Summary

“The Soft No” is narrated from the perspective of an unnamed child who is outside playing with her brother, Chip. The children's mother is mentally unstable; the narrator notes that she is chronically anxious and too frightened to leave the house. The narrator and Chip are playing a game called “duck-duck-brick” (91) with the other neighborhood kids that simply involves throwing bricks at one another. The teams are girls against boys. The narrator claims that she is telepathic, and can even plant suggestions in Chip's mind. One boy gets hit in the face with a brick and starts crying, which means the girls' team wins. Afterwards, one of the other kids, Dee-Ann, asks if she can come over to Chip and the narrator's house to play, but the siblings know that they need to go home...