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When we get there I kinda hang back. Not that I’m scared, what’s there to be afraid of, just a toy store. But I feel funny, shame. But what I got to be shamed about? Got as much right to go in as anybody.

This quote occurs when Sylvia prepares to enter the toy store on Fifth Avenue. Up until this point in the story, Sylvia has been confident, but something happens when she goes to enter FAO Schwarz that even she doesn't understand. This moment marks a turning point in the plot and is the beginning of a profound realization for Sylvia. Sylvia knows she has a right to enter the store, but the funny looks from other people in the area of the store don't make the kids feel welcome. Thus, she begins to realize that there is something powerful and unseen in society that keeps her from freely doing as she wants.

I could see me asking my mother for a $35 birthday clown. “You wanna who that costs what?” she’d say…Thirty-five dollars could buy new bunk beds for Junior and Gretchen’s boy…the whole household could visit Grandaddy Nelson in the country. Thirty-five dollars would pay for the rent and the piano bill too.

This quote introduces Sylvia’s musings on the way home after browsing the expensive toys inside FAO Schwarz. As she describes a clown toy that she likes, she imagines her mother's reaction if she were to ask for the $35 toy, suggesting that she would think the request outlandish and shockingly selfish. It is natural for Sylvia, a child, to desire a toy, though here her understanding of all of the practical ways in which this amount of money could be used indicates she also feels shame for desiring something she can’t have. This passage marks the change that is beginning to happen within Sylvia as she starts to grasp the key point about inequality that Miss Moore wants to convey.

Where we are is who we are, Miss Moore always pointin out. But it don’t necessarily have to be that way, she always adds then waits for somebody to say that poor people have to wake up and demand their share of the pie and don’t none of us know what kind of pie she talkin about in the first damn place.

Here Sylvia further reflects on the subway ride home after the trip in a passage that sums up the story’s key takeaways. Miss Moore is trying to show the kids that their homes and what they are exposed to on a daily basis have a big effect on who they will grow up to be. She is trying to show them other possibilities, but the path to these possibilities isn't clear. This quote displays Sylvia’s frustration and her continued resistance to Miss Moore’s lesson. But it also reveals how Sylvia is learning despite herself.

“I think,” say Sugar pushing me off her feet like she never done before, cause I whip her ass in a minute, “that this is not much of a democracy if you ask me. Equal chance to pursue happiness means an equal crack at the dough, don’t it?”

This quote toward the end of the story illustrates an important moment in Sugar's growth as a character. Sylvia is definitely the leader of the two friends. She makes the decisions, and she bullies Sugar whenever she challenges Sylvia. Sylvia has also made an executive decision that the kids are not going to take Miss Moore's lesson seriously. By answering Miss Moore's question, Sugar risks angering Sylvia, and by pushing Sylvia off of her foot, she shows she doesn't care. In this scene, Sylvia is holding Sugar down while Miss Moore is helping Sugar gain the confidence to speak for herself.

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