Sweet Like Sugar Read Online Free PDF

out a clown costume for me, complete with baggy orange pants and yellow suspenders, and a red ball to stick on the end of my nose. I was not having it.
    My sister, Rachel, was already eleven, and sixth graders didn’t have to put on stupid costumes anymore. But they’d be performing the annual Purim play for the whole school, and she was playing the lead, so Rachel dressed up as Queen Esther, the heroine of the Purim story. My mother was allowing Rachel to wear makeup for the play and she helped her make gold slippers out of old ballet shoes and glitter. She was wearing her fanciest skirt, made of shimmery black material, and my mom loaned her a gold blouse, which my sister could almost fill out already.
    Rachel looked like a grown woman. After reminding my sister not to get that blouse dirty, my mother stepped back and told her that she looked beautiful.
    Nobody was paying attention to me. I stood pouting in the doorway of the bathroom, where they were fixing Rachel’s hair. “I want to be Queen Esther, too,” I insisted.
    â€œYou mean you want to be King Ahasuerus,” Rachel spat at me without turning away from the mirror. “Boys can’t be queens.” She didn’t look so beautiful anymore.
    â€œNo, I want to be Queen Esther,” I repeated.
    Rachel put down her hairbrush. “That is so queer.”
    I started to bawl.
    My mother led me into my bedroom and tried to coax me into the clown costume, but I refused. She handed me the baggy pants and I threw them on the floor. She offered me the round red nose and I hit it out of her hands.
    â€œMom, make him get dressed,” Rachel protested from the hallway. “He’s going to make us late.”
    My father would have put his foot down: “Stop crying and get in the damn clown costume, or you can forget about watching television this week.” But my father was playing tennis, and my mother had to get everyone ready in time to drive the Sunday morning carpool. She considered the situation for a moment. Then, caught between my tantrum and my sister’s impatience, she caved in.
    The costume was simple, piecing together bits of an old fairy princess costume that Rachel wore for Halloween years before: a lavender skirt, a pink top, a blond wig, a gold tiara. I skipped the clip-on wings. But I was drawn to the star-tipped wand; my mother told me that they didn’t have magic wands in ancient Persia, and I conceded the point. She also wouldn’t let me wear makeup, despite my repeated requests.
    My sister refused to sit near me in the station wagon, so I climbed up front with my mom while Rachel got in back. We picked up two other kids from around the corner, a boy wearing a karate uniform and a girl dressed as a ballerina, who squeezed in next to Rachel. They were snickering, but nobody dared to say anything out loud while my mother was there.
    Once we got dropped off at Beth Shalom, however, everything changed. The karate boy pushed me into a door and sneered, “Ladies first.” The ballerina told me I looked funny.
    â€œI’m Queen Esther,” I responded. “She’s a hero. She saved the Jews. You’re just some dumb ballet dancer.”
    â€œBoys can’t wear skirts,” the ballerina snipped. Apparently, Esther’s heroism meant nothing to her.
    My sister, who was big enough to defend me from these taunts, had already gone inside to get ready for the play. I was alone.
    When I walked into my classroom, I tried to muster a smile. Mrs. Goldfarb looked over with a pleased look—a look that quickly changed once she realized who was beneath this cheap wig and plastic crown.
    â€œBenjamin?” she asked quietly. “Oh, dear.”
    I would soon forget what all my classmates wore for this masquerade, and I would never even notice Mrs. Goldfarb’s clothes. But for them, for all of them, this image of me, a vision in lavender and pink polyester, would become indelibly