colors of skin, white and black, brown and red, and he laughed back, “Why b’feesh different color, or flower b’different color? I true don’ know, Phill-eep, but I true tink beneath d’skin is all d’same.” Herr Jonckheer had said something like that in school but it did not mean quite as much as when Timothy said it. Long after he’d begun to snore in the dripping hut, I thought about it. Suddenly, I wished my father and mother could see us there together on the little island. I moved close to Timothy’s big body before I went to sleep. I remember smiling in the darkness. He felt neither white nor
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