No

Jan and “the girls” giggled as I fell in the mud. It was the second year in a row that they had been teasing me. Each with their beautiful mountain of elaborate hair. Each girl wore identical high-heeled boots. Hand-knitted scarves and fancy Vera Bradley shirts surrounded me. I could see six white creamy knees. Each not penetrated by the stain of mud. The “pops,” as people called them, always bossed and bullied people, mostly fourth graders like me.

I tried to get up, but Hayley, a girl who was held back for two years, pushed me back down. My frizzy, black hair hit the mud.

“Ooo!” Jan tossed her hair. “Is your body covered with mud, or are you a pig?”

I couldn’t blame her; it had only been a month since blacks and whites had been allowed to go to school together, and it wasn’t going well.

I slowly walked into the cafeteria with my tray and tried to see where Jan was sitting, across the lunchroom. “Good,” I muttered. I sat down at a bench alone.

Suddenly I felt a tug at my pigtail; it was Jan. She reached for my hamburger. Another thing she did was steal food.

 I was feeling brave today. I smacked her hand out of the way. “NO!” I shouted.