won’t have to touch the same things I do. In Study Hall I sing hymns in my head while the boys make honking noises at me and the teacher takes a nap at his desk. In Remedial English our textbook reader doesn’t have any stories longer than fifteen pages, except for one by James Joyce that my mother gave me to read when I was twelve.

I’m the only Negro in every class.

Halfway through sixth period I start counting the number of times I hear people call me a nigger. By the time the bell rings at the end of the day I’m up to twenty-five.

Chuck and Paulie, the only junior in our group, are a short way down the hall when I come out of my last class. They’re walking so fast they’re almost running. Behind them a group of white boys is walking even faster.

I can tell from the looks on their faces that the white boys aren’t playing. As soon as we’re off school grounds they’re going to do whatever they want to us.

“Downstairs, side exit,” Chuck mutters when they reach me. “The NAACP’s got cars waiting for us.”

I struggle to walk as quickly as Chuck and Paulie as we head for the stairs, but my breath is coming fast, and my sweaty feet are sliding in my loafers.

“What about the others?” I ask.

“Everyone knows where to go. Ennis is spreading the word.”

I pick up my pace and try not to worry about Ruth. Ennis will make sure she’s all right.

All around us, more white people spill out of classrooms. Some of the boys join the group following us. I want to look over my shoulder and see how many are back there, but if they see me looking it will only make things worse.

Besides, I can tell the crowd is growing by the number of niggers I hear. My count is already up past forty.

I scan the hallway for a teacher, but there are none in sight. And if I did spot a teacher there’s no way to know if she’d help. The stairs are still a long way off.

“They’re only trying to scare us,” Chuck whispers.

“It’s working,” Paulie whispers back. He looks paler than I’ve ever seen him.

“Don’t talk that way,” I say.

We don’t know who might be listening.

Ahead of us, in front of the stairwell there’s another, bigger, crowd, also shouting taunts. Strangely, though, this group has their backs to us. They don’t even seem to know we’re coming. They’re gathered around something lying on the floor.

No. Not something. Someone.

I break into a run. Chuck calls out for me to wait, but then he must see what I’m seeing, because the hard soles of his shoes come pounding down the hall behind me.

The boys following us have started running, too.

The shouts coming from the group ahead are the loudest they’ve been since we made it inside the school. They’re so noisy I want to clap my hands over my ears.

I can’t. Not until I know who they’re shouting at.

“Somebody show that girl this ain’t no school for coons!” someone shouts.

“We’re gonna teach her a lesson!”

So it’s a girl. I want to pray for my sister’s safety but my thoughts are racing too fast for prayers.

“Look at her all bent over like that,” someone else says. “That nigger’s fatter than Aunt Jemima!”

“Go back to the cotton field, you ugly burrhead!” a girl shrieks.

Chuck gets to the crowd first. I’m right behind him as he pushes through the group to the center of the circle. I spot a pink skirt hem crumpled on the floor.

It isn’t Ruth. To my shame I breathe a sigh of relief.

It’s Yvonne. She’s crouched on the ground in the middle of the crowd, facedown, her hands folded over her head and her knees tucked under her.

It takes me a second to piece together what happened. Someone must have tripped her, and she couldn’t get up right away in the midst of that huge crowd. Instead she hunched down to protect herself from being kicked. It doesn’t look as if she’s badly hurt, not yet, but the longer she stays where she is the more likely something is to happen.

She’s trapped in the middle of a crowd that’s getting bigger with each passing second. The boys who’d been chasing us have merged with it. There must be fifty of them surrounding her, jeering and throwing pennies. There’s spit all over Yvonne’s dress. Some of the boys are winding their legs back like they’re about to kick her.

Chuck reaches the middle of the circle first. He leans down and says something to Yvonne that I can’t hear over the shouting. The white boy nearest him, a greaser with slicked-back hair, kicks out at Chuck, but Chuck sees him in time and lunges out of the way.

That only makes the boy angrier. He’s backing up to deliver another kick when a woman’s voice booms, “Everyone move along, now!”

