The Golden Thread Read Online Free PDF Page B

difference at all.
    â€œWell, that’s it for now,” I said. “If we have the same lunch hour, I’ll show you the ropes in the lunchroom and we’ll sit together, okay? Meantime, let’s see your program card. I’ll point you in the right direction.”
    â€œI have the same program to you,” she said.
    â€œAre you sure? Let’s see your card, we’ll check it.” How could she just walk in here from Darkest Bosnia and take the same courses I had, electives and all?
    â€œThe same,” she said, with a shrug of her broad shoulders. “The assistant said it.”
    Which meant that I would have Bosanka next to me every minute of the day, that day and every day, until the end of term. This was more than I had bargained for.
    It also started out as a very peculiar experience. Bosanka had nothing to say in any of our classes, and none of the teachers called on her, almost as if she were some kind of school inspector or visiting bigwig instead of just another student.
    At lunch break she disappeared into the girls’ room. I spotted my best friend Barb Wilson in the food line.
    I instantly dismissed Bosanka Lonatz from my head and finessed my way into the line behind Barb, eagerly turning over in my head the best way to tell her about the Comet Committee. She knew a lot about my workouts with the family talent in the near past, but we had not talked much about magic lately.
    Barb had gotten passionately interested in becoming a prizewinning photojournalist, and these days she spent all her free time taking pictures or holed up in her makeshift darkroom at home. Sometimes this made her hard to talk to.
    I said, “Hey, Barb, come sit with me—I’ve got something to tell you!”
    She gave me a cool look and said, “Oh, really? But you got your special European guest to look after—where she at? I wouldn’t dream of intruding,”
    Where she at? Barb only talked that way to me when she was fooling around or ticked off. She did not have an air of fooling around today.
    â€œWhy wouldn’t you?” I said warily.
    â€œWell, I guess you didn’t notice, but you wouldn’t,” Barb said, giving me her dangerous, sleepy-eyed look.
    â€œOkay,” I said, “I’ll bite. Didn’t notice what?”
    â€œMean to say you di’n’t hear?” she said, in that singing drawl that meant she was really steamed. “She got her locker changed this morning. Out from between two black kee-ids and up to the third floor section in a corner that just happens to be all white.”
    â€œOh, come on, Barb,” I said. “How can you be sure that’s the reason she moved?”
    â€œSpeaking of moving,” said a kid behind me, “the rest of the line is up there at the meat loaf already.”
    We moved along, passing the meat loaf in our turn with decently averted eyes.
    I said, “Look, if race was the reason Bosanka wanted to change lockers, school administration wouldn’t have let her.”
    But I felt embarrassed and annoyed defending Bosanka. How could I be sure she wasn’t a racist, anyway? What did I know about Bosnians? Only that they’d had years of warfare over who was a Serb, or a Croat, or something in between, which was also a religious war between Muslims and Christians, like in the Twelfth Century or something. This was confusing and definitely not reassuring: it didn’t seem to have much to do with skin color, but it also didn’t suggest a generally tolerant habit of mind, either.
    Barb said, “Who knows what she tole them for a reason? I can tell you what she tole Sandy Mason when Sandy accidentally bumped into her this morning at those mixed lockers, but I think it’s too raw for you.”
    Oh, boy. Not that I was totally sympathetic. Sandy Mason was a bully who had made my life horrible every day for a whole term of seventh grade.
    â€œLook, Barb,” I began,