The Skin I'm In: Chapters 1–12

I try not to stare the first day that amazon woman-teacher heads my way.

She’s wearing a dark purple suit, and a starched white shirt with matching purple buttons.

Before I catch myself, my eyes ricochet like pin balls, bounding from John-John McIntyre’s beady brown eyes right up to hers.

Before I catch myself, my eyes ricochet like pin balls, bounding from John-John McIntyre’s beady brown eyes right up to hers.

Before I catch myself, my eyes ricochet like pin balls, bounding from John-John McIntyre’s beady brown eyes right up to hers.

If it ain’t about my color, it’s my clothes. Momma makes them by hand. They look it, too—lopsided pockets, stitching forever unraveling.

If it ain’t about my color, it’s my clothes. Momma makes them by hand. They look it, too—lopsided pockets, stitching forever unraveling.

I got a new attitude, and my teachers sure don’t like it none.

They don’t say nothing about the fact that I’m a math whiz, and can outdo ninth graders when it comes to figuring numbers. Or that I got a good memory and never forget one single, solitary thing I read.

I was walking down the hall in one of Char’s dresses, strutting my stuff, looking good.

When my daddy died three years ago, Momma took to her sewing machine to help her ease the pain.

I laugh, like everybody else. You got to go along with Char if you want to get along with her. You can’t be all sensitive.

Her gold bangles jingle while she makes her way around the room.

Then she explains how she was born with her face like that. How when she was little her parents had the preacher pray over it, the old folks work their roots on it, and her grandmother use some concoction to change the color of that blotch on her cheek so it matched the rest of her skin.

She says she wants to evaluate us. You know, to figure out what we know and don’t know.

She never will spend the five-hundred-dollar prize money, though. It’s scholarship money for college, and Desda can’t hardly read what the award says, let alone try to get into college.

We have to write a diary “chronicling” our experiences.

At first, I pretend I’m a girl living in a drafty castle that I hate because my parents don’t got enough candles to light the place.

Momma would say I am a vain and foolish girl.

Next thing I know, Daphne’s gathering up snot in her throat like she’s summoning up demons.

She’s mouthing off, saying if she gets suspended, I better, too.

Miss Saunders was saying something about me wasting my potential.

“A bull in a china shop, that’s what she is,” Miss Benson, the librarian, says under her breath. “She’s not following the curriculum the way it’s laid out. She’s pushing the kids too hard. Telling them to read fifty pages one night, thirty pages the next. I’m telling you, hiring her was a bad move.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Pajolli, but the way I see it, rewarding those who misbehave and refuse to play by the rules is wrong. Dead wrong. How will you reward the good ones, put them on detention?” Mr. Mac asks.

And them girls...they looked like they come out of a magazine. Long, straight hair. Skin the color of potato chips and cashews and Mary Jane candies. No Almond Joy-colored girls like me. No gumsmacking, wisecracking girls from my side of town.

When I finally get to the kitchen table, the oatmeal’s cold and slick, like Silly Putty.

Momma’s always got to know what’s happening in the stock market.

She thinks we’ll be rich one day, but she never invests any money.

By the time Charlese gets out the line, there it is. Lettuce in her milk. Dried-up food on her fork. Something indescribable on her hamburger bun.

“They better give me some decent food,” she yells loud enough for all the lunch ladies to hear.