The shouting dies down fast, but no one moves. Not until the teacher, a gray-haired woman I don’t recognize, comes into the middle of the circle. When she sees Yvonne huddled on the floor she recoils.

“One of you, go to the office and call for a doctor!” she says.

The white girls nearest me turn and run. Within seconds, all the other white people have gone as fast as they came. The four of us Negroes and the gray-haired teacher are the only ones left in the hall.

I kneel on the floor. Chuck is still bent down, trying to say something in a low voice, but Yvonne hasn’t moved. I catch his eye and whisper, “Let me try.”

He shrugs and stands up. The teacher takes him aside to ask a question. I want to talk to the teacher, too, but I need to focus on Yvonne. Ruth could get here any second and I don’t want her to see her friend like this.

“They’re all gone,” I tell Yvonne. “You can get up. I’m here, and Chuck and Paulie, too. You’re not by yourself anymore.”

After a long second, she turns her head and meets my eyes. Hers are wet.

“They tripped me,” she says.

“I know. Are you bleeding at all? Did you get hurt when you fell?”

“I don’t think so. My knee hurts a little. There were so many of them. I was afraid to get up. I thought they’d never leave me alone if I—”

“I know,” I say. “It’s all right. It was smart, what you did. Can you stand?”

Slowly, Yvonne uncurls from her crouch. She lifts her head and looks around the hall. When she sees we really are alone she lets me help her up. Dust and dirt are all over her clothes, and her face is streaked with tears. She winces when she puts her weight on her right leg.

I reach out a hand to help her up. That’s when I notice I’m shaking harder than she is.

What if the teacher hadn’t gotten there when she did? Yvonne could’ve really been hurt. Or Chuck could’ve.

It could have been any of us.

I look around for the others. Paulie is standing against the lockers, pressing his fist into his forehead. Ennis is here, too, talking with Chuck and the teacher. Chuck looks angry. The teacher is nodding at Ennis, who’s saying something in a low, serious voice.

“All right,” Ennis says to all of us after a minute. “We’ve got to go fast. The others are waiting for us by the side exit at the bottom of the stairs.”

“Are they safe?” I ask.

“They were when I left them.”

That doesn’t make me feel better.

Yvonne’s knee is worse than she’d thought, so we have to move slowly. I want to run ahead to see Ruth, but that wouldn’t be right. I’m the only other girl here, so I have to let Yvonne lean on me as we make our way toward the stairs.

At least Ruth isn’t alone. I’ll see her soon. As soon as I possibly can.

“What did the teacher say?” I ask Chuck as we navigate the stairwell. Yvonne flinches on every step.

“She wanted to call a doctor to come look at Yvonne. Ennis talked her out of it. He said she’d be safer if we could get her to Mrs. Mullins’s first.”

I think Ennis is right, but from the set of Chuck’s jaw I can tell he disagrees.

When we finally get to the side exit Ruth is waiting for us just inside the door with the other freshmen and sophomores. One of the younger girls is crying. Ruth has her arm around her.

I want to gather Ruth into my arms and never let go. Instead I motion for both girls to walk with me and Yvonne.

“That’s enough of that, now,” I tell the crying girl. “We have to move.”

Ruth glares at me. I ignore her.

The four of us will be the first ones outside. Through the narrow window we can see the crowd gathered around the door, waiting for us. We have no choice but to walk right into the middle of it.

“Can you get them to the curb?” Ennis whispers to me. His forehead is creased, but we both know it’s better this way. The boys should be at the back of the crowd this time, where the rowdiest white people will be. “The cars are waiting. Get in the first one. It’s Mr. Stern driving.”

I nod. “What about everyone else?”

“We’ll be right behind you.”

He says something more, but I can’t make out the words. As soon as we step outside the doors the noise from the crowd is deafening.

I can’t see any faces now, or hear any voices. It’s all a blur of white and hate.

I want to run, but the crowd would just run after us. As soon as we’re off school property, they’d catch us. I don’t want to think about what would happen then.