Jessica, Tessie, and Amy live in a place where everybody wears a color-coded tasseled identification braid from their right sleeve, signaling what they do for a living. The system works well, except for the people wearing yellow identification braids. These people sell illegal braids to those with bad reputations, so they could appear as someone better and make a living. The people wearing yellow braids are the one problem in this otherwise perfectly organized system. The three friends learn that those with yellow braids are disrupting the economy, too, but Amy has other thoughts about these people. The girls’ suspicions are aroused as Tessie and Jessica spot Amy talking to someone with a yellow braid. The don’t know what to do with this shocking discovery of their friend breaking a strict social rule.

Read part one of this story here!

Read part two of this story here!

Read part three of this story here!

That evening Jessica felt restless. She paced and jiggled, put her hair up and let it down again, spilled her food and dropped a bowl.

“What’s bugging you?” her dad asked as she cleaned up the pieces of the bowl she had dropped.


“Nothing,” she answered, piling the pieces into a paper bag. No, she knew what was bugging her. It was Amy and that person on the way to the market. Nobody should be in any kind of contact with somebody wearing a yellow braid. Nobody, ever, under any circumstances. She had seen it on the streets when somebody wearing a yellow braid would drop something and not notice, and nobody would pick it up like they would for any other person, and nobody would even say, “Hey…you dropped this.” She wanted to know why, then, Amy was seen talking to somebody so dangerous?

She picked up the bag and dropped it into the trash can. “I guess I’ll go over and see Tessie for a while,” she said, and went out the door. She made it to the end of the block, turned the corner, walked the length of that side, turned again, and went up Tessie’s front porch. Her mother opened the door.

“Oh, hey, Jessica. I’m glad you’re here. I want you to walk Tessie to the store and get some lettuce.”

“I can walk by myself, Mom,” Tessie’s voice whined from behind her mother. “Besides, we don’t need lettuce.”

“Yes we do. This young lady,” and now she turned to Jessica and explained, “this young lady bought twenty-two tomatoes this morning and I’m having some lettuce to eat with them tonight.”

“Fine, but it was a good sale. Buy one get one free. I got twenty-two tomatoes for the price of eleven. And if you want lettuce, I can get it myself.”

Her mother shook her head and pulled Tessie close. “No, I want you to be with someone. You know how I worry about my little baby being all alone in the streets.”

“Mom!” Tessie shouted and wiggled out of her mother’s grasp.

“Thank you,” her mom said sweetly, then shut the door, leaving Jessica and Tessie on the porch. They started towards the store.

The sun wasn’t down yet, but it was thinking about it. The streets were quiet except for a couple of kids yelling and running. Some of the older folks and the families who had finished their dinner came out and sat on their porch. A man passed them with his hands in his pockets. The birds were quiet but a dog yipped and the sound echoed off the sky. “You don’t have to go with me,” Tessie said. She knew that Jessica would like to go with her, but she had to say it for the sake of saying it.

“No, it’s okay.” Jessica knew that Tessie was just saying things for the sake of saying them. “I couldn’t stay home anyways.”

“Your house too loud for you?” Tessie asked.

“No. My mind.”

Tessie grinned at her friend. “You always did think too much. You’re figuring about Amy, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. I just can’t understand it. I’m trying to understand we saw her with a bad person. Nobody talks to someone who’s wearing a yellow braid.”

“You know why my mom doesn’t let me go to the store by myself?” Tessie asked softly.

“Because she’s your mom?” guessed Jessica, giggling a little, but her eyes were serious.

“No—well, yes. But the people wearing yellow braids, those people who camp out on the streets…” She stopped and kicked at a stone which glinted in the strange evening light.

Jessica urged her on. “Yeah?”

“She doesn’t want me to become like one of them.”

“But you wouldn’t do that!”

“I know I wouldn’t but she says that some of them are just waiting out there, and when they see somebody, a customer, maybe, or just some person, they’re waiting to suck ‘em in and get ‘em all rigged up for selling braids.”

“Do you think that’s what Amy’s doing? She’s not going to show up in a yellow braid someday, is she?” asked Jessica fretfully.

“No, no,” soothed Tessie. “She wouldn’t do that. She’s not a bad person, she’s not like that. Look.” She turned towards Jessica decidedly. “I’ve thought over it. You’ve thought over it and just about drove your dad crazy in the process.” Jessica giggled. “The thing we haven’t done is ask Amy. We have to up and ask her, ‘Why’d you do that?’ and then we get an answer.”

