“Mama, I don’t wanna go outside! No one wants to play with me!”

“James, I want you to go outside and play so I can finish my cleaning without you getting dirt everywhere! Please!” I stood there until Mama came over and shoved me out into the yard. “Now you stay out here until I finish cleaning. And don’tchu go off nowhere.”

“Yes ma’am,” I said as I walked around the yard. It was surrounded on three sides by tall wooden fencing. The grass was long and dry, as Daddy didn’t have much time anymore to water or mow. The factory has got him workin longer and longer, and I was lucky if I got to see him before my bedtime.

I picked up a stick, and walked around the yard, dragging it along the neighbor’s fences. I couldn’t see anyone outside, and I knew I’d get in trouble if someone saw me talking to one of the neighbor kids anyways.

As I was walking, I began to hear laughter coming from the yard behind mine. I stood close to the fence and tried to listen. I could hear people talking and could smell smoke. I found a small hole in the fencing and looked through. I could see kids running around laughing. I recognized one of them, his name was Carl, and he was my best friend until his parents told him that we couldn’t be friends anymore. It looked like he found a new best friend though; as I stood there watching, I saw her chase him through the yard.

Suddenly, he ran right in front of me, and saw me looking at him. “Hey Jess, watch this,” he said as he took a gulp of water and spit it though the hole at my eye. I jerked back, but not before I got hit in the eye. Crying, I sat down and buried my head in my hands, trying to ignore the insults that Carl and “Jess” were saying though the hole. I sat there like that until my Mama came out, picking me up, carried me back inside.

“Now James,” she said as she cleaned my face off, “you’ve just gotta hold your head up and stay strong when people say those things to you. Always keep your chin up. It’ll be hard, but you’ll feel better inside. Now go eat your supper and get ready for bed. You’ve got school in the morning.”

“Mama, how come no one else in the neighborhood goes to my school with me?”

“Well James, that is a talk for a different time. And talk of a hopeful future. Now go eat,” she said as she ushered me into the kitchen.

That night, I laid in bed and thought of what Mama had said. I thought of how Carl and I sometimes saw each other going into school. “One day,” I thought, “I’ll get to go to the Whites Only school. Mama said that there were people who were trying to make that happen. One of them was named Martin something. Mama also told me about a lady who sat in the front of the bus, and refused to get up for a white man. Maybe one day, I’ll be like the lady and the Martin man. I hope so. I don’t want to be lonely anymore.”