Later in the book when Mama whips Stacey in class for having cheat notes, although she didn’t know that the notes belonged to TJ and Stacey had only taken them off him because he knew it was wrong. When Stacey goes to look for TJ, he finds out that TJ is in the Wallace store hiding, the Wallace store stood almost half a mile beyond Jefferson Davis, on a triangular lot that faced the Soldiers Bridge crossroads. Stacey found TJ and leaping high like a forest fox, fell upon TJ, knocking him down. The two boys rolled toward the road, each trying to keep the others back pinned against the ground, but then Stacey who was stronger gained the advantage. As all the people watched them fight, nobody noticed a mule wagon halt on the road until it was too late, Mr Morrison came out of the wagon, walked straight up to Stacey and lifted him up. Mr Morrison said that he would not tell Mama, but he would leave it up to Stacey to tell. Even though Stacey knew the trouble he would get into for going to the Wallace store against his parents wishes, he took the risk and told them. What he did showed that TJ was brave and risked the trouble he would get into, to show TJ a lesson.
In the book Stacey is twelve years old, which is a manly age, where he has to be more responsible and understanding. Although there isn’t much age difference between him and Cassie, Stacey is very understanding and knows more about the racial injustice that they are faced with. He helps Cassie many times to understand why some things are done. Like when Big Ma takes Stacey and Cassie to Strawberry, while in the shop of Mr Barnett Cassie doesn’t understand why white people get priority in serving and
Black people don’t, and when Big Ma forces her to say sorry to Lillean Jean for bumping into her by accident she gets really upset. Stacey tells her that Big Ma only made her apologise because couldn’t do anything else and if she wouldn’t have said sorry it would have caused a hassle there. From these incidents you can see that Stacey helps Cassie understand the concept of racial discrimination and why.
The heroin in this book is Cassie, although she doesn’t do many things. One of the acts she did stands out most to me, because what she did was a great achievement for herself and she showed Lillean Jean that she couldn’t go around believing she was better than everybody. During the trip to Strawberry, Cassie bumped into Lillean Jean, she apologised, but that wasn’t good enough. Lillean wanted her to move off the road, when Cassie refused. Lillean’s dad forced her to move of the road and apologise again, Cassie ran and Big Ma made sure she apologised and called Lillean Jean “miz”. She could not understand why Big Ma had made her apologise. Cassie was intent on getting revenge on Lillean for what she did to her; she waited to think out what she would do. Cassie decided that she would put up an act, by being nice to Lillean Jean and call her Miz, without being forced to. By doing this she gained the trust of Lillean, being her slave throughout the month of January, carrying her books. Lillean bragged about her little coloured friend in front of her friends, but when they were alone she confided her secrets about the boy she had passionately loved for the past year and the things she had done to attract his attention; the secrets of the girls she couldn’t stand as well as those she could; and even a tidbit or two about her older brothers romantic adventures. Cassie used this to her advantage by luring Lillean out to the woods, she then dropped the books she’d been carried and told Lillean that she was tired of carrying them. They then fought and Cassie was more clever and beat Lillean. She made it clear to Lillean that if she told anyone what had happened she would tell her fancy friends how she keeps a secret and how Cassie a nine year old girl beat her up.
This incident shows that Cassie thought out the perfect revenge and kept with it for months. Cassie stood up for her beliefs, which to me shows she’s the heroine of this book.
