It was Orlu who finally put an end to it. He’d been yelling for everyone to stop since it started. “Why don’t we let her speak?” Orlu shouted.

Maybe it was because they needed to catch their breath or maybe they truly were curious, but they all paused. Sunny was dirty and bruised, but what could she say? Jibaku spoke up instead-Jibaku, who had slapped Sunny in the face hard enough to make her lip bleed. Sunny glared at her.

“Why did you let Miss Tate beat us?” The sun bore down on Sunny, making her sensitive skin itch. All she wanted to do was get in the shade. “Why didn’t you just do it?” Jibaku shouted. “You’re a scrawny thing, it wouldn’t have hurt much! You could have pretended to be weak as you hit us. Or did you like seeing that white woman beat us like that? Does it make you happy because you’re white, too?”

“I’m not white!” Sunny shouted back, finding her voice again.

“My eyes tell me different,” a plump boy named Periwinkle said. He was called this because he liked the soup with the periwinkle snails in it.

Sunny wiped blood from her lip and said, “Shut up, you snail-sucker! I’m albino!”

“‘Albino’ is a synonym for ‘ugly,’” he retorted.

“Oooh, big words now. Maybe you should have used some of those on your stupid essay! Ignorant idiot!” She added bass to her voice and enunciated the word “idiot” with her most Nigerian accent, making it sound like eeedee-ut. Some of the others laughed. Sunny could always make them laugh, even when she herself felt like crying. “You think I can go around hitting my own classmates?” she said, snatching up her black umbrella. She held it over herself and instantly felt better. “You wouldn’t have done it, either.” She humphed. “Or maybe you would have, Jibaku.”

She watched them grumble to each other. Some of them even turned and started walking home. “What is it you want from me? What would I apologize for?”