Prologue

“Did you hear? Someone moved into to the Monroes’ old house.”

            “Yeah, old Dennis told me. They’re the Alexanders.”

            “How many are there?”

            “Three; two parents and a little boy. Dennis said that the boy’s hair is black, gold, and ginger.”

            “No way! They must’ve dyed it.”

            “Dyed it? The kid looked about four years old.”

            “Well, maybe the parents are crazy or something?”

            This was the conversation that Zacharias Alexander heard when he walked into Dunkin’ Donuts for his usual morning cup of coffee. He stood at the counter, a sort of bewildered look on his usually smiling face before grinning and tilting his head. They were right. He, his wife, and their son had just moved to Henderson, North Carolina from Aspen, Colorado. They had bought a house in Timbaland Estates and were working on finding jobs and a school for their son at the moment. Running his finger through bright golden locks, he paid for his cup of coffee (a large hazelnut with milk, cream, and sugar), stepped toward the table that the two people women were occupying and cleared his throat.

            “Hello! I’m Zacharias Alexander. I see you’ve heard.” He held out his hand.

            The women looked up at him with faces mixed with surprise and guilt before blushing red.

            “Maggie Zilch,” said the one to his left,

            “It’s a pleasure Ms. Zilch.”

            “Germaine Conner,” piped up the other.

            “Nice to meet you, Ms. Conner.”

            “Oh, Germaine is fine, Mr. Zacharias.”

            Zacharias’ smile widened. He wasn’t sure how India would react to his first friends being women, but he figured that it wouldn’t be bad, especially when the women might have kids that could be potential playmates for their little boy. He looked at them with amusement in his brown eyes.

            “So, you were wondering about my son’s hair?”

            Once again, Maggie and Germaine turned red. Maggie smiled nervously.

            “Um, well, it’s just that my friend Dennis was telling me about how it was three different colors and I couldn’t believe it.” She looked expectantly at him.

            Zacharias laughed and rubbed the back of his head. “Spade’s hair is a bit unusual. We have no idea why it’s like that. It’s a mix of golden-blonde, like mine, black, like his mother’s, and ginger, like my father. We didn’t know what to make of it when he was born. I assure you, though, it’s not dyed. Actually, I think it’s pretty special.” He took out his wallet and opened it, showing them a picture of a boy. The majority of his hair was golden-blonde, with ginger highlights pressed in all over and black strands peppering his bangs and at the back. He wasn’t smiling, but tilting his head and staring curiously into the camera with one innocent golden eye. His bangs were brushed to the side over his left eye, keeping it out of sight. His face held bits of baby fat, mostly in his cheeks and hands. He was sitting on a carpeted floor holding a stuffed monkey.

            “Oh my,” Maggie said.

            “He’s adorable,” cooed Germaine. “How old is he? Dennis guessed four.”

            “Close.” Zacharias closed the wallet and stuck it back in his pocket. “He’s four and a half. He’ll be starting Kindergarten soon. We’re still looking for a school. Any suggestions?”

            Germaine smiled. “Aww, how cute! I have twins that go to E.M. Rollins Elementary. That’s a good public school in this district.” She pointed at her companion. “Maggie’s nephew goes there, too.”

            “Spade’s a strange name. How’d you come up with it?”

            The blonde man shrugged. “My wife thought of it; it just came to her. There have been weirder names.” He checked his watch. “Oh, it’s almost nine. I’m sorry, but I have to go. It was nice meeting you both. Oh, and before I forget,” his brown eyes twinkled as he smirked at them over his shoulder, “I’m not crazy.”

            The flustered looks he left them with had him chuckling all the way to his car.

Spade Alexander tilted his head and furrowed his brow. The teacher-lady in front of him had just asked him to introduce himself to the rest of the kids. Everyone looked at him expectantly. Spade didn’t like talking much. He wasn’t used to having to say things when he didn’t want to, but the lady was insisting that he tell the rest of the class all about himself. The lady had said her name was Mrs. Allison and she was glad to meet them. She said that she would be making them introduce themselves in alphabetical order by last name, whatever that meant. Spade guessed that, alphabetically, his name was first.

            “Spade,” he said hesitantly.

            “What’s your last name, Spade?”

            “Alexander.”

            “Okay, nice to meet you, Spade Alexander. That’s quite a hair color you have there. Is it dyed?”

            Spade shrugged because he had no idea what ‘dyed’ meant. He was used to people commenting on his hair and had never seen anyone with the same kind as his.

            “Is there anything specific you like to do, Spade?”

            He tilted his head again. Mrs. Allison blinked at him before smiling.

            “I see; you don’t talk much do you?”

            Spade shook his head, glad that she had finally figured it out. He sat back down in the circle of kindergarteners. Mrs. Allison went around the circle before splitting everyone into colored groups. Spade ended up in the Blue Group with three girls and another boy. The boy was dark-skinned and had chocolate brown eyes. He wore a green beanie on his head.

            “Hey,” said the boy, giving Spade a toothy grin. “I’m Jamal! You don’t have ta tell me your name ‘cause I remember that you went first. It’s Spade Alexander!” He looked pleased with himself.

            Spade nodded. Jamal kept his smile and pointed at Spade’s head.

            “Cool hair! It’s got so many colors! Why is your eye covered? Is it a secret? Oh, man, you twitched! I won’t ask again, okay?”

