Somebody Else’s Kids by Torey Hayden

broken pot, he lofted it at me. Not a serious throw in my opinion. I imagine if he had meant it, he would have hit me. We were not that far apart, and I doubted that he missed when he aimed.
    “What are you going to do about me? Are you going to suspend me? Are you going to get the principal?”
    “No. I’m just going to wait until you decide it’s time to work.”
    “Hey man, I ain’t never gonna decide that, so you might as well just give up.”
    I waited. Sweat was running down along my sides and I pressed my arms tight against my body to stop it.
    “At my other school they called the police. They took me to juvie. So you can’t scare me.”
    “I’m not trying to scare you, Tomaso.”
    “I don’t care what you’re trying to do. I don’t care about anything.”
    “I’m just waiting, that’s all.”
    “You can send me to the principal, if you want. And he can give me whacks. You think I haven’t had whacks before? I’ve had a million of them. And you think I care?”
    I waited without saying anything. My stomach reminded me of the price I was paying for a calm exterior.
    “I could bite your titties off.”
    My back against the coolness of the glass in the door, I waited.
    “Hmmf. Mmmmmph. Pphuh.” Tomaso was full of noises when I would not talk back to him. He was not ready to give in yet. Still too much pride at stake. And God only knows what else.
    My gut feeling was that Tomaso did not really want to leave. No single thing I could put a finger on told me that, but I felt it. I studied him carefully.
    Sometimes I think I missed my calling. I should have been a swindler. In the end, my best defense always seemed to come down to the good con game I play. My gut told me this boy was hot air. That was enough to go on. I pushed myself off the door and walked by him to the other side of the room. Righting chairs and slinging papers back on my desk, I sat down at the worktable. Reaching under, I pulled Boo out and sat him down in a chair. Then I beckoned Lori over and took her L and O flash cards. My stomach was doing the chacha, a surefire clue to me of the extent of my concern for winning this game of psychological bunco. If he chose to walk out the door I would have no alternative but to go out and physically drag him back in. That would be a really lousy way to start any relationship. All I was operating on was a hunch. A hunch about a kid I did not even know.
    Boo was upset by the disruption in our routine. He rocked his chair back and forth and twiddled fingers before his eyes. I reached over to reorient him and he grabbed my arm. With noisy sniffs, he smelled up the length of my exposed skin.
    Tomaso approached us. He stood behind my chair as I prepared the flash cards and struggled with Boo. I could hear him but not see him.
    “Do you speak Spanish?” he asked.
    “No. Not very well.”
    “Hmmph. White honky. I don’t want to go to no room with a white honky teacher in it.”
    “You wish I spoke Spanish?”
    “I could kick you in the ass.”
    I swallowed. “Do you speak Spanish?”
    “Of course I do. I
am
Spanish. What’s the matter with you? You blind or something? My father, my real father, his grandpa came from Madrid. In real Spain, not Mexico. My father’s grandpa, he fought bulls.”
    “Is that right?”
    “It’s true. I ain’t lying. My father’s grandpa fought real live bulls.”
    “He must have been brave.”
    “He was. He coulda got killed, but he wasn’t. He was real, real brave. Braver than anyone here.” A pause. “Braver than you.”
    “Probably so.”
    Tomaso was still behind me so that I could not see his face. I was instead looking at Lori and Boo as I talked to Tomaso. Lori watched us, first one and then the other. Boo was again fluttering his fingers in front of his face.
    “What’s wrong with that kid?” Tomaso asked. He had come closer. I could sense him just inches off my right shoulder. “How come he does that with his hands?”
    “Sometimes he does