“What?” My heart pounded. “Is Ruby okay? Where is she?”

Gladys tapped her fingers on one of the papers stacked on her desk. “She’s back in class, but she had an altercation.”

“An altercation?”

“From what we gather, another girl accidentally opened a stall door too hard and knocked Ruby down. Ruby dug her nails into the girl’s scalp and made a racial slur.” Gladys stopped and stared at me. “She called her a white bitch.”

I was speechless.

“What concerns me is that Ruby chose to couch her reaction to this accident in racial terms, as well as with violence.” Gladys gave me a long level gaze and spoke slowly. “She’s almost twelve, a criti­cal age when she’s trying to figure out who she is. She won’t fit in the white world. She may not be accepted in the black world. She’s going to have a difficult time finding her place.”

I shivered. “Ruby is black. That’s where she fits,” I said, fighting tears. She’s normal, leave her alone! I glanced at the One World cal­endar on the wall, with its children of many nations holding hands around the globe, and crossed my legs and arms, trying to shut out the warning voice.

“But you aren’t. And you’re her mother. She’s a sensitive girl, and she’s going to have some major challenges,” Gladys repeated, her head bobbing. I wanted to tear it off her neck.

“No, she isn’t. And how do you know what happened in the bathroom, what really precipitated this ‘altercation’?”

“They agree, Jenny pushed open the door and Ruby leaped up and attacked her.”

“Jenny?”

“Jenny Lee.”

The name wasn’t familiar.

“She came in the middle of the year; she’s just in fifth grade.” Gladys looked at me accusingly, as if I were now wrenching small children’s scalps in bathrooms. “That’s another issue. But school will be out in three days.” I could almost see her wiping her hands of the incident—and of us. “Since Jenny wasn’t injured, even though she was shaken up, I’m inclined to let it go at this point in the year. Both of them are back in class and it’s certainly not the first physical altercation we’ve had, although the first for either of these girls. But mostly, Elizabeth, I wanted you to know how concerned I am about Ruby. Why would she call Jenny a white bitch? Why would she have such a racial chip on her shoulder? These are things you and Solomon need to think long and hard about.” Gladys picked up a yellow file folder while she kept her hooded eyes on me. “Before she goes to junior high school.”