of the world she knew, she wasn’t quite sure what Darryl meant by the question. He seemed genuinely curious, not hostile. She answered in a soft voice. “I guess so.”
        She was more concerned when Caleb Phillips approached her on the playground one day and belligerently asked if her butt was as dark as her face.  When she tried to ignore him, he asked again, only louder. When she realized he wasn’t going to leave her alone, she said of course it is. Then when he demanded she prove it, she turned to walk away but he grabbed her waistband and tried to pull her skirt down. When she resisted and pulled away, she tripped and fell to the asphalt, skinning her knees. When she got to her feet, she was surprised to see Mrs. Henderson standing nearby calmly looking on. When Mrs. Henderson made no move, Dina approached her and told her that Caleb was trying to pull her dress down. Mrs. Henderson assessed Dina with dry eyes and said, “Why would he do that? Are you sure you didn’t invite him to?”
        When Dina said no, Mrs. Henderson said, “If you don’t flirt with the boys, they’ll leave you alone,” then walked away. As Caleb watched this, he stuck his tongue out at Dina as in I told you so!
        After that, Dina became even more introverted. On the playground, she kept mostly to herself. In class, she sat quietly in the back of the room with Delia Rosas, never drawing attention to herself, following class activities with her bright brown eyes, complying with Mrs. Henderson’s instructions, and promptly turning in all homework. She found herself remembering a bit of advice her father would often recite: Don’t ever make trouble and always go along with the program. She once thought those words were silly but now embraced them as her survival mechanism.

#

        In mid-October, Mrs. Henderson assigned the class to read A Tale of Two Cities. Most of the class moaned when they learned how long the book was, nearly 500 pages. But Dina dutifully went to the public library, checked out a copy and began reading at home each evening. When two weeks later Mrs. Henderson asked if anyone had started reading the book yet, several students raised their hands. Mrs. Henderson called on each one and asked how many chapters they’d finished. Three students reported having read one chapter, another had read six chapters and Tony Wilhelm said he’d read nearly half the book. When Mrs. Henderson got to Dina at the back of the class and asked how many chapters of A Tale of Two Cities she’d read, she reported she’d already finished.
        Mrs. Henderson assessed her with hard eyes. “You finished it?”
        Dina nodded softly.
        “You finished the whole