Shine (Short Story) Read Free Page A

shocked your baby sister.”
    If Mama knew Rachel was anywhere close to the boys in this neighborhood who got into trouble, she would whup her and keep her locked inside.
    “Leave me alone, Nia,” Ruth said. “I’m not bothering you.”
    Nia smirked. “So what you sayin’?”
    “Hey, Ruth,” Denyce asked. “How’s your fancy school?” She got up from the stoop and sat down next to Ruth. Nia followed suit, sandwiching her on the other side.
    “Look at that,” Nia said, grabbing Ruth’s wrist. “I think your skin’s getting lighter.”
    “You practically a ghost,” Denyce said, and both girls broke up laughing.
    “Aight, you fools,” Rachel interrupted. “Leave her be. It ain’t her fault she smarter than both your brains put together.”
    “I’m going inside,” Ruth announced, but she was pretty sure no one cared.
    Her mama and Granny were on the couch, watching
Wheel of Fortune
. “What’s the matter, baby?” Mama asked.
    “Nothing,” Ruth said. “I just wanted to take a bath.”
    She went into the bathroom the four of them shared. The tub had a crack in it that was the shape of a lightning bolt, and Ruth used to think that the water would run right through Mrs. Nattuck’s ceiling, but since she’d never complained and they bathed every night, that probably wasn’t the case. She ran the water and put on a shower cap to cover her hair and sank down to her shoulders. Then she lathered up soap on her washcloth. Her palms were pink, as pink as Christina’s. She flipped her hand over, to the light brown of her wrist and forearm. Her skin had always been lighter than Rachel’s; her sister had been dark as a berry her whole life. Was that why Ruth was the one who was going to Dalton?
    Ruth picked up the washcloth and scrubbed at her left shoulder. She scrubbed so hard she could see the pink bloom of irritation under the brown of her skin.
    It hurt.
    It was beautiful.
    —
    On Monday, Ruth woke up before her alarm. She had brushed her teeth and dressed and packed up her schoolwork before her mama even came out of her bedroom. “Isn’t someone in a hurry!” Mama said, but she smiled.
    Ruth couldn’t wait to get back to Dalton. Today they would be playing a math game and the winning team would get Halloween candy. She had practiced her times tables all weekend. She would win, and then she would share the candy with Maia and the other girls, and this time they would not just tolerate her, they’d welcome her.
    When they reached Ms. Mina’s brownstone and went in the service entrance, Ruth raced up the stairs. She sat on a kitchen stool, kicking her legs, and printed out multiplication equations on a napkin. Ms. Mina came into the kitchen for a cup of coffee. “It’s just finished brewing,” Mama said. “I would have brought it up to you.”
    “Oh, I know that, Lou,” she answered. “I was up all night with the baby and my body simply couldn’t wait another second.” She glanced at Ruth, who was now solving her equations. “Well, look at
you
!” Ms. Mina said. “And I can barely get Christina out of bed!”
    But this wasn’t true because at that moment Christina came into the kitchen, wearing a rhinestone headband, to pick up her school lunch from Mama.
    —
    There were two teams. Ms. Thomas randomly divided the students in half, and set up a buzzer on a desk in the middle of the classroom. One member of each team would face off as she recited a multiplication equation. The first person to hit the buzzer and say the correct answer would get to shoot a ball made of masking tape into one of three baskets. The farthest one was worth the most points. At the end of the game, the team with the most points would win.
    Ruth faced off against Marcus first, and was given a cream puff of a question: 3 x 4. She rang the buzzer and tossed the tape ball into the trash can that was closest, because she didn’t want to risk missing completely and they were better safe than sorry. They rotated