Mr. Blacken

I roll my eyes. What is she doing here?
Next to our pond stands a girl with short, straight, black hair. Next to our pond.
The Black neighborhood pond. It makes me so mad that she has so much and we have so little. I can just tell by what she’s wearing that she’s stuck up and full of
herself, just because she’s a rich, white girl. Her outfit probably costs more than my house. I hate her. I start walking towards her, full of rage. I stand behind her
for a full 20 seconds until she finally turns around. She looks at me innocently. Not as if she thinks highly of herself or not. Just innocently, like she doesn’t know she has done anything wrong. “Hello,” she finally says “I was just looking at the pond. Is everything okay?” I look at her with what I assume is a blank expression. “Yes. You’re at my pond. You probably have a ton of other ponds to go to.” “Your pond?” she asks

with a look of shock. “Well not my pond, but our pond. Mine and the rest of the blacks.” That’s when I realize I’m actually standing up to somebody. Not just somebody, a white somebody. I start feeling very nervous, but kind of proud of myself at the same time. Kind of a weird feeling… but awesome. “What are you doing here?” I ask. “I’m looking at the pond. I like water,” she replies. “That’s not what I meant,”
I say. She smiles a little. I continue, “What are you doing at his pond? You’re not supposed to be here.” She stops smiling and takes a second to answer the question. “I… didn’t know. I was just walking around and somehow I got here.”

I don’t know what to say. Scream at her for making a mistake? Thank goodness I didn’t have to say anything.

“Well… bye,” she says awkwardly and leaves.

I stand there for a minute longer. Taking in the  quiet around here, surrounded by trees.

And water, obviously. Duh. I should definitely come here more often, but I don’t. So I turn my back and leave. I’m walking home through the market, still thinking about how the whites think we’re trash. Infuriated. That’s until I nearly step in a puddle. So I decide it’s a good idea to actually focus on walking. I’m almost home when I see Rory and Melody in the park. I walk over to Melody and half pinch, half tickle her side. Playfully of course. Melody is small for her age, probably because she’s one half of a twin, but I can’t tell because to me all five year olds are tiny. She has dark brown, curly hair, like me, and her clothes are completely mismatched, just like Rory. Our Mum lets them dress themselves. They are the only two five year olds that dress themselves, so their friends think very highly of them. After an hour at the park with Rory and Melody, running around and playing games, with the occasional stare from racist white people, we go home.

The next day I decide to go to the pond. So I grab the nicest sweater I have (which isn’t very nice) because it’s freezing outside, and make my way to the pond. As I’m sitting at the edge of the pond, deep in thought, I hear footsteps behind me. At first it doesn’t sink in, but as it does, I turn around to find that girl again from yesterday. I don’t think she sees me, so I decide to call to her.

”Hey, you.” I don’t know why I said that, because I don’t usually like talking to strangers but…I don’t know. I guess I’m feeling good today. She turns around. I’m not sure why but I’m not in the mood to tell her off anymore. She just doesn’t seem like the racist type. So I invite her to sit next to me. Still not completely sure why. “Hello,” I say. “Hi,” she responds, “You gonna tell me off for being at your pond again?” “I don’t think so, but you never know,” I smile. “I’m Mike.”

“River,” she says. So…I don’t know
what to say, but I definitely cannot say that this is an awkward silence because
would make the silence even more awkward. “Keys,” I say. I think something is wrong with me, at least today, or maybe all the time. Lately I’ve had an obsession with keys. “Sorry?” she says, but I’m not going to take it back now because I

know she heard me, and if I take it back then it will
become weird. So I don’t. “Keys,” I say again this time with more confidence. “They’re cool, just think about it. They can open doors, and to do that they have to fit into a lock perfectly. I mean my brain hurts just thinking about it.” I say that all in one breath. River just stares at me amused. “Sure, keys.” “Oh come on, don’t give me that look. Keys are seriously amazing. Whoever invented keys is a genius,” I say. ”I’m not giving you any look,” she finally says. “I just didn’t think you would be interested in mechanics,” she continues with a little bit of awe in her voice.
“Why? Because I’m black?” I say only half joking. “No! That’s not what I meant—“
“Relax I was just kidding,” I say, cutting her off. We’re quiet for a while then she finally asks, “So what are you doing here?” “I like water,” I say, mocking her. We both laugh…for a long time.

The sun starts setting and we decide that it is time to go  home.
The next day is Monday, the first day of school. So I get up, get ready, and go to school. Even though my family is really poor, I still go to a nice school. The thing is that because it is such a nice school, I am the only black kid there, so naturally
there is a lot of racism. In order to get to school I have to walkthrough the white neighborhood,which means that I get a lot of nasty stares, but that does not mean that there are not some perks. On the way to school every day, I pass a vintage store where they have a jukebox that plays the best songs.  My favorite is when they play Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen.

Once I get to school, I go straight to class. I like to get there early on the first day of school to get a good seat.
Slowly the class starts to fill up and I notice that River is in my class. I did not even know that we went to the same school. When she sees me, she waves to me and begins walking my way, but then the teacher comes in. Right at the beginning of the class, the first thing the teacher says is that we have a project due in one week. At least it is a project in pairs, and I am doing the project with River. A week passes. Nothing special happens. Every day is the same. I wake up. I go to school. Go to River’s house to do the science project, (by the way she has a huge house, and only River and her father live there) do the science project, and go home, do homework, go to sleep, and do it all over again. This is my life.

It is Sunday and we finish our project just in time. I tried many times to convince River to put in some information about keys but she wouldn’t let me. I am actually surprised that my close friend is white and that she does not mind that I am black. When we get back the project a week later, the teacher, Mr. Bracken, hands out notes. The notes had our grades on them. My note had a 59 written on it. I don’t

usually get extremely high grades but I had a good feeling about this project, so I was really disappointed. After class I went to talk to River. “I can’t believe we got such a low grade.” “On come on Mike, it’s a really good grade,” she replies. “No, it’s not, we didn’t even pass.” She looks at me with a confused look on her face, “What are you talking about, 60 is passing!” “I know,” I say, “but we didn’t get
over 60.” “Yes, we did,” she says, “I got 92.” “I got 59,” I say.

“That can’t be right. We should be getting the same grade,” River says with shock in her voice.” “But that is my grade, there is no other Mike or River in the class. That racist pig,” I say and then leave.
Throughout the next month, I notice that Mr. Bracken is treating me differently, worse than the other students, who are all white by the way. So I decided that I am not going to stand for this anymore. I come up with a plan. I tell River my plan and she goes to buy black dye. Next thing I know, River and I are pouring the dye into Mr. Bracken’s pool. The color spreads through the pool. It takes exactly two
minutes to get into his house, pour the dye in the pool, and get out. The next morning when Mr. Bracken jumps in the pool for his morning swim, he doesn’t notice the difference. All the kids called him, Mr. Blacken that day.

And that’s what you get for being racist, Mr. Blacken!