"How you liking your school?" Cleo asked JJ as she pulled her car into its assigned parking spot outside of their apartment.
"Mmm, I don't know," he shrugged.
"What you mean you don't know? You the one going there everyday, ain't you?"
"Yeah, but I just don't know if I like it that much."
His sister sighed, putting her car in park and taking the key out of the ignition.
"Really, JJ? You been telling me how much you wanted to go to Brookshire since you were 6, now all of a sudden you don't like it? What's going on?"
"The school itself is okay, I guess," he mumbled.
"So, what then?" she asked her brother, becoming concerned, "It's the other students?"
JJ didn't respond, instead hung his head against the glass window and looked at the building in front of them.
"Are you getting bullied again?" Cleo questioned him, using her hand to grab his chin and turn his face toward her.
"No, Clay," he pushed her away, "They don't talk to me at all. I only talk to Dru."
"Are they purposly excluding you or something?? Do I need to come up there?"
"No, Cleo! I'm just not like them," he explained, "And it don't help that I'm the only Black kid there."
"You ain't that much different! You the smartest kid in the whole school, JJ," she said with narrowed eyes.
"That don't matter. They think I'm a charity case or something. One kid asked me if I got in 'cause of affirmative action."
Cleo squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her jaw, taking a deep breath to control herself from speaking her mind. "What would make somebody ask you that? I looked at your second week grades and you have A's in everything."
"I don't know," he shrugged again, "I guess because they know I don't have money like them."
"Again, how would they know that? I bought you that expensive ass uniform," she said, slightly tugging at the forest green emblemed sweater vest he had on, "You get dropped off in a Audi every morning, and I been taking from the cash register just to make sure you got enough lunch money."
JJ shook his head, regretting having brought it up entirely.
"Talk to me," she pleaded with him, softening her tone.
"They do everything on they computers," he admitted, "I'm the only one in class taking notes in my notebook."
"Computers?? When I was in school you was lucky if you had a post-it to take notes on. Now it's computers??"
"That was a long time ago," he rolled his eyes.
"First of all, not too much. I am not that old. Why don't you take my laptop to school?"
"No offense, but that would be more embarrassing than just having my notebook. That laptop look like it been through World War 1."
"Yeah, you ain't wrong about that," she chuckled to herself.
Cleo saw Monty coming down the concrete steps and signaled for him to give her a second. Before she picked JJ up from school, she and Monty agreed to have a quick session in her car before Monty started making his rounds for the night, and he must have been looking out of his window waiting for her to arrive.
"Okay, I get paid from the store this week, so imma see what I can do. I'm not making no promises but I will look into it, okay? Here," she handed him the keys to the apartment, "Go upstairs and start your dinner. Imma be up in a second."
