Back in my 7th period English class, I chose a seat close to the back door. I liked to be the first one out when the bell rang. Popular Brandon Anderson, who was a junior, walked in and dropped his books down on the desk right behind me. Layla said Brandon had gorgeous, bedroom eyes, but I thought he just looked sleepy. I flinched with nervousness and suddenly became aware of two zits that had sprung up out of nowhere on my left cheek. I hoped he wouldn’t notice me because I had my swimming class earlier in the day and didn’t get the chance to do anything to my hair but put it in a puffy ponytail. If Brandon sensed fear in you, he would keep after you, which perhaps was the reason he bothered me but not my friends. “Nice hair,” he said briefly stroking my ponytail before sitting down and pushing against the back of my chair with his foot. When I did not acknowledge him, he started a conversation with Courtney Bass who sat across from him. I had a lot on my mind coming out of the assembly so I didn’t dwell on Brandon.

Questions bounced around inside my head. Why on earth would the school ban cornrows and braids but no other hairstyle? My friends were right that it wasn’t fair. How could they spring a dress code on us at the last minute? I had spent the sweltering summer hopping on buses and trains to malls and boutiques with my friends to put together my wardrobe. My closet contained mostly over-sized sweaters and skirts that were above the knees. What difference did it make anyway if a skirt was long or short? “The hemlines have to come down. The hemlines have to come down.” I mimicked the principal inside my head.

I imagined myself in a press conference asking him, “Is there a proven correlation, Mick…” I would begin the question using Dr. McHuffenstuff’s nickname. It was what the other administrators called him. “Is there a proven positive correlation, Mick, between the length of the female skirt and academic achievement?” His voice would take on its preachy tone and Ol’ Golden Ear would get to digging and spouting data from unheard of education magazines using principals’ language. “It has been determined that one quarter of the girls who advance to college level studies are conservative dressers who wear either slacks or their skirts at knee length, Miss Freeman.”

“Well what about the other three quarters, you big fat dunce?” I’d ask. Just as I picked up a key lime pie to throw into the principal’s face, Mrs. Walker’s voice brought me out of my daydream.

She called on Terri Simpson to read “A Dream Deferred,” which was my favorite Langston Hughes poem. I pulled myself up quickly from a slumped position. Terri started out reading in an almost hushed tone. Then she raised her voice passionately as she pondered what becomes of a dream that is not realized. Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester, like a sore, and run? When she got to the last line of the poem that questions whether the dream explodes, her voice boomed. The class applauded when she finished and Mrs. Walker smiled and said Terri had done well. Then she said she wanted us to discuss a dream, whether it was someone else’s or our own. We were to discuss whether the person realized his or her dream. How was the individual’s world better as a result of it? She looked down at her attendance booklet, then over the top of her glasses at us kids.

Mrs. Walker chose Pierre Gilbert first, a kid we called Frenchy who had moved to our neighborhood from Paris a few years before. She commented the first day of class that his French accent that turned “the” into a soft “ze” was simply delightful and called on him every day that week. It would have embarrassed me, but Frenchy seemed to revel in the attention he got from our teacher and the girls who ooohed and ahhhed over him. Talking about dreams, he said that during World War II a lot of countries dreamed of stopping Hitler from oppressing and exterminating Jews. The nations successfully put an end to the wicked leader’s madness by working together and the world was now a better place for Jews and all of humanity. Mrs. Walker said that was good. Then she called on me and I talked about Harriet Tubman’s dream of freeing slaves.

“Using escape routes known as the Underground Railroad, Mrs. Tubman led several thousand men, women and children to freedom,” I said.

“Very good, Taylor,” Mrs. Walker said. “Indeed, Mrs. Tubman was an extraordinary woman. She once said she could have led thousands more to freedom if they had realized they were slaves.”

“Oh, that’s deep,” Brandon said and Mrs. Walker agreed it was “profound” before asking him to give her an example of a dream deferred. He asked our teacher if he might have a few moments to gather his thoughts. She said she would come back to him. After several other students had spoken, Brandon hauled his gangly body up from his desk and began telling of his dream to take a certain young woman whose name he wouldn’t say to the homecoming dance. We all laughed, even Mrs. Walker.

“There is a special girl I’d like to accompany me in my chauffeured limousine and drink celebratory champagne,” he began.

“Brandon, you’re not even old enough to drink,” Mrs. Walker reminded him and some of the kids snickered.

“I know, Mrs. Walker, but I’m improvising.”

“Carry on then,” she said.

“I have dreamed of asking this girl out since I was in sixth grade.” The class egged him on with Courtney asking, “Oh, is it me, Brandon?” and Amber Lichtenstein responding with “Keep dreaming, Courtney.”

Brandon said he believed this year’s homecoming  would be the perfect opportunity to “kick off something special with Shorty.” The class laughed. Mrs. Walker urged Brandon to be serious and he assured her he was.

“If I don’t ask this girl out, the weight of my heart will sag like a heavy load. If she rejects me, it will explode.”

“POW!” Frenchy said and grabbed his chest. “Dawg, like who is ze gul? You’ve gotta ask her out. You can not explode. We need re-sha-nal shamp-pe-on-ship. We are like so depending on you.” Frenchy was Brandon’s good friend and basketball teammate.

“Dawg, you are right. I’m going to ask her,” Brandon said, and then he called my name “Taylor,” and my head swirled. I felt my lunch taxiing in my stomach and moving toward my esophagus. I remember cheering and laughter and one of the girls saying “I hate you, Taylor. You go, girl!” interrupted by Dr. McHuffenstuff’s announcement over the intercom.