“Okay,” agreed Jessica. “Let’s ask her tomorrow, before she goes anywhere—you know what?”

“What?”

“You’re smart. Here I was thinking and driving myself nuts, and you come up and say, ‘if you want an answer, then just ask her.’ That’s brilliant. Who would have thought?”

The next morning the day was slow in starting. The sun slugged slowly upward and the sky wasn’t lighting up the way it should have. Jessica met Tessie at her corner and they walked down to Amy’s house and knocked. Her mother opened the door. She was fully dressed this time and wore a green shirt with purple striped pants and bright yellow socks. The whole outfit clashed violently with her blue identification braid.

“Hi! I’m just off to work myself. I hate to run off just as you’re coming in, though.”

“It’s okay,” said Tessie kindly. “I know how it is to be late. You go right ahead.”

“Thanks.” She grinned at the girls. “You know, the only reason I’m late all the time is because I always take such pains in the morning to get dressed right.” She bent over a mirror in the hallway and straightened her shirt. “I always like to look well-aligned and tasteful. Amy’s in her bedroom, if you’re coming for her.”

“It’s okay,” said Tessie again, but she turned to her friend after the last flash of green and yellow disappeared behind the closing door, and she clamped her hand over her mouth to suppress her giggles as Jessica sputtered with restrained laughter. When they had regained their composure they went in to Amy’s room. The house was small but cozy in a thrown-about way. A wrinkled blanket was flung over a worn sofa, the walls were painted white and the hallways were lit brightly. The few rooms they passed had half-open doors and were dark inside and the cat, Choo-Choo, roamed about as he pleased, glancing at the intruders and twitching his tail haughtily. Amy’s room was at the end of the short hall and they knocked on the closed door.

“Who is it?” Amy yelled.

“Jessica an’ Tessie,” responded Jessica.

“Gimme a minute.” A lot of shuffling went on behind the door and something slammed shut and slid. “Okay,” Amy called, and the girls went in. Her back was to them, and she was facing her bed. Her room was small and painted soft lavender, with the bed and a nightstand and a lamp pressed against various walls. A closet was in one corner, its doors tightly shut.

“What are you doing?” Tessie asked casually.

“Oh, laundry. You know how it piles up.” Amy turned around and that’s when her friends saw it. Amy’s hand suddenly flew to her right shoulder and clamped over her identification braid but Jessica saw and Tessie saw. Jessica’s hands came up to her mouth and Tessie’s mind buzzed and went still.

It was a very long time before anybody moved. Guilt welled in Amy’s eyes as she let go of her identification braid, and Tessie’s breathing came in little gasps. Jessica finally loosened her hands and spoke. “You’re wearing a yellow braid.”

“Why?” asked Tessie.

Jessica waited tensely. Up to this point she felt sure that she and her two friends were braided tightly together like the three strands in their identification braids, but now she felt that one strand was coming loose, and without that one strand, the others would become like limp pieces of string, unraveled.

“I have to,” Amy softly explained. “I have to. Remember the one selling braids on the street, the one we passed every time we went anywhere? She says people pay big money to change their lives and get a new braid. Mama’s job…her boss says that he can’t be sure what he’s getting anymore. He’s cutting wages, firing workers. Says the people with the yellow braids—people like me—ruin it, and he can’t be sure what he’s investing in anymore.”

“Then why are you doing it if you’re making it worse?” Tessie almost shouted.

Again, “I have to.” Amy tugged open a drawer on her nightstand and extracted a white identification braid. “The woman selling on the street wanted to buy it from me, for resale, but I made her let me keep it. It’s my old one. I want you guys to have it.” She held it out, and her fingers trembled. Jessica reached for it and her fingertips just brushed Amy’s. She took the braid and withdrew her hand quickly.

“What happens now?” Tessie whispered. Tears coursed down her cheeks.

“She’s a bad person. We have to leave.” Jessica’s voice was soft, but the words were firm.

“Just because I’m doing something that’s supposed to be bad doesn’t mean that I’m a bad person,” Amy said quietly.

“She’s a bad person,” Jessica said, her voice louder. She backed away, and Tessie followed her back through Amy’s house and out onto the front porch. Amy appeared behind them, still in the house. They looked at her across the doorway. She cried now, softly, and gently closed the door. They heard it click shut.