Wanting nothing more than to get away from this obnoxious kid, she considered leaving the shop. But she wanted to see Lena and buy some time until she was ready to face Mama, so she hung around. Since she was getting nowhere fast in this conversation with Midnight, she tried the polite line of questions she used for her coworkers’ kids on Take Your Child to Work Day. How old are you? What’s your favorite subject in school? What do you want to be when you grow up?

Midnight sat up straighter in response to her last question.

“A microbiologist.”

Tiny bubbles of spit popped up around his lips when he said the word, slow and careful to enunciate each syllable. She smiled. Kids in Ganton grew up to work at the plant during the week, bowl at Pete’s one weekend, raid the junkyard the next. Something solid and resolute shone in his face, as if to convince her that if he sold you a dream, he was good for it.

A child’s dreams could easily wilt and die on the vine. Ruth had learned this firsthand in Mrs. Thornton’s third-grade class at Driscoll Elementary School. If you were Black and lived on the Grundy side of town, where Ruth had grown up, you went to Driscoll or the other public school a few miles away. The public schools in Ganton didn’t require uniforms, but Mama had bought her granddaughter a navy-blue-and-white pleated skirt Ruth had begged for after seeing it on a long-legged white mannequin in a store window. Somehow, she got it in her head that smart girls wore plaid skirts with white ankle socks and black patent leather shoes. She never told Mama, but that skirt in the window was the closest she could come to the uniforms she’d seen the Mother Mary Catholic school girls wear on the other side of town.

Ruth loved the knee-length skirt so much she wore it to school at least three days a week, ignoring the taunts of the other kids that she only had one outfit. Many of those children wore hand-me-downs from older siblings or Goodwill rejects, but that didn’t stop their teasing. Papa said it had more to do with their envying Ruth’s mind than her clothing.

At eight years old, Ruth cracked the spines of old science books held together precariously by Scotch tape, memorizing every obscure fact, which must have impressed the other kids, including Natasha Turnbull, her childhood best friend, who was a mediocre student at best. You are soooo smart, her friend said, making Ruth stand even taller with pride, especially having the most beautiful girl as her friend. Natasha had light skin and long wavy hair and wowed in anything she wore, so pretty she didn’t need to wear pleats. And she knew it, too.

After Natasha received a string of failing grades, Ruth asked, “Did you get in trouble with your mom?” But Natasha just shrugged and said, “She’s not home a lot, so she doesn’t really notice. It’s cool, though. She’s always saying when you’re pretty, you don’t have to be smart.”

Ruth thought about that for a long time and looked at herself in the school’s bathroom mirror. Staring at her wide eyes that were too big for her long face, and her arms and legs that resembled skinny noodles, she knew then she’d have to focus on being smart. The good thing was she didn’t have to work hard at it, as she was eager to learn about the life cycles of butterflies and frogs, and the five layers of the earth’s soil. It was her research about soil that got her in trouble with Mrs. Thornton.

Ten minutes before the bell rang for recess one day, Mrs. Thornton told the class they would learn about soil layers that afternoon. Ruth had skipped ahead four chapters in her science book, reading at night by flashlight under her bedcovers long after everyone in her house had gone to sleep.

Anxious with excitement, Ruth stood up and blurted, “I can name the five layers of soil.” Closing her eyes to focus on her memory and avoid the distraction of her classmates’ faces, she recited, “Humus, topsoil, subsoil, parent material, and bedrock.” Proud of herself for getting through the list without flubbing anything, she exhaled. Smoothing the pleats of her skirt, she smiled and waited for praise that never came.

Instead, her classmates looked from her to Mrs. Thornton, their mouths agape, expecting something Ruth had been too na?ve to anticipate. Even Natasha buried her face in her hands as if Ruth had committed a crime. Their teacher’s face flushed red and it took her a moment to speak. When she did, she pointed her knotty index finger at Ruth. “I’m the teacher, not you. Stop showing off and being disruptive.”

The word disruptive was new to Ruth, but she knew immediately it had negative connotations based on the way Mrs. Thornton snarled when she said it.

“Another thing,” her teacher added. “That skirt is in violation of the dress code. It’s too short for school. I’ll be sending a note home to your mother to let her know you can’t continue to wear it.”

Heat burned Ruth’s face. She grabbed a fistful of her skirt and squeezed, suddenly self-conscious about her bare, skinny legs, feeling every eye in the class on them. With her long legs, skirts that fell below the knee on other girls were shorter on her. And besides, she’d seen some girls wear skirts midthigh. Why had Mrs. Thornton singled her out? Ruth ran from the classroom and hid under a staircase until the janitor found her and summoned the principal, who called Mama to come pick her up.

At home, Ruth stood outside her grandparents’ bedroom, listening to them agonize over what to do.

Papa’s baritone voice carried even when he tried to whisper. “She ain’t learning a damn thing in that school.”