King and the Dragonflies

King summons the courage to tell his parents that he saw Sandy at the bayou before he went missing. His mother immediately makes a phone call. Upset with King for not saying anything sooner, his mother sends him to bed without dinner.

Feeling depressed, King sits on the bed that he once shared with his late brother and decides he cannot sleep there tonight. He climbs out the window to the backyard, where his tent is. He recalls sleeping in the tent right after his brother died because he could not bear to be in the room they shared together. When he unzips the tent and steps inside, he is shocked to find Sandy there. Sandy’s cheek and left eye are bruised, and he has a cut on his lip.

Sandy pleads with King not to tell anyone where he is. He says he needs a place to hide. King asks Sandy if his father hit him. Sandy doesn’t answer the question about his father. He just says, “He doesn’t need to know where I am, okay? Let’s leave it at that” (76).

King decides to keep Sandy’s hiding place a secret. He now realizes it was wrong to tell his friends that Sandy is gay. Therefore, he doesn’t want to reveal another one of Sandy’s secrets.

King overhears his parents talking about the Sanderses and Sandy’s disappearance. His father mentions the allegations about Mikey Sanders killing a Black man and the sheriff arresting and locking up innocent people. He says the Sanders family may deserve to feel pain since they have caused it for others. However, King’s mother points out that Sandy Sanders hasn’t done anything wrong: “So that child gets punished for his family’s wrongs?” (78).

King has a dream in which Khalid talks to him about the mysteries of the universe. “You’re not your body,” Khalid tells King in the dream.

King brings Sandy Luck Charms cereal for breakfast in the tent. The two boys talk, and King confronts Sandy about his family’s racist reputation. He tells Sandy that everyone thinks Mikey Sanders killed a Black man. Sandy says that the allegations about his brother are not true, and that Mikey is not a racist.

The conversation makes Sandy angry. He admits that his grandfather was a racist but also points out that King has shown bias toward him because he’s gay:

We were friends. […] And then I told you—[…] I told you I like guys, and that was it. You looked at me like I was spit on your shoe. […] You think my granddad is bad because he was a racist. But what’re you doing, King? You’re doing the same. Exact. Thing (93).

Sandy offers to leave, saying he can find a new hiding place. However, King insists that he stay and promises to bring him food.

King skims the pages of his journal, looking for a clue about where Khalid is now. He reads something that his brother told him when he was talking in his sleep: “Time’s all one. […] No such thing. Time’s all one” (98). King thinks maybe it means that Khalid is still alive, “even as he’s beneath the ground. Alive as he sleeps and dreams […]” (99).

While driving him to school, King’s father says he needs to tell him something “about being a man in this country. About being a Black man” (101). His father tells him that the country and the world fear him: “Same way they feared Malcolm and shot him. Same way they feared Jesus Christ and nailed him to the cross. […] You have to be careful, King, because I can’t lose you, too” (102).

King wonders if the world also fears Jasmine, whose skin is darker than his. He thinks about Sandy and how he has experienced the same kind of prejudice, even though what makes him different is not visible from the outside like skin color.

Jasmine tells King about a movie script she is writing about a girl who has a crush on a boy. He discovers that she already let Sandy read the script but is just now telling him about it. King wonders if Jasmine has a crush on him. King asks Darrell how he would know if he likes someone “like that” (113), meaning romantically. Darrell tells him that it’s easy to figure out. King thinks about how he likes Jasmine as a friend but would not want to kiss her.