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students, to feel the slap of my lunch pail against my thigh, a bad taste filled my mouth and I felt my throat close tight. No words were getting past. Shoot, I was lucky air squeezed around that throat-blocking lump.
    I noticed Laura Westover recognized her dress. She elbowed a blond girl beside her and whispered, then giggled. I kept my eyes lowered and my lips closed, and I was grateful that lump stopped me from saying just how mad I was.
    But I was mad, Miss Anderson. I was. Even if this is an opportunity for education, like Mrs. Warren said, or a first step for our people, like Pastor Moore said, I was mad. And I don’t know that I’ll have that lump stopping my voice for long.
    I’m not sure I want it to.

    Shag was the icebreaker. After days of not being able to talk around that lump, I found it easy to open up to Shag.
    She’s walked me to school every day and come back for me every afternoon. But today, I guess she sensed how down I was. I’ve told her, of course, and I really do think she understands me, but I think she acts instinctively. Today, her instincts told her I’d need her.
    She stayed.
    I saw her when I peeked out the window about nine thirty. She lay at the edge of the school clearing, where the shade of the big old oak kept her cool. Her head rested on her front paws, but her eyes darted quickly. Watching for me? Watching for trouble? I can’t say.
    At lunch you let me go to her, and I appreciate that, Miss Anderson. You pointed her out —“Why look, Kizzy Ann, it’s your friend Shag.” Everybody looked. And they liked Shag, I could tell.
    I joined her, there in the wind-dancing shade. The leaves rustled, the birds chirped, and Shag let her friendship and approval wash over me like a much-desired communion.
    The lump in my throat melted, and I happily shared my lunch with Shag — the first bites I’ve been able to get down here since the first day. Her tail brushed the scattered leaves on the ground. She licked the green-bean sandwich off her muzzle and eased her right front paw onto my legs as she stretched out.
    For the first time in days, maybe in weeks, I felt like I really was in the right place. My fingers settled into the soft, warm fur. And it was perfect.
    Of course, life
isn’t
perfect — I felt my fingers catch in a matted area on the scruff of her neck, I pulled off two fat ticks, and I saw what looked to be dried cow dung on her back paws. But still, I had my friend and a perfect moment.
    “What kind of dog is that?”
    It was the first of many questions, and Laura was only the first of many students who wanted to know more about my Shag.
    As fingers slid down her coat — one, two, three trips — and as I saw blue eyes and white faces look into my own, well, to be honest, Miss Anderson, I thought this might not be so bad after all.

    I told my mama at dinner last night about how nice everybody was, how Shag was so wonderful, and how I should have just known she would win everybody over. I think President Kennedy should invite Shag to the White House and have her help with getting everybody to get along with everybody else. I thought things were going nice, and then, after I went out to help James with the evening milking, he told me different.
    “You stupid baby. Ain’t no white folks wanting to be your friend. Weren’t you listening at dinner about how my JV team never gets written up in the
News and Daily Advance
? They write up every time the quarterback on the Bedford varsity team sneezes, but me and my team ain’t getting anything written about us, and we’re winning every damn game! We always got mentioned before. Sure, it was on the last page, but it was there.” He slammed the bucket into place under Sassy, and she stomped her hoof hard. He smacked her rump and kept talking. “I’d been hoping to see some headlines with my name —
my
name. I’m the damn quarterback, after all. But since this stupid integration thing, even though my team hasn’t
lost
any