            Jamal sure talked a lot. Spade guessed it was better since he didn’t have to say anything. The three girls in their group were Amy, Mia, and Kris. Mrs. Allison told them that since it was the first day, they could just get to know each other. Spade decided to stay in his seat while the others roamed around. He didn’t want to be bothered much, but his hair caused a lot of commotion and he had the other kids coming up to him to ask about it. The attention startled him a bit and he sank down in the seat, hoping he’d phase through and disappear like he’d seen Danny Phantom do. Unfortunately, the tactic didn’t work. It was only because of Jamal that he was able to escape. The boy talked so animatedly that everyone else stopped gathering around Spade to flock to his side and listen. It was as if he were some kind professional storyteller, the way he drew all the attention away from Spade. Not that Spade minded and Jamal had explained (rather excitedly) later that he did so that they would leave him alone.

            “I can do it again if they come back again, okay? I know you don’t like it. My mommy told me that we have snack time here and nap time, too. I can’t go to sleep in the middle of the day ‘cause she said I have a sort of thingie that keeps me awake. I forgot what it’s called. The big man asked me if I eat lots of sugar but I said ‘no’ ‘cause I really don’t. I eat it sometimes, but not a lot. Do you eat lots of sugar, Spade?”

            The multicolored-haired boy nodded his head and smiled sheepishly at Jamal. Jamal took this as a sign to keep talking. Before it was time to start activities, Spade already knew many things about Jamal, including his favorite song, his birthday, what he wanted to be when he grew up, what cartoon he wished he could be in, and the full names of his entire family. All Jamal had managed to get out of Spade was his favorite color and his favorite food. Jamal wasn’t offended or downhearted; he went on and on about how they were cool choices and why they were better than his. It was halfway through the day that someone finally decided to try to do something about Spade’s hair.  The kids were having snack time and Spade was eating a peanut-butter-and-banana-sandwich with milk while Jamal settled with a Lunchables™. It was a couple of seconds after his second bite that Spade felt something land on his head. He lifted two fingers into his hair and they landed in something cold and gooey. He brought it down to his face. It was brown. Getting a whiff, he realized it was chocolate pudding. Jamal stared wide-eyed at him before pointing somewhere to their left where they could hear the sound of stifled giggles. Spade narrowed his eyes. There was a group of boys on the other side of the room pointing at him and laughing. One of them, a blonde, got up and walked over to the two boys.

            “Rub it in. Maybe your hair will turn brown.” He crossed his arms and smirked at Spade.

            Jamal jumped up from his seat. “Why’d you do that? That wasn’t nice. Spade didn’t do anything to you, right? You shouldn’t pick on people. My cousin did that to me once and I kicked him. Do you want us to kick you? C’mon, Spade, we can kick him. It’s okay, right? It’s okay if he started it, right?”

            “Shut up,” said the other boy, sticking his tongue out at Jamal.

            “You, shut up! And leave us alone!”

            “It’s his fault! His hair looks stupid.”

            “I like his hair! You look stupid! What did—?”

            “Jamal.”

            The two boys froze. They looked down at the golden-eyed boy as he stood up and looked the intruder in his eye.

            “Go away,” Spade told him.

             The boy faltered then pushed Spade to the ground where Spade proceeded to kick the other’s legs out from under him, resulting in another crash to the floor.

            “Myles! Spade!” Mrs. Allison rushed over as Jamal helped Spade off the ground. “What in the world is going on here?”

            Before Spade could respond, Jamal start pointing at the other kid, Myles, with one arm and waving his the other one around. “It was that guy! He threw pudding at Spade and got it in his hair and said to rub it in and he called his hair stupid and he told me to shut up and then he pushed Spade! He’s gonna get in trouble, right? ‘Cause when I’m bad, my mommy puts me in time out and takes away my games. That’s what’ll happen to Myles. His mama is gonna take his games.” He crossed his arms and gave a satisfied nod of the head. Spade looked at Jamal in awe. Not because he had defended him (though Spade was grateful) but because he’d never known that someone could talk so much without taking a breath. He knew he couldn’t even if he wanted to. He sat back down at his table, nodding at Jamal’s explanation when Mrs. Allison looked at him and Myles for consult. Myles, of course, shook his head violently.

            “You know, I have to call your moms and dads for fighting, guys.” Mrs. Allison told them.

            “Even mine?” asked Jamal. “I didn’t do anything except tell you what happened.”

            “No!” Myles glared at him. “You told me to shut up!”

            “You said it first!”

            “’Cause you called me stupid!”

            “You called Spade’s hair stupid first!”

            “’Cause it is stupid!”

            “Boy’s, that’s enough! Myles, back to your table! Jamal, sit down! Spade—” She looked down at Spade, but he was already sitting down, wiping the pudding out of his hair with a napkin. He looked up when he heard his name and cocked an eyebrow at her as if to say “Yes?” She was taken aback for a second before accepting that the boy had dismissed the situation. Jamal sat back down with a pout and reluctantly went back to his pizza.

            The golden-eyed boy was completely unconcerned when his parents had to come and have a conference with his teacher on the first day. He knew that he hadn’t done anything wrong and told them so, responding with a shake of the head when they asked if he had started it. He didn’t really have to say much anyway because Jamal was quick to recount the whole thing to Spade’s parent, his mother, And Myles’ dad. Jamal also pointed out that “Pudding can’t change hair, dummy!” to Myles, which led to another argument between the two. The parents broke it up, though Spade could see that his father was fighting back a laugh and Jamal’s mother was giggling when she picked him up and carried him outside while he tried to crawl over her shoulder to reach Myles, whose dad had him in the same position.

            India Alexander mussed her son’s hair and led him outside to the car.

            “Eventful first day, huh?”

            Spade didn’t respond, mostly because he didn’t know what “eventful” meant. Zacharias lifted Spade onto his shoulders.

            “C’mon, kiddo. We’ve gotta get to the pet store. Do you want a dog? How about a cat? A bird?” The suggestions went on as they slid into their car and drove off.