Scorpions

Jamal’s classmate, Ozzie (Oswaldo Vazquez), challenges him to an innocent game. They try to beat each other down the school steps by jumping but land at the feet of Mr. Davidson. Stuck waiting outside the principal’s office again, Jamal notices that the lobby has two portraits: one of George Washington and one of Martin Luther King, Jr. He wonders why the Washington picture is incomplete.

When Mr. Davidson finally calls Ozzie and Jamal into his office, he warns Ozzie that if he hangs out with Jamal Hicks, he’ll find himself “in trouble if you like it or not” (59). He dismisses Jamal without a warning because he doesn’t “think it’s going to do [him] any good” (59). He’s just waiting until Jamal does something bad enough to kick him out of school altogether.

Jamal returns to class, where he’s inexplicably teased by Dwayne for getting an answer correct. Jamal wants to “punch him out” and isn’t afraid to fight back (60). Jamal waits for Tito after school, who is wearing one of his shirts. Jamal convinces him to go to a boat basin on 79th Street that is more than an hour’s walk away. Tito has an asthma attack on the way, which upsets Jamal, but “soon they were going along the walk picking out boats, the way they always did” (61).