Red and yellow. Black and white.

She stood in front of the open door while the teacher and the school secretary spoke in the corridor.  

"I got the last new student; this is an imposition!"

"It's only for two weeks."

She shifted her book bag from one side to the other. Her eyes never left the floor. The leather on the top of her shoes had a crack. The stitching was coming apart at the toe, but they shined with fresh polish. Backstitch embroidery accented with an occasional flower covered the line from the let-down hem.  

"I don't have a desk for her."

"The custodian is looking one. This time of the year, we are short on desks."

The girl, eyes down, heard every word as a knot formed in Esther's stomach. It was the queasy tightness she felt when Daddy came home late from the Dew Drop Inn on payday.  

Esther's classmates nudged each other as the girl, the first Black person they had ever seen, continued to stare at the floor. Esther watched a single tear fall onto the front of her dress. Jeff, the meanest boy in the class, found an ink pen, wrote something on his hand, and passed it down the row. The pen went around the room until it came to Esther. She put it down. She would be the only one in the class without CP on her hand. Last year, she had been the target of a Cootie Protection campaign. Esther remembered the cruelty of those two letters deeply.

" I will take this up with Principal Kerns after school."

"This was his decision."

 Mrs. Brown closed the door with unnecessary force as Esther raised her hand. "What could you possibly want?"

"I'll share with her. At the back table?"

Mrs. Brown gave a backhand wave, almost as if shooing a fly, to show

 her acceptance. The girl made her way to the back table. "Pick up your feet, child, and the rest of you be quiet!" Mrs. Brown shouted. And that's when I noticed her shoes were two sizes too big.  

Jeff turned to Esther. "Kissing up to Mrs. Brown. Not cool Sweat Hog."

Last Sunday he stood beside her singing red and yellow, black and white. They are precious in His sight.  Didn't he remember?

The girl joined Esther at the back table and looked for a place to put her bag as Esther realized Mrs. Brown hadn't bothered to assign her a coat hook.  I'll remind her, Esther thought, or she can share mine.  

The secretary's knock had interrupted geography class. It was Esther's favorite textbook, full of stories about children who lived in different places. They read about two children whose parents ran the Wagon Wheel Motel in Arizona, kids living on a Christmas tree farm in Maine, and now a family who grew oranges in California.  

"I've been there," she whispered.

"California?"  

"Last winter. I'll be there next winter too. I'm Barbara."

"Esther."  

Mrs. Brown handed them two mimeographed worksheets with questions about the chapter.

"Just because I allowed the two of you to share a book doesn't mean you can share answers. Do your own work!"  

As Mrs. Brown carried her considerable girth back to her desk, Barbara whispered, "I read this chapter at my last school. I don’t need the book.

Esther looked for a pencil, and finding none, rose to get one from her desk. "Come back here!" Barbara hissed. She opened her bag and produced a dozen perfectly sharpened pencils with pristine erasers. Esther thought back to the times she scrounged in the junk drawer for the tiny stubs from her father's golf rounds that summer. When Barbara handed Esther a new pencil, it felt like a gift. The luxury of its newness felt delicious in her hand. She smiled her thanks and looked at Barbara. Her skin, the color of the terracotta pot filled with geraniums on Esther's front porch, was luminous. Esther had read that word in a library book last week but didn't grasp its meaning until now. Esther's eyes swept the girl's high cheekbones until they rested on her almond-shaped eyed, dark rich brown, and crowned with long, curled eyelashes. Esther had watched Mom crimp her lashes with a menacing-looking tool, then coating them with mascara until they looked like angry spiders, attempting to create what Barbara grew without intervention.  

Esther read as Barbara printed her answers in handwriting that looked like it came from a machine. Mrs. Brown was walking up and down the aisles, glancing here and there at the student's work. "Nice work, Jeffrey! Check your answer to number three." She always praised the students whose fathers were doctors or lawyers. "Barbie!" she suddenly screeched. No one answered so she pointed at the back table. "Barbie! I'm talking to you!"  

Suddenly Barbara realized Mrs. Brown meant her. "Yes, ma'am?"

"In this school, we use cursive. Do you know how?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then do it over correctly! There are extra sheets on my desk, and pick up your feet this time.!"

The class snickered as Barbara made her way to the front of the room. "Silence!" Mrs. Brown commanded. Esther couldn't help but notice the teacher's self-satisfied smile as she watched the humiliation that she had visited upon Barbara. The knot in Esther's stomach tightened.

At lunchtime, some students went to the cafeteria to buy lunch. Those with a packed lunch ate at their desks. Esther went to the cloakroom to get her metal Campus Queen box with a game board on the back and two magnetic game pieces stored on the inside lid. She had begged her mother to buy it last year when she saw it at Woolworth's. "Your lunch box is just fine." Her mother told her. Esther fantasized all summer about playing the game on the back with a friend. When a neighbor noticed she wasn't going to the movies on Saturday with the other girls, Esther shyly told the woman about saving her allowance for the lunch box. The woman hired her as a mother's helper several mornings a week. On Esther's last day of work, the woman handed her a wrapped package. Esther cried when she opened the gift, hoping that having a cool lunch box would win over the girls. So far, no one had played with her.

The two girls pulled out wax paper bundles from their lunches. 

"Where did you live before?" 

"Last week, we were in New Jersey."

"Why do you move around so much?"

"My parents. Work."

"Where do you live now?"

"On the island. Near the river."

Esther's eyes widened. "In the chicken coops?"

Barbara shrugged. Esther dropped the conversation, hoping she hadn't hurt her feelings. As they finished their lunch, Esther crumpled up her various wax paper bags and put them in the trash can. Barbara carefully folded up hers and put them back in the wrinkled brown paper bag.  

"Recess is next. Come with me to the cloakroom. I'll show you where my hook is. We can share."

The class filed out to the playground. Boys joined the kickball games, and some girls headed for the hopscotch boards or jump ropes. Esther usually joined a group of girls, who spent the time walking around the building. They had discovered earlier in the year that you didn't need to stay in the teachers' line of vision in third grade. The girls relished the freedom of feeling unsupervised as they held hands. Esther was always on the end of the flank of giggling girls. No one ever extended her hand to Esther, forcing her always to grab the hand on the end. Today was different. Someone grabbed her hand quickly, surprising Esther until she realized they weren't choosing her. They were avoiding Barbara.  They are precious in His sight, thought Esther as she dropped the girl's hand and connected herself to the end of the row, taking Barbara's hand in her own.  

Esther wrapped her chubby, sweaty fingers around Barbara's smooth, perfectly dry hand. "Tomorrow, we're going to eat lunch faster, so we have time to play that lunch box game," Barbara whispered in Esther's ear. Esther's heart swelled. For a moment, she wasn't the fat girl with the drunken daddy. She was just a girl with a friend.  

That night, Esther tried to tell her family about her new friend. "She's pretty. You should see her eyelashes, Mom. Her handwriting is beautiful, and she's so smart! I don't know why Mrs. Brown is so mean to her. She won't even call her by her real name! Can I invite her home? Can she stay for dinner or maybe spend the night?

Esther's mother sighed wearily. "We'll have to see."  

We'll have to see meant no, but Esther persisted. "She called Mrs. Brown ma'am. She's probably got good table manners too."

"Where does she live?"

"On the island." 

Esther's parents shared a glance before her father spoke. "I think you should just see her at school. Don't be too friendly with this girl." Esther, crestfallen, kept quiet. Daddy was already on this third beer, making further discussion dangerous.

While Daddy snored in front of the TV, Esther tried again to talk about Barbara, but her mother was firm. "I know you want a friend," she told Esther. "But I also know what this girl is. If you continue down this path, no one will ever want to be your friend."

"I don't understand what you're talking about; she's so nice!"

"Does she look like the other girls?" her mother asked gently.

"No, she's way prettier than anyone."

"But she's colored, isn't she?"

"Yes, so?

"It's nice of you to be kind to this girl, but mixing with their kind will only lead to trouble. Before you go to sleep tonight, get on your knees and thank the good Lord above that you were born a white girl."

"Mom! That's mean!"

"No, it’s truth. That girl will not come to this house. Don't upset Dad."

That night before bed, Esther got on her knees and prayed, not in gratitude for her pale complexion but for the blessing of a potential friend.  Red and yellow, black and white, Esther thought.  God and I know the real truth.  

The next day, as the two girls were still sharing the back table, Esther boldly suggested playing at Barbara's house after school. "Your bus stop is right before mine," Esther explained. "I could get off with you and then walk home later."

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"Because after school, I need to pick."

"Pick what? You don't live on a farm."

"Esther, don't you know?"

"Know what?"

Barbara sighed deeply.. "My parents are MFW's."

"What's a MFW?"

"Migrant Farm Workers. Right now, we're picking strawberries. In two weeks, we'll head south to pick the tomatoes."

"So every few weeks, you go to a new school?"

"Yup, and every few weeks, I pick something new."

"That sounds horrible! Why doesn't your dad get a real job?"

Barbara smiled sadly. "White folks go to high school and college. They get real jobs. Colored folks do the rest."  

Silence hung in the air between them. Barbara flashed Esther a look of quiet dignity while Esther felt shame wash over her.  

"Flip over that lunchbox. Let's play Campus Queen," Barbara said, clearing the air. At recess, Barbara produced a set of jacks and taught Esther how to play, avoiding the other girls and their mean hand-holding game.

That afternoon, Esther hatched her plan. She convinced her older brother to give their mom her carefully worded note, and when Barbara's bus stop arrived, Esther rose with her. "Where are you going?" Barbara asked.

"With you. I want to help pick."

Barbara looked at Esther as if she had grown a third eye. "Why in the world would you want to do that? It's hot and buggy and those lily-white fingers of yours will get all stained." Undeterred, Esther followed her friend.

"Here's home," Barbara announced as she opened the door to a dark room. Two sets of bunk beds lined the walls. A rickety table and several battered chairs were the only other pieces of furniture in the room. "We were lucky; the last people cleaned up real good. Saved us a lot of time since we didn't have to scrub the place down."  

Esther looked around, seeing only one empty outlet. "What do you do for light?"

"We work hard. When dark comes, we go to bed. "Mama has a hotplate, so it's nice to have a plug so we can have hot meals. This place is nicer than some. Having the creek so close makes hauling water easier." Barbara handed Esther a pair of ratty gym shorts and a faded tee-shirt. "I think these will fit you. You're probably already in enough trouble without getting strawberry stains on your school clothes. The necessary is out back if you need to go."

"There's an outhouse?"

"Two of them! In New Jersey, there was only one for all eighty of us."

The two girls, now in work clothes, joined the workers in the field. Although Barbara's parents seemed nervous about Esther's arrival, they greeted her as if she were somebody special. The workers teased her about how easily she eyed ripe berries from the ones that weren't ready. Esther impressed the group by working as hard as anyone and earned herself an invitation to supper.

Barbara's family sat Esther in the best of the three chairs like she was visiting royalty. "I hope you like fish," Barbara's mother said. "We caught a mess of them in the river this morning." As if on cue, Barbara's father set a platter of trout that he had grilled over the fire outside. Her mother sliced bread baked in a coffee can over that same fire. After a blessing, the family began filling their plates. Esther watched uncomfortably as Barbara and her siblings ate, standing up while she sat in the best chair.  

 "Don't get your drawers in a knot," Barbara told her. "It was my turn to sit. It's cool."

Esther allowed herself to relax and take in the frivolity surrounding her. Unlike meals at her house, there was no tension. Everyone laughed and interrupted each other with good-natured ribbing. After the meal, the family stood up and sang 'His Eye is on the Sparrow', a hymn unfamiliar to Esther. Tears collect in the corner of her eyes as they harmonized. Barbara saw her reaction and explained. "In this family, when we work, we work hard. When we get to school, we take in every bit of learning we can. And when we sing, we make a joyful noise." Esther never wanted her visit to end.  This, she thought to herself, is a family. Daddy hurled insults at her mother at her house, her brother pilfered cigarettes from Daddy's pack, and in the mornings, her mother cried when Daddy drank the grocery money.

 If these were the advantages of being born a white girl, she would gladly give up her chalky skin and straight hair to feel the way she had felt right now. 

She walked home by herself, knowing it was best to arrive alone. As she got to the edge of the yard, Daddy, with one can left in his six-pack, grabbed her by the hair. He swore at Esther as he dragged her into his basement workshop. "Ordinarily, I'd let you pick the weapon," he told her, "but I'm really pissed me off tonight." With a mean glint in his eye, he asked, "How old are you now?"  

"Eight."

"Nine it is," said Daddy, not bothering to mask his pleasure. "One!" he yelled as the wide leather belt hit her legs just under her bottom. "Don't worry; I'm aiming high. The marks won't show. Two!" The belt fell again. "We stick with our own. Three!" Esther swallowed a gasp as the blow irritated her already smarting skin. "Four! Do you like eating with a coon? Five! Are you an ape? Six!" The rest of Daddy's words escaped Esther. She reached her pain limits and fainted.

Mom carried her to bed, cleaned her wounds, rubbed them with salve, and wrapped her legs in gauze. "Maybe you should stay home tomorrow."

Esther hesitated, not wanting to miss playing Campus Queen with Barbara. "I'll be ok, Mom. Thanks for taking care of me."

"I warned you about this, Esther."  

Esther nodded as she sunk into the pillow.  They are precious in His sight, she whispered.

Esther spent the next days feeling happy. Jeff still passed around his ink pen every morning to protect his friends from imagined cooties. Mrs. Brown never spoke to Barbara unless it was to call Barbie out for some imaginary infraction. Barbara kept a close eye on Esther. When they were writing their spelling words, she whispered Nickel, not nickle. Think alphabetical order." As a math whiz, she spotted Ester's mistakes and tapped them with her pencil. At night, Esther dreamed that she and Barbara ran away to a place where they could be best friends forever.

And then the dreaded morning came when Esther sat at the back table, all alone. When Mrs. Brown called the roll, no one answered when she shouted Barbie in her annoyed voice. "Move back to your desk, Esther." the teacher-directed. "Fortunately, she's gone."

Esther never forgot her two-week friend. She graduated from teacher's college and kept the promise she had made to herself at that table in her third-grade classroom. Whenever a new student came to her class, Esther greeted them as though she had been waiting all year for them to arrive.  

Years later, Esther turned on the evening news as a breathtakingly beautiful Black woman, a civil rights lawyer, was being interviewed about a case she was trying. There was no mistaking those high cheekbones and lush eyelashes.  Red and yellow. Black and white. They are precious in His sight, Esther thought to herself.

"Well done, Barbara," she whispered.