Summary

Chapter 7 – On the day of her twenty second birthday party, Boy gives Mia, who is going to New York, a check to give her (Boy’s) father, repaying the money she took. Later, after reflecting on the implications of the chess set in the bookstore’s window, Boy walks home with Sidonie and Phoebe (the second of the three regular “colored” students). When Boy thinks she sees the third student, Kazim, in a group of boys instructing a parakeet to say “fuck whitey”, Sidonie and Phoeby try to convince her that she’s imagining things. After dropping Phoebe off at the intersection of “Tubman and Jefferson”, Sidonie invites Boy in to meet her mother Merveille, a wheelchair-bound hairdresser. Boy realizes that Sidonie must have told Merveille that she (Boy) is a teacher, and answers Merveille’s questions accordingly. That night, as...