Summary

An unnamed young girl is the first-person narrator of this story. She is in trouble for checking, in the middle of her school's playground, whether or not a schoolmate, Anita Okechukwu, was wearing a bra or not. Even though the narrator had a relatively sophisticated reason for doing so -- Anita was effectively bullying other girls in the class by creating a "Girl Club" for bra-wearers only (10) -- the narrator is unable to explain her position, angering her mother. That night, the narrator's father plays chess with her after dinner, and he tells her a story about how he had once lost his gun as a boy soldier. His brutal lieutenant had taken it from him when he was not looking. When his father beat him severely, he learned the hard lesson of always keeping track of his gun.

At school the next...