Her skin was tan and flawless, her hair brown and fluffy and cut in a bob. She too looked more like her mother every day. One girl was the product of his failed marriage, the other of his law practice. Two years before, he had defended Pajamae's mother against a murder charge and won, only to see her die of a heroin overdose two months later. Pajamae had no one except Boo and her mother's lawyer, so he had adopted her.

"Morning, girls."

"Whereas, Mr. Fenney," Pajamae said.

"What's your pulse?" Boo said.

"I didn't check my pulse."

"Do you feel faint or dizzy? Are you experiencing chest pain?"

"No, Boo. I feel fine."

"A. Scott, I still think you should be on a statin."

"I think you should change that T-shirt. The school won't like it."

"I told her, Mr. Fenney. I said, 'Girl, you can't be wearing a T-shirt reminding these rich white folks there's a black man in the White House.' "

The conservative Republicans in town-which is to say, the entire Town of Highland Park-had not gone for Obama. They had hoped that George W. would salve their electoral wounds by coming home to Highland Park, but he had retired to his old stomping grounds in North Dallas instead. Even Dick Cheney had forsaken his former home town for Jackson Hole, Wyoming. But Bush did give the Parkies a consolation prize: the $300 million George W. Bush Presidential Library would be located on the Southern Methodist University campus in Highland Park.

Boo shrugged. "What are they gonna do, suspend me again, on the last day of school?"

She had been suspended earlier in the year for fighting. With a boy. He had called Pajamae "Aunt Jemima" on the playground, so Boo had punched him in the nose and made him cry. She had a heck of a right cross for a girl. Scott had threatened to take the school district to court-and more effectively, the story of a white boy bullying the only black student in school to the newspaper and local television-so the school had dropped the suspension after one day. Now, whenever the principal threatened Boo with disciplinary action for defending her sister against bullies, her standard response was, "Call my lawyer."