Response by Paul Volponi Page B

your gym teacher while you were at school today. The Holy Spirit just moved me to do it,” Grandma told me while I was trying to clean the mess of my clothes and Destiny Love’s toys in my room. “Mr. Richard Hendricks. His private number wasn’t listed, so I called him at Carver.”
    â€œW-w-why, Grandma?” I asked through a stutter.
    â€œIt’s only right, Noah,” she answered, short.
    It took me a few minutes to get up the nerve to say what was really on my mind. But when I finally did, I let the words fly out fast so they wouldn’t fall flat on my tongue.
    â€œDon’t it feel wrong to you that a racist from Hillsboro—’cause I know that’s what he is—saved you?”
    â€œIs that what’s been eating at your insides?” she said.
    â€œNoah, no matter what the world puts on us, or what we put on other folks, we’re all God’s children. Black or white, or any color in the rainbow.”
    â€œHendricks is just like those kids who split my skull with that bat,” I said, charged up. “He’s no better.”
    â€œNoah, you’ve every right to be angry. But don’t let it consume you. A life is measured by the impact it has on others. I pray that one day you’ll find a way to take what happened to you and shine a light on it for people to see,” Grandma said. “I hate lots of things I’ve seen and fought against them all my life. And I wouldn’t want to be standing in some folks’ shoes on the Judgment Day. But it’s not up to you or me to do the judging. That’s for God to do. I suppose when there’s no hope left for any of us, there won’t be the grace of another flood. He’ll send his fire next time to burn this world clean.”
    â€œI guess,” I said, frustrated.
    â€œAll I got at your school was an answering machine. I left a message, but I know those things have a way of getting lost in a busy building like that,” Grandma said, handing me a sealed envelope. “I want you to deliver this letter to Mr. Hendricks for me. Just to make sure he knows my feelings.”
    That night, and on the way to school the next morning, I thought about opening that envelope and reading Grandma’s letter. I was worried that she was going to give Hendricks the kind of props he didn’t deserve, and let him off the hook for looking down on anybody who wasn’t white. Then that smug grin on his face would be set in stone forever.
    Grandma had always been hard as nails against his kind. So I couldn’t figure it.
    I wasn’t sold on everything she’d said straight off, either. I wasn’t happy about leaving the judging to anybody else. I’d already seen too many big-time haters on the news get off with a puny slap on the wrist.
    So maybe God wasn’t watching all the time.
    I didn’t know if Grandma had gone soft from being so close to dying. I just knew that growing up she’d seen racist things go down a hundred times worse than I ever did.
    Deep down, I had too much respect for Grandma to read her private feelings.
    But I couldn’t bring myself to put that letter into Hendricks’s hand. So I shoved it into his mailbox inside the main office and walked as far away from it as I could.
    That same day, there was a fight in the cafeteria maybe two minutes before I got there. I stepped inside and half the kids were standing in a wide circle watching security get whoever was fighting pinned down and under control.
    The circle was mostly white on one side and black on the other.
    It reminded me of that Chinese symbol—the yin and yang—I’d seen in martial-arts movies.
    Suddenly I heard Asa’s angry voice hollering, “He’s a racist! Ain’t nobody can tell me different, and I’d slap his ass again for what he said!”
    It was Asa who’d been fighting, and I watched as security led him through the crowd with