“Iggy,” Louise said. “Iggy should be Hook.”
Iggy’s real name was Ignatius Martin Chen. He was apparently named after a baby of a movie star. His first generation Chinese parents apparently didn’t realize how uncommon the name was. He was in Mr. Howe’s classroom across the hall, only sharing lunch, recess and class play with them. He was the acknowledged leader of the boys, perhaps because he was also the tallest boy in the fourth grade and naturally athletic.
Jillian tilted her head, thinking. “Iggy does like to be in front of an audience and he remembers his lines when he actually gets something to say.”
“We should use all the boys in the video. It wouldn’t be too hard to model their pictures onto CGI skin. We can do half for the Lost Boys and the other half as Pirates.”
Jillian was nodding. “We can put the Lost Boys in war paint. Make them look cool. We’ll have to take pictures of all the boys without them noticing us.”
“Or we could tell them we want to cast them for a music video. They’ll be more vested in the end product.”
Jillian winced. “Actually talk to them?”
“If we’re going to highjack the play completely, we’ll have to talk to them a lot,” Louise pointed out. “We work for almost three months on the play. Half of April and all of May and June.” The play represented a massive amount of work, all in the name of learning how to cooperate as a class. Everything was a joint effort, from voting on what play to do, to designing and building sets, to the actual performance. “Either we talk to them or devote all that time to The Little Mermaid.”
“Ick! Okay, let’s talk to the boys at recess about this.”
“Today?”
Jillian waved the party invite. “Elle’s party is in two weeks. We vote on the play the week after. We have to get this up and running quickly if we’re going to head off Elle.”
Any time on the video would take time away from their research on finding a way to save their little brother and sisters. If they were going to do it, then they should do it as fast as possible. “Okay, we’ll do it this recess.”
* * *
Perelman School for the Gifted had a rooftop playground with tall perforated metal screens creating a protective enclosure and shade. Through the orange-painted mesh, they had a clear view of all the skyscrapers of New York rising up to loom over the school. Heat of the sunbaked roof battled with the cold April wind off the bay.
The boys played four square at the edge of the playground, taking turns at rotating through the grid as players fouled out of the game. Iggy tended to hold the King’s square for long periods, controlling the large red ball with ease. For some reason, today he was sitting in the shade, just watching the game.
While Jillian was fearless around adults, she tended to be shy of other kids, especially boys. Louise suspected it was because “cute” didn’t work on kids their own age. Or maybe it did, and they only thought it didn’t because when they were younger, what melted adults to helpless puddles utterly failed to impress other toddlers and preschoolers.
Louise marched up to Iggy and asked quickly, “Can we take pictures of you?” before she lost her nerve.
Iggy lifted his head to glare up at her. His left eye was swollen nearly shut and bruised dark purple. “Why do you want my picture?”
“What happened to you?” Louise asked.
“Doh. What does it look like? Some guy hit me.”
“A guy? Like an adult? Why?”
“Yeah, he’s twenty-four. He was one of those protesters that are pissed at the Chinese over the Elfhome thing. The whole ‘China is stealing the heartland of the United States’ bullshit. Like I have anything to do with that!”
“Why would he even hit you? You’re just a kid.”
“All Chinese are short even when they’re full grown!” Iggy obviously was imitating someone older than him. “I think the jerk just hit the first Asian-looking person that was shorter than him. There’s several billion Chinese on the planet and most of them don’t give a shit about Pittsburgh or Elfhome. My dad says the protesters are a bunch of redneck idiots. The United States makes a hundred times more off the elves than China does, and China is still paying back the loans it took out to cover their original retribution.”
The Saturday newscast suddenly changed in meaning. The nine-year-old boy attacked on the subway was Iggy. His older sister was fifteen and was the school’s pride and joy after winning the statewide science competition.
Louise realized that the reason he was sitting out of the game was that two of his fingers on his left hand were splinted. “Are you okay?”