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"Yes, I have read it," I told him, "but not as a class assignment. It was something I did on my own."

"On your own?" He looked at the others. "Did any of you ever hear of anything like that? Reading on your own? Raise your hand if you have," he added with a coy smile.

The girls giggled, but no one raised her hand. He turned to me.

"I've been trying to instill that idea in these bubbles all year," he told me, "but they just pop and pop and pop every time."

The girls giggled again.

Susan Hines lingered in the doorway for a moment, a look of longing on her face. She resembled someone who wished with all her heart that she could turn back time and be our age and in this classroom. After another moment, she retreated.

"What can you tell us about Hamlet, Ms. Arnold?" he continued.

The other girls took on looks of glee, hoping I would make a fool of myself, I was sure.

"What would you like to know?" I asked. "It takes place in Denmark and it's about a prince whose father is murdered and whose mother marries the murderer."

"Is that what it's about?" a thin girl with long blond hair who sat two desks across from me asