had long legs that flew over the floor when she danced. Her blond hair was in those cool things America-African people wear that I could never remember the name of. Lots of them all over her head in stripes.
I walked past some kids playing cards on the floor and straight over to the girl. I stopped four shoe lengths away, which Mom always said was close enough. I used to get too close to people and made them squirmy. They need their personal space, Mom said. But even standing that far away, I could see her long eyelashes. They made me think of baby bird feathers. I saw a baby bird close once. It fell out of the nest in our yard and Maggie climbed the ladder to put it back. I wanted to reach over and touch the girl’s feather lashes, but knew that was not an appropriate thing.
Keith suddenly stopped dancing with her. He looked right at me. “What d’you want, little rich boy?” he asked.
I looked at the girl. Her eyes were blue beneath the feathers. I felt words come into my mind and then into my throat, and once they got that far, I could never stop them.
“I love you,” I said.
Her eyes opened wide and her lips made a pink O. She laughed. I laughed, too. Sometimes people laugh at me and sometimes they laugh with me, and I hoped this was one of the laughing-with-me times.
The girl didn’t say anything, but Keith put his hands on his hips. “You go find somebody else to love, little rich boy.” I wondered how come he kept calling me little rich boy instead of Andy.
I shook my head. “I love her.”
Keith walked between me and the girl. He was so close to me, I felt the squirmies Mom told me about. I had to look up at him which made my neck hurt. “Don’t you know about personal space?” I asked.
“Look,” he said. “She’s sixteen. You’re a puny fourteen.”
“Fifteen,” I said. “I’m just small for my age.”
“Why’re you acting like you’re fourteen then?” He laughed and his teeth reminded me of the big white gum pieces Maggie liked. I hated them because they burned my tongue when I bit them.
“Leave him alone,” the pretty girl said. “Just ignore him and he’ll go away.”
“Don’t it creep you out?” Keith asked her. “The way he’s staring at you?”
The girl put out an arm and used it like a stick to move Keith away. Then she talked right to me.
“You better go away, honey,” she said. “You don’t want to get hurt.”
How could I get hurt? I wasn’t in a dangerous place or doing a dangerous thing, like rock climbing, which I wanted to do but Mom said no.
“What’s your name?” I asked her.
“Go home to your fancy-ass house on the water,” Keith said.
“If I tell you my name, will you go away?” the girl asked.
“Okay,” I said, because I liked that we were making a deal.
“My name’s Layla,” she said.
Layla. That was a new name. I liked it. “It’s pretty,” I said. “My name’s Andy.”
“Nice to meet you, Andy,” she said. “So, now you know my name and you can go.”
I nodded, because I had to hold up my end of the deal. “Goodbye,” I said as I started to turn around.
“Retard.” Keith almost whispered it, but I had very good hearing and that word pushed my start button.
I turned back to him, my fists already flying. I punched his stomach and I punched his chin, and he must have punched me too because of all the bruises I found later, but I didn’t feel a thing. I kept at him, my head bent low like a bull, forgetting I’m only five feet tall and he was way taller. When I was mad, I got strong like nobody’s business. People yelled and clapped and things, but the noise was a buzz in my head. I couldn’t tell you the words they said. Just bzzzzzzzzz, getting louder the more I punched.
I punched until somebody grabbed my arms from behind, and a man with glasses grabbed Keith and pulled us apart. I kicked my feet trying to get at him. I wasn’t finished.
“What an asshole!” Keith twisted his body away from the man with the glasses, but he didn’t come any closer. His face was red like he had sunburn.
“He doesn’t know any better,” said the man holding me. “You should. Now you get out of here.”
“Why me?” Keith jerked his chin toward me. “He started it! Everybody always cuts him slack.”
The man spoke quietly in my ear. “If I let go of you, are you going to behave?”
I nodded and then realized I was crying and everybody was watching me except for Keith and Layla and the man with glasses, who were walking toward the back of the church. The man let go of my arms and handed me a white piece of cloth from his pocket. I wiped my eyes. I hoped Layla hadn’t seen me crying. The man was in front of me now and I saw that he was old with gray hair in a ponytail. He held my shoulders and looked me over like I was something to buy in a store. “You okay, Andy?”
I didn’t know how he knew my name, but I nodded.
“You go back over there with Emily and let the adults handle Keith.” He turned me in Emily’s direction and made me walk a few steps with his arm around me. “We’ll deal with him, okay?” He let go of my shoulders.
I said “okay” and kept walking toward Emily, who was standing by the baptism pool thing.
“I thought you was gonna kill him!” she said.
Me and Emily were in the same special reading and math classes two days a week. I’d known her almost my whole life, and she was my best friend. People said she was funny looking because she had white hair and one of her eyes didn’t look at you and she had a scar on her lip from an operation when she was a baby, but I thought she was pretty. Mom said I saw the whole world through the eyes of love. Next to Mom and Maggie, I loved Emily best. But she wasn’t my girlfriend. Definitely not.
“What did the girl say?” Emily asked me.
I wiped my eyes again. I didn’t care if Emily knew I was crying. She’d seen me cry plenty of times. When I put the cloth in my pocket, I noticed her red T-shirt was on inside out. She used to always wear her clothes inside out because she couldn’t stand the way the seam part felt on her skin, but she’d gotten better. She also couldn’t stand when people touched her. Our teacher never touched her but once we had a substitute and she put a hand on Emily’s shoulder and Emily went ballistic. She cried so much she barfed on her desk.
“Your shirt’s inside out,” I said.
“I know. What did the girl say?”
“That her name’s Layla.” I looked over at where Layla was still talking to the man with the glasses. Keith was gone, and I stared at Layla. Just looking at her made my body feel funny. It was like the time I had to take medicine for a cold and couldn’t sleep all night long. I felt like bugs
