Listen as the humm of Audi engines announce the arrival of the boys and their mothers, the long shadows sliding over dew heavy grass. Black and silver. The school sits low and glassy, oddly lifeless without the boys laughter to fill it up, waiting. No one walks. No one, but the Brown Boy. He comes alone up the road everyday, ugly little trainers making hardly a sound. Cracked Buzz Lightyear watch, sun bleached hat and jacket with someone else’s name in it. He slips past the Golden mothers and their sons, cashmere backs delicately turned.  

Look, how they cloak the little white boys in sunscreen. It gets in their hair and shines on their skin. Like seagulls they turn and twist, emitting cries of protest. Handed over are large quilted lunch boxes. Blue, red and green. The Brown Boy looks on longingly, his mind on the Tip Top container that hides in his hollow bag. A school bell trills. Bright and high. Light-up trainers kick puffs of the freshly mowed grass into the air as the seagulls move towards the glossy buildings. Walking slowly, the Brown Boy lags behind. There is stillness about him. A separateness. The others can sense the difference, it is visible on his skin and through his ill fitting clothes. He isn’t happy and free like the seagulls, so they run on without him.  

The classroom is light, the sliding doors open, last terms drawings coating the walls in even lines. Boys perch around tables. Crayon clings brightly to little hands and the smell fills up the space, intensified by the heat. Coloured pencils held in small balled fists run rampant over the page and onto the desks. The boys are confident of their masterpieces, the concept of failure as faraway as the poor starving children in Africa. The only one that hides is the Brown Boy. His small shoulders hunched in a feeble attempt to shield his drawing, but there is no need. No one is near enough to see. No one cares enough to see. With broken crayons he colours the coffee stick figures, titled Mum and Me.

The sun is high in the sky. Boys sit with knobbly knees crossed in groups, flocks, and extract perfectly quartered sandwiches. Strings, Nuggets and Jellies are swapped with furtive glances, bright packaging flashing in the sun. The Brown Boy sits on the edge. His navy hat pulled low over his strange haircut, chlorine still clinging from school swimming lessons. A great, dark stain on baking paper wrappings betrays where the sauce from his baked bean toastie had soaked through the bread. He even smells different, ketchup hanging cloyingly in the air and warm milk wafting from a beige thermos. His coffee cheeks burn as the others sip from blissfully normal juice boxes. Their corners are hard, sharp and perfect. Again stillness. There is no swapping and trading with him. Spoiled milk is not a prized commodity among the seagulls. 

The bell sings out over the school. Loud. Happy. Freeing. The boys spill from the shady classrooms, stuffing scribbled drawings away for later. They half zip bags and swoop from the quiet rooms, arms flung out at odd angles to accommodate large jangling backpacks. Mothers wait in a line, bending to receive their prized possessions, their shining boys. Perfect. Wealthy. White. The light is like melted butter and ice cream is promised as blonde women aid the struggle out of backpacks and into booster seats. Last again, the Brown Boy watches, drawing screwed up in his magenta stained hand. There is no booster seat for him. No hug or kiss to wriggle out of. He turns, a solitary, forlorn little figure and plods back where he came from. Where he belongs. 

From the corner you watch them go. One by one claimed, as they chatter about soccer practice and karate. It doesn’t matter. Your school hat is dragging on the ground, trailing from its chewed, decomposing chord and you pretend to be marking the road to Oz, your wishful friends falling into step beside you. Dorothy, Toto and The Tin Man. Maybe you could ask The Wizard for sunscreen, or quilted lunch boxes. That might make them like you. Or perhaps light-up trainers and juice boxes? Brown eyes open. You are a big boy, a grown up now. There is no Wizard, no Dorothy, not even a cowardly lion to keep you company, and, to be painfully honest you know that it is not just because your clothes are from the Sally Ann that the boys don’t like you, that the Golden mothers won’t face you. It is deeper than that. There are a million reasons and none at all. You are the Brown Boy. And no daydream can change that. So, blinking back tears you keep your eyes wide open, and drag your disintegrating hat the rest of the way home.