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12 Mrs. Page Fain Elementary, Wichita Falls, Texas, 1970 A day’s dull end at integration’s start: outside, black kids line up to board the bus while she squares off, sleeves back, to lecture us. “You’re smarter than they are and we both know it!” Hands on neat hips, sharp in her gray wool skirt, black top, her salt-and-pepper hair cut short. She is pained, earnest, fierce. She barks now, “All right, listen up. You are not slacking off just because they’re here. This is your future!” 2:58. Two minutes till release, the short walk home through modest, sidewalked streets. Our balls and instruments await. Our snacks. But this is better: now she’s streaming tears. She has tried very hard. She has lain awake. We will have to help by doing what we can. And then, as if, like Buster Keaton, a bomb’s gone off and scorched her face, she stares blinks stares, her eyes directed back, followed by ours, to where Mark Jackson sits. Another pair of eyes, of ears. So rapt not one of us had noticed, Mrs. Page so bent to her purpose. 13 And Mark, the only day it ever happens, simply forgetting he isn’t one of us. She rushes back, manic, legs scissoring— snip snip snip snip—snatches Mark by the nape. Then the two bolting, tag-teamed, for the door while silent we sit waiting for the bell. ...

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