“Not anymore.” Malcolm switched on the motor.
The glowing sun turned on. Jupiter began moving.
Saturn followed with a slightly uneven wobble. Malcolm laughed.
“Still needs work.” Curtis handed him a screwdriver.
Northgate allowed Malcolm to present the repaired project before a different faculty panel. He explained the orbital ratios, mechanical choices, scaling limitations, and why the model could demonstrate relative motion without pretending the distances were realistic. Nobody asked whether his father built it.
The panel awarded the project an A. Malcolm appreciated the grade.
He appreciated the ordinary questions more.
The classroom video reached social media anyway. One caption read, WHITE TEACHER THROWS BLACK STUDENT’S SCIENCE PROJECT IN THE TRASH—THEN THE WHOLE CLASS EXPOSES HIM.
Another claimed Malcolm was a secret engineering prodigy whose invention was worth thousands of dollars. It was not.
Someone else claimed NASA contacted him immediately. NASA did not.
The model contained parts worth around one hundred and sixty dollars. Its value came from time, work, and what it meant to Malcolm.
The internet preferred a more dramatic reveal. People wanted Dempsey to discover that the Black boy whose project he destroyed was secretly a genius, millionaire, celebrity’s son, or future astronaut.
Malcolm disliked that lesson. “What if it had been bad?” he asked Angela one night.
She looked at him. “What if what had been bad?”
“The project.” Malcolm leaned back in the kitchen chair.
“If it was terrible, he still couldn’t throw it away.” Angela nodded.
“If I got a C in physics?” Still wrong.
“If Dad couldn’t fix anything?” Still wrong.
“If I wasn’t going to college?” Angela smiled.
“Still your property. Still your work. Still deserving of respect.”
Malcolm understood something then that took years to fully articulate. He had spent senior year trying to become so obviously capable that Dempsey would eventually have to stop doubting him.
But prejudice did not always surrender when confronted with evidence. Sometimes it simply invented a new reason to doubt the evidence.