“Well?” the nurse asked.
“He was cryin’,” Bruno, who stood beside the seated Thomas, said.
“Crying about what?” Mrs. Turner asked Bruno.
“How should I know?” the fat boy replied, folding his arms over his chest.
The nurse smiled instead of getting angry at Bruno’s impudence.
“Why were you crying, Tommy?” she asked.
“They were laughin’ and the sun was too bright — it, it pained me.”
Bruno giggled, and Mrs. Turner cocked her head to the side.
“It hurt?” she asked.
“In my heart,” the boy said, “where I had to heed.”
Thomas touched the center of his chest.
The nurse gasped and touched herself in the same place.
Bruno had stopped his laughing. Now he was staring goggle-eyed and astonished at his new friend.
“Would you like to take a nap, Tommy?” Mrs. Turner asked in a most gentle voice.
Thomas nodded.
“Can Bruno take one too?”
“No. He has to go back to class.”
“Dog,” Forman complained.
After Bruno left, the nurse led Thomas to a small room that smelled slightly of disinfectant. There were built-in glass-doored cabinets on the right side and there was a small cot against the opposite wall. When she pulled the shade down, Thomas realized that it was made from clear green plastic so the sun still shone in but not so brightly like in Mr. Meyers’s classroom.
8 7
Wa l t e r M o s l e y
Thomas took off his shoes and put them under the cot.
Then he got into the bed, and Mrs. Turner pulled the thin blanket over him.
“What happened to your nose?” the school nurse asked.
“My dad put on the brakes so he didn’t hit this kid on a skateboard.” Tommy liked it when she put the flat of her hand on his chest.
“Is this your first day at school, Tommy?” Mrs. Turner asked the boy.
“Uh-huh.”
“Where is your family from?”
“My dad lives down the street.”
“But then why is this your first day?”
Thomas told the nurse the story about his mother dying and his father coming to take him. He told her about the police and his grandmother’s TV and Eric, his white brother who lived in Beverly Hills.
“I’m so sorry about your mother,” Mrs. Turner said.
“She looks over me,” Thomas replied, and the nurse gasped again.
Nurse Turner shared her lunch with Thomas. After that he returned to Mr. Meyers’s class. The sun still bothered him, but he kept from crying by looking at the floor.
Toward the end of the day, Mr. Meyers called on a tall black girl named Shauna Jones. He pointed to the letter
“Are,” Mr. Meyers said clearly.
“Ara,” Shauna repeated.
“Are.”
“Ara.”
“Are.”
8 8
F o r t u n a t e S o n
“Arar.”
“Thank you, Miss Jones,” Meyers said. “New boy. Your turn.”
Shauna sat down, showing no sign that she had failed the white teacher’s test.
Thomas tried to stand up, but somehow his feet got tangled and he tripped and fell.
The children all laughed, except for Bruno, who helped his new friend to his feet.
“Shut up!”
