“I promise I’ll put it on the agenda at our camp meeting next month,” Clancy said with one of his smiles. “It’ll be right at the top of new business.”
That seemed to satisfy her, at least for now. With one curious look flung in my direction, the Empress of Vegetables turned on her heel and marched back into her domain.
“Wow,” I said, “she’s a real gem.”
He shrugged, absentmindedly fiddling with his right ear. “She has a valid point. If we start running low on food in the storeroom, we have to lean on the gardens, and if that’s been picked over, we’re in trouble. I think everyone here has come to understand how interconnected life is at East River. Hey—do you mind if I stop by and visit Pete?”
I smiled. “Of course not.”
The little boy was buried under a mound of blankets—if the bare mattresses around it were any indication, the other boys had gladly donated theirs to his pile. When his flushed face finally emerged from the covers, I said hello and introduced myself. Clancy stayed to speak with him for a good fifteen minutes, but I waited outside in the fresh air, watching the comings and goings of the camp. Kids waved and smiled at me, like I had been there for years, not a few days. I waved back, something tightening in my chest. I don’t know when it had dawned on me, or if it had been a slow, creeping realization, but I had begun to understand that black—the color that I had trained myself to fear and hate—was the same thing that allowed these kids to feel a small measure of pride and solidarity.
“You’ll never feel alone here,” Clancy said, shutting the cabin door behind him. We walked to the laundry building next, then made a stop by the wash houses to test the faucets and make sure the lights were still working. Every now and then, someone stopped Clancy to ask a question or air a complaint, but he was never anything other than patient and understanding. I watched him unravel a misunderstanding between cabin mates, take suggestions for dinner, and give his opinion on whether the security team needed more kids assigned to it.
By the time we reached the cabin that served as the Cubbies’ classroom, I was dead on my feet. Clancy, however, was ready to give his weekly lesson on U.S. history.
The room was small and crowded, but well lit and decorated with colorful posters and drawings. I spotted Zu and her pink gloves even before I saw the teenage girl at the front of the room tracing a finger down the length of the Mississippi River on an old map of the United States. Hina sat next to Zu, of course, frantically scribbling down notes. I suppose it shouldn’t have surprised me, but the kids actually cheered when Clancy appeared in the doorway. The girl relinquished the front of the room to him immediately.
“Alllll right, alllll right,” Clancy began. “Who can tell me where we left off?”
“Pilgrims!” a dozen voices chimed in.
“Pilgrims?” he continued. “What are those? How about you, Jamie? Do you remember who the Pilgrims were?”
A girl about Zu’s age sat straight up. “People in England were being mean to them because of their religion, so they sailed to America and landed at Plymouth Rock.”
“Can anyone tell me what they did after they got there?”
About ten hands shot in the air. He picked a little boy close to him—he might have been a Green, but he could just as easily have been a Yellow or Blue. My usual method of distinguishing kids from one another was failing me now that we were all mixed together. Which, I suppose, was the point.
“They set up a colony,” the boy answered.
“You got it. It was the second English colony, after the one set up in Jamestown in 1607—not too far from where we are now, actually!” Clancy picked up the map the teacher had been using and pointed out both places. “While they were on the Mayflower, they created the Mayflower Compact, which was an agreement that guaranteed everyone would cooperate and act in a way that would be beneficial to the colony. When they arrived, they faced a lot of hardships. But they all worked together and created a community where they were free from the English crown’s rule and could practice their faith openly.” He stopped pacing for a moment, casting his dark eyes out over his audience. “Sound familiar?”
Beside me, Zu was all wide eyes. I was sitting close enough to see the freckles on her face, but, more importantly, feel the happiness radiating off her. I felt my own heart lift. Hina leaned over to whisper something in her ear, and her smile only grew.
“Sounds like us!” someone called, from the back of the room.
“You bet,” Clancy said, and talked for the next hour and a half about how the Pilgrims interacted with the native tribes, about Jamestown, about all the things my mother used to teach at her high school. And when he had used up all his time, he took a small bow and motioned for me to follow him outside amidst all the groans and complaints from the Cubbies. We were both still chuckling as we walked to the fire pit, where they were just starting to set up for dinner. I felt a number of eyes latch onto us immediately, but I didn’t care. I actually felt a small thrill of pride.
“So?” Clancy said, as we stood beside the Office’s porch, listening to the bells calling everyone to dinner. “What do you think?”
“I think I’m ready for my first lesson,” I said.
“Oh, Miss Daly.” A smile curled at the edges of his lips. “You already had your first lesson. You just didn’t realize it.”
Two weeks passed like a page tearing from an old book.
I spent so many hours of so many days locked inside Clancy’s room, pushing images into his mind, blocking him from trying to do the same, talking about the League, Thurmond, and White Noise, that we both fell out of sync with the camp’s schedule. He had his daily meetings, but instead of asking me to leave, he had me wait on the other side of the white curtain, where we were now conducting most of our practice sessions.
There were times he had to go out and inspect the cabins, or handle an argument, but I almost always stayed up in that musty old room. There were books and music and a TV at my disposal, which meant I never once had the opportunity to be bored.
I still saw Chubs at some of our meals, but Clancy often had food brought to us. Zu was even harder to track down, because when she wasn’t in class, she was with Hina or one of the older Yellows. The only time I really spent with the two of them was at night, before the camp’s lights were shut off. Chubs, more often than not, was a ghost—always working, looking for ways to catch Clancy’s attention by stitching up the kid who’d split her lip or suggesting a more efficient way of harvesting the garden. The longest I sat with him was when he took out my stitches.