Summary
On the first day of Secret Santa, Drew receives cookies shaped like basketballs. On the second, he gets a gift card to KFC. It's a chocolate Santa on the third. Drew assumes the gifts are racist provocations from Andy, but just as he goes to confront him, Ashley reveals herself as his Secret Santa. The cookies were because of the Knicks poster in his locker, the KFC certificate was because everyone loves KFC, and the Santa was because she loves chocolate. Jordan teases Drew for having a girlfriend as Ashley walks away. Maury walks up and gives Drew the book he got from his Secret Santa: The Mean Streets of South Uptown. On their way out of school for Christmas break, Liam invites Jordan over to his house to play video games, warning him not to judge him for where he lives.
In Chapter Nine: A Kwanza Story, Kirk comes over to Jordan’s. He says he thought Jordan forgot about him. Jordan says he is his shrimp lo mein. As they play Xbox, Kirk and Jordan compare their new schools. Kirk says last week a kid came with a gun for protection, but the security guards found it. Jordan says a kid at RAD got in trouble for bringing a Snickers bar into their nut-free school. Kirk thanks him for inviting him over, and Jordan says Kirk is his oldest friend. He’s just been out of touch because he has so much homework in his spare time now.
Chuck drives Jordan to the Landers' house, which is a mansion. Liam reminds Jordan he promised not to judge him. Jordan meets Liam’s mother, who comments on how rarely he has “playdates.” She mentions that he used to play with Maury, which surprises Jordan. Liam says they drifted apart. He also used to hang out with Andy, but their parents fell out when the Landers bought a bigger house than theirs. Liam says he feels so different from everyone at school, but Drew and Jordan are normal and like the same things. Liam admits that the school auditorium was named after his grandfather, but then deflects talking about it. They play video games and eat snacks. When it’s time to leave, Mr. Pierre drives Jordan and Liam goes for the ride. When dropping him off, Liam asks if they’re still friends. Jordan says of course. Liam gives him a wrapped gift and says that Jordan being his friend is enough of a gift in return. Inside, Ellice is waiting to hear all about the mansion.
For Christmas, Jordan wants the new NBA2K game, but his parents never buy him games until they are discounted below fifty dollars. However, on Christmas morning, he opens the game from his parents. They don’t know that Liam already gave him the Deluxe version of the game, along with a pair of pink shorts as a joke. In a sketch, Jordan explains how his father makes sure to celebrate all seven days of Kwanza that year because he worries he is losing Jordan. He also makes Jordan watch Black movies instead of Christmas movies and listen to soul music.
Chuck also brings Jordan to play basketball at the community center with his old friends from the neighborhood. They refer to Jordan as “Private School.” While playing, someone says they are playing terrible, which Jordan corrects, saying it’s “playing terribly” because it’s an adverb. He transforms into someone in a gold uniform as he tries to explain himself. The little angel over his shoulder smacks himself in the face. Jordan is relieved when Kirk steps in to defend him, claiming that Jordan is just making a joke. The others go with it and keep playing. Jordan thanks Kirk.
In Chapter 10, the students return from Christmas break. People compare tans from their tropical vacations, with some non-Black students holding their skin to Jordan’s to show they are even darker than him. However, Jordan and Drew bond over how they stayed home. Jordan laments starting art class, which he suspects will be lame. The teacher, Ms. Slate, opens by talking about the gallery shows she has been in. Around her are canvasses she has painted: they are simple color blocks and patterns. As she speaks about colors having unique auras, Jordan’s brain shuts down and he feels like he is aging at an accelerated pace.
On the way out, Collin and Jordan talk about how Jordan doesn’t like abstract art but prefers to draw real stuff. Collin tells him to give it a chance. Jordan asks why Collin hangs out with Andy. Collin admits Andy crosses the line sometimes, but defends him as a good guy. Just then Andy walks up to tease Jordan about looking like a child separated from their parent. Drew defends Jordan, prompting Andy to challenge Drew to try out for baseball as a spring sport. Drew accepts the challenge.
In math class, Drew makes Andy look foolish after a presentation by asking if he calculated whether the cost of installing solar panels on a train would outweigh the energy produced by the panels to move the train. After school, Jordan’s father is late picking him up, so Jordan waits in the rain with Alexandra, who has an umbrella. She acknowledges that people don’t like her because she’s weird. Jordan doesn’t politely correct her because his grandfather told him not to comfort someone with a lie. Jordan worries she will try to kiss him if there is any silence in the conversation, so he keeps talking. He asks about her hand puppets and she says they cover a burn on her hand that she got protecting her little brother from a pot of boiling water. She shows him her hand, which isn’t very bad in Jordan’s opinion. He tells her he doesn’t think anyone will tease her: she is a hero for saving her brother. She tells him he can tell one other person about it.
Analysis
Craft reintroduces the theme of racial microaggressions with Drew’s Secret Santa gifts. While Secret Santa is a ritual designed to inject excitement into the pre-Christmas school period and ensure every student receives an equal number of gifts, Drew can’t take part without a sense of paranoia informed by the microaggressions he has already had to put up with. Because he perceives the gifts of basketball-shaped cookies (unsuitable because he is the quarterback on the football team and doesn’t play basketball), a fried-chicken restaurant gift certificate, and a chocolate Santa to be coded as stereotypically Black, Drew assumes Andy must be playing a racist prank on him. But in an instance of situational irony, it turns out Ashley innocently chose the gifts. Drew is taken aback to discover he was wrong; instead of enjoying his presents like other students did, Drew spent the lead-up to Christmas on edge and miserable.
The themes of bonding, academic achievement, and class difference return with Kirk and Jordan getting together for the first time since Jordan started at RAD. Although Jordan worried that the fact that he’s at an elite private meant he was drifting away from his old friends, he and Kirk can still bond over Xbox like they used to. Kirk is also relieved to know that he hasn’t seen much of Jordan because Jordan has so much homework and studying to do. But despite their ability to bond, the boys learn their public and private schools produce very different experiences. While Kirk’s public school recently discovered a student bringing a gun to school, the most lethal thing anyone has brought to Jordan’s school is literally peanuts.
Craft continues with the themes of bonding and class difference when Jordan goes to visit the Landers’ house for the first time. While Jordan lives in a comfortable middle-class brownstone apartment building in upper Manhattan, Liam lives in a wealthy suburban area where people have private driveways leading to opulent mansions. Liam is evidently ashamed of his family wealth, making Jordan promise not to judge him for the way they live. But despite the vast difference in their class position, the boys bond over their great passion: video games.
The theme of class difference arises again during Jordan’s Christmas. He is used to his father looking for discounted video games for him, but this year his father treats him to the new NBA2K because he knows Jordan has been working hard to adjust to his new school and academic load. In an instance of dramatic irony, Jordan hides from his parents the fact that he already received a deluxe version of the same game from Liam, for whom money is no issue. Politely, Jordan keeps this a secret, wishing to protect his parents from feeling the shame of their modest economic position.
The theme of social hierarchy comes up with Jordan and Alexandra’s conversation about her hand puppets. To Jordan, it is embarrassing to be associated with a person who doesn’t appear to understand that everyone is judging her for behaving so childishly. In an instance of situational irony, Craft reveals that Alexandra doesn’t lack self-consciousness: in fact, the puppet covers up a scar she worries others will judge her for. The scar itself is small, though, and the story behind it is heroic. As it turns out, Alexandra’s attempt to protect herself from ridicule has in fact guaranteed her pariah status at school.
