Read Aloud the Text Content
This audio was created by Woord's Text to Speech service by content creators from all around the world.
Text Content or SSML code:
I tried taking her advice, but even compressing, I heard Tom say that I was just trying to get Jacqui's white-girl spit in my mouth the only way it would happen. I compressed so hard I felt like I might bust the spring in Resusci-Annie's chest. Marco said I wanted to see how wide Annie's mouth opened. They speculated that my locked elbows were clogged with embedded dirt, but my skin was just naturally darker there, and a few other places. When I was seven, I'd tried to scrub the color off my elbows sohard they blistered and bled. As I compressed Annie's chest in silence, one fist over the other, my ears burned deeper red. "Oh, I forgot!" Mr. Corker said when we stopped. Resusci-Annie's lips wore the same frosted red that Jacqui's had. He dug into his desk for Kleenex and a jar of Nox- zema. "Girls, and some of you guys, maybe, I don't know. Please wipe any makeup off before your turn. We don't want it staining Annie's skin. You want her to be normal colored for the people who come after you." Normal. Hayley and I locked eyes. After final bell, safely within the private area near our Rez buses, Hayley came up to me. Shed reapplied her maroon lips, and outlined their edges to make them seem smaller, like Barbie lips. "How come you let those guys talk like that?" she asked, pretending she hadn't chosen to be deep under- cover, like copshow heroes trying to spy on criminals in their hideouts. "I was the only Indian there," I said, and it wasout before I could slam my big skut-yeah shut. "I just meant . .. guy! I was the only Indian guy there." But shed already joined girls from her end of the Rez, safely ni the bubble ofour portable Rez on wheels. From that day forward, she wouldn't even silently sit near me. I almost wanted to expose her disguise to the new girls she shared makeup tips with and the guys she firted with, but I'd been followed in stores often enough to wish that I had more say in how others saw me. On the bus, no matter where I sat, she made sure to walk past, not even snapping her deep, horse-brown eyes in my direction. She wasn't going to waste energy making a face at me. The week of Thanksgiving, Resusci-Annie long stored back in her suitcase, our classes were briefly segregated. We were supposed to cover a Very Special Unit they might as well have called the Line Drawings of Adulthood Unit. The girls from my class went with Ms. D'Amore, and the guys from her class joined us in Mr. Corker's room. If your par- ents didn't sign the permission slip, you were shipped off to the library to maybe conduct y o u rown s o l oresearch on the Puberty and Reproduction Unit. That week, I had a chance to talk to someone in class. Bil and Andy Crews, those two cousins I sometimes hung out with on the Rez, flopped down next to me. It wasn't hard for them to find seats. Between the TV chimps and the other kids afraid of The Big Indian, I had an armada of empty desks around me most days. Marco speculated ot the other chimps that Mr. Corker might bring ni Playboys. Carson Mastick's dad had more intense mags than the likes