The first two days of my freshman year I was a boy.
It started in the first class of my first day of high school. English. The teacher, Indira Gupta, reprimanded me for not paying attention. She called me Mr. Wilkins. No one calls anyone Mr. or Ms. or anything like that at our school. Gupta was pissed. I stopped staring out the window, turned to look at her, wondering if there was another Wilkins in the room.
“Yes, you, Mr. Micah Wilkins. When I am talking I expect your full and undivided attention. To me, not to the traffic outside.”
No one giggled or said, “She’s a girl.”
I’d been mistaken for a boy before. Not often, but enough that I wasn’t completely surprised. I have nappy hair. I wear it natural and short, cut close to my scalp. That way I don’t have to bother with relaxing or straightening or combing it out. My chest is flat and my hips narrow. I don’t wear makeup or jewelry. None of them—neither students nor teachers—had ever seen me before.
“Is that clear?” Gupta said, still glaring at me.
I nodded, and mumbled in as low a voice as I could, “Yes, ma’am.” They were the first words I spoke at my new school. This time I wanted to keep a low profile, be invisible, not be the one everyone pointed at when I walked along the corridor: “See that one? That’s Micah. She’s a liar. No, seriously, she lies about everything.” I’d never lied about everything. Just about my parents (Somali pirates, professional gamblers, drug dealers, spies), where I was from (Liechtenstein, Aruba, Australia, Zimbabwe), what I’d done (grifted, won bravery medals, been kidnapped). Stuff like that.
I’d never lied about what I was before.
Why not be a boy? A quiet sullen boy is hardly weird at all. A boy who runs, doesn’t shop, isn’t interested in clothes or shows on TV. A boy like that is normal. What could be more invisible than a normal boy?
I would be a better boy than I’d ever been a girl.
At lunch I sat at the same table as three boys I’d seen in class: Tayshawn Williams, Will Daniels, and Zachary Rubin. I’d love to say that one look at Zach and I knew but that would be a lie and I’m not doing that anymore. Remember? He was just another guy, an olive-skinned white boy, looking pale and weedy compared to Tayshawn, whose skin is darker than my dad’s.
They nodded. I nodded. They already knew each other.
Their conversation was littered with names they all knew, places, teams.
I ate my meatballs and tomato sauce and decided that after school I’d run all the way to Central Park. I’d keep my sweatshirt on. It was baggy.
“You play ball?” Tayshawn asked me.
I nodded because it was safer than asking which kind. Boys always knew stuff like that.
“We got a pickup going after,” he said.
I grunted as boyishly as I could. It came out lower than I’d expected, like a wolf had moved into my throat.
“You in?” Zach asked, punching me lightly on the shoulder.
“Sure,” I said. “Where?”
“There.” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the park next to the school. The one with a gravel basketball court and a stunted baseball diamond and a merry-go-round too close to be much use when a game was in progress. I’d run past it dozens of times. There was pretty much always a game going on.
The bell rang. Tayshawn stood up and slapped my back. “See you later.”
I grinned at how easy it was.
Being a boy was fast becoming my favorite lie.
