What They Act Like

by David Miller

After school, three seventh-grade boys sit on a bench outside the cafeteria, each waiting for a parent, or a stepparent, a babysitter, or older brother or sister to pick him up. "Who else is Jewish?" one of them asks. "Jonathon Levy," another says. "Jonathon Levy? He doesn't act Jewish." Then they notice me standing nearby and lower their voices. A few minutes later, the leader (the one with the most bleached-out hair of the three) skates across the sidewalk and gets into a steel-grey Range Rover that starts pulling away from the curb before he even finishes closing the door.

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David Miller, author of The Wraith Can't Do His Homework, is a regular contributor to magazines such as Mountain Gazette, and the webmag Matador Travel.