Lies We Tell Ourselves: Shortlisted for the 2016 Carnegie Medal. Robin Talley
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across her nose and the bright look in her blue eyes.
She’s even prettier up close. Except for the hateful look on her face.
Her frizzy-haired friend is in the seat right behind mine. She has a heavy layer of makeup on one side of her face and a stricken look in her eyes.
Only when the boy in the seat on the other side of mine gets up to join the red-haired girl do I understand what’s going on.
Everyone sitting within two desks of mine is gone in seconds, scurrying to find other seats. Soon there aren’t any empty desks left except the ones near me. The extra white students perch on the radiator at the back.
Mrs. Gruber studies a pile of papers on her desk. To look at her, you’d never know students were running around as though the classroom were under siege.
The seat behind mine is the only one near me that’s still occupied. Everyone looks at the frizzy-haired girl.
The girl looks fast from side to side. She meets my eyes for a second. Then she cups her hand over her made-up cheek. The red-haired girl whispers, “Judy, come on.”
The frizzy-haired girl, Judy, jumps out of her seat, dropping her books in her haste. A few boys laugh as she kneels to gather them up. She goes to the back of the room and sits on the radiator with the others.
I keep my chin high. At least this way I won’t have to worry about anyone drilling pencils into my back.
Mrs. Gruber passes out our textbooks as though nothing happened, dropping mine onto my desk with a thud. She’s turning toward the blackboard when the door swings open.
Every head in the room jerks up again, mine included.
I should be glad to see Chuck standing there. Instead I wish he’d turn around and walk right back out. I don’t want to watch it happen all over again.
“What now?” Mrs. Gruber slams a textbook down.
“I’m sorry I’m late, ma’am,” Chuck says in his most polite teacher voice. “I’m Charles Tapscott. I was talking to Mr. Lewis in the office about—”
“Sit down.” Mrs. Gruber sighs and writes out another detention slip.
Chuck takes the empty seat next to me. Two boys sitting near him get up and join the others in the back of the room.
Chuck doesn’t ignore it the way I did, though. He turns to watch them walk away, his mouth open in an O.
One of the boys in the back of the class opens his mouth wide and makes a face just like Chuck’s. Then he squeals like a pig.
Everyone laughs. Mrs. Gruber acts like she didn’t notice that, either.
“Hey, this ain’t fair,” another boy says. “Why we gotta have two of ’em in our class? Like one coon’s not bad enough.”
Some of the others grumble in agreement.
“All right, everyone, settle down,” Mrs. Gruber says. She doesn’t even look at the boy who spoke. “Who doesn’t have a book yet?” Chuck and a few other people raise their hands.
I flip open my new textbook. I’ve always liked school. Adults always tell me I’m a bright girl with a good future ahead of me. If I can concentrate on my classwork maybe the white people’s antics won’t bother me so much.
As soon as I open the book I know something’s wrong.
I leaf through to the last chapter to make sure. There’s no doubt. I raise my hand. Then I put it down again. Mrs. Gruber isn’t going to want to help me.
But she saw. She comes to stand right in front of my desk and sighs again, loudly. “Did you want something?”
“No, I—” I start to falter, but I can’t show any weakness in front of these people. I meet Mrs. Gruber’s eyes. “I was curious as to the name of this course.”
One of the white boys laughs. “Nigger shows up, doesn’t even know what class she’s in!”
Another joins in. “Don’t you see the charts on the wall? Can’t you tell a Math class? Ain’t you ever seen numbers before, nigger?”
“As your schedule clearly states, this is Remedial Math 12,” Mrs. Gruber says. Then she turns her back.
“Remedial?” Oh. That’s what the R’s stood for. They were on almost every class on my schedule. Chuck’s, too. They’ve put us in the remedial track.
All the Negroes who came here were in the college prep courses back at Johns. That’s why they picked us to integrate Jefferson. We were supposed to be the best of the best. The kind of students who could handle the white school’s classes and still have enough smarts left over to put up with the rest of it.
I learned how to do the work in this textbook in ninth grade.
I wonder if they put us in these classes because they think we’re stupid or because they wanted to punish us for coming here in the first place. I wonder if my college will still let me in when they see those remedial classes on my transcript.
But I don’t have time to worry about that now. I have a bigger problem.
Everyone in this room heard what I said.
They know I think I’m too smart for Remedial. Smarter than they are.
I am smarter than they are, but that isn’t going to help me now.
The boys start in right away.
“The nigger thinks she’s a genius,” one says. “Look everybody, we’ve got Einstein in our class!”
“Hey, girl, if you too good for Remedial, how ’bout you put your smarts to use and come clean my house?”
“Hey, nigger, can you count this high? Two, four, six, eight, we don’t wanna integrate!”
Mrs. Gruber keeps her eyes on the chalkboard.
It goes on that way for the rest of the period. The boys leave us alone while Mrs. Gruber is talking, but as soon as she looks away they start in on me, and Chuck, too. Mrs. Gruber hears it, but she doesn’t say anything.
I keep looking straight ahead. At first I think I’ll get used to it. Instead, the longer it goes on, the more it stings.
“Those niggers need to be put in their place.”
“What’d they come here for? Don’t they know we don’t want to look at their ugly black faces?”
“I bet they got their nigger tails tucked in under those clothes. Let’s rip ’em out.”
When the bell rings I want to charge out of the classroom. I want to put as much distance between myself and these people as I can.
There’s no use. The white people in the hall won’t be any better. It’ll be worse, in fact, because there will be more of them.
So Chuck and I gather our things and leave with everyone else, ignoring the pushing and shoving until we’re out in the hallway. There, the white people gather around us in a circle to shout names until we’ve separated and made our way to our next classes. Then they follow us down the hall, shouting at us, pushing us, stepping on our heels, jabbing elbows into our sides.
Not much changes the rest of the morning. In every class the students move away from my desk as soon as I sit down. My Typing and History teachers aren’t as bad as Mrs. Gruber, but neither of them makes any effort to make me feel welcome. I come to recognize the look in each of my teachers’ eyes when I walk through their classroom doors. The look that says they wish I’d turn around and walk right back out. I’m making their jobs harder just by being here.
Fourth-period French is different.
The students look the same as ever. Most of them have been in some of my classes already that day. The red-haired girl and her friend Judy are there, sitting on