34After the first two weeks of school, some of the boys in the yard began to make fun of Zoitsa’s heightened sensitivity and foreign accent and would devise ways to scare her. At first it was done at a distance with firecrackers and banging garbage cans, and now one tiptoed behind her and yelled loudly. When she screamed and jumped, her arms flailing, there was a chorus of laughter.
“Sorry I make you djump,” he smiled, mimicking her foreign accent.
As Anne watched helplessly, the boy continued.
“I was calling to my friend Dzimi who have trouble to hear.”
Zoitsa glared at him a moment then grabbed him by his ears and threw him angrily to the ground. The two wrestled on the concrete, Zoitsa getting the best of him.
“Stop it!” An older dark-haired boy pulled Zoitsa off the humiliated and
