Class(46)

“Well, he’s usually pretty nice to me,” said Ruby. “But yesterday he did use the f-word.” She lowered her head and rounded her back. Though whether the stance was born of fear or embarrassment at having referenced a swearword, it was hard to know.

“How did he use it?” said Karen, alarm bells ringing. “What did he say?”

“He asked me what I was doing at recess. Because he said”—Ruby leaned in, so she could whisper—“he wanted to f-word with me.”

Karen felt her head grow light. Ruby was only a child—not exactly a trustworthy source or a reliable narrator. But the language was so specific, it was hard not to believe that she was repeating exactly what she’d heard. I want to fuck with you. Karen understood it to be some variation of the phrase I want to fuck you up. That is, mess with her, harm her. “But what do you think he meant?” she asked.

Ruby shrugged as if Karen had asked her to predict the weather on Friday and said, “I don’t know.”

“Well, did he seem like he was just kidding around? Was he mad at you about something?”

“Well, second period, I did tell him to leave Empriss alone, because he was making fun of her for not having her own bed.”

“That was sweet of you,” said Karen, her pride in her daughter’s defense of her impoverished classmate momentarily trumping her distress at Jayyden’s threat. Never mind Karen’s disbelief that someone in Jayyden’s situation would be teasing another classmate about her lowly status on the socioeconomic ladder. “But I thought you didn’t like Empriss,” she went on.

“I don’t like her,” explained Ruby. “But I felt sorry for her.”

“Well, good for you,” said Karen. But the song and dance that Ruby then began spontaneously to perform in front of Karen’s closet mirror only exacerbated her misgivings about the school. “‘When you’re ready, come and get it, na-na-na,’” she sang while wiggling her behind.

“Ruby, stop that. It’s inappropriate,” said Karen, dismayed by both the lyrics and the sexual nature of Ruby’s movements. Or was it not sexual if there was no knowledge of sex? From what Karen could tell, Ruby had no idea how babies were made, and Karen hadn’t yet offered to explain.

“But all the sassy girls in school twerk,” said Ruby. “Like Janiyah, Khloee, and Jasleen.”

“I don’t care what all the girls are doing,” said Karen, for whom the t-word seemed like an omen of civilization’s final descent. Though what in particular was so terrible about a bunch of eight-and nine-year-olds shaking their backsides was hard to say. What if they simply found it funny? And wasn’t the area of the body from which waste matter was expelled inherently amusing? Even so, Karen couldn’t ignore the growing conviction that invisible forces of corruption, dissolution, and danger were growing ever closer to her daughter, turning her head in the wrong direction and pulling her farther away from Karen’s reach—a conviction that only grew stronger after Ruby leaned forward and said, “Can I tell you something else?”

“What?” said Karen.

“Jasleen and Janiyah both wear bras!”

“Well, I think that’s ridiculous,” said Karen. “I don’t see why girls your age need to wear bras when they don’t have boobs.”

Ruby shrugged, then lay down.

After Karen tucked her in, she went back into the living room where Matt sat reading sports scores on his phone and told him what Jayyden had said to Ruby.

“Boys just say stuff,” he said. He sounded as unconcerned as Ruby. “Besides, he didn’t say he wanted to fuck her up—or, God forbid, fuck her. He said he wanted to fuck with her. Honestly, it doesn’t sound that bad to me. Having said that, I wouldn’t be that psyched if I were Dashboard’s parents right now, or whatever that kid’s name is.”

“It’s Dashiell, not Dashboard,” said Karen, not in the mood for Matt’s punning. “His parents own the artisanal sausage place up the street.”

“Isn’t that kind of an oxymoron?” said Matt. “I mean, isn’t the whole point of sausages that they’re highly processed and really bad for you?”

“The artisanal ones are probably bad but not as bad for you, because they don’t have as many additives in them. But I’m trying to talk to you about something else!”

“Oh, right.”

“So you’d rather wait until Ruby is Jayyden’s next victim than try to do something about it now?”

“He’s not going to go after Ruby. He only goes after the kids who start up with him. And Ruby’s not like that. Also, they’re eight years old. Can we please not lose sight of that fact?”

“That’s not even true—Jayyden is nine going on ten,” said Karen.

“Whatever,” said Matt.

“I’m thinking of talking to the principal about it.”

“You sound like Maeve’s parents.”

The accusation made Karen wince. In her mind, Laura and Evan had become the apotheosis of liberal hypocrisy. “That’s not fair,” she said.

But wasn’t the child’s removal her unspoken goal too? And what if Laura and Evan had had a valid point about Principal Chambers protecting Jayyden at the expense of the others? Or had skin color distorted Karen’s perception to the point of blindness? If some troubled white boy had told Ruby he wanted to fuck with her at recess, surely Karen would have been concerned as well. But how concerned? And what would happen to Jayyden? Maybe April Fishbach was right, and the child needed succor, not censor. But did he have to get that help in the same building, the same room, as Ruby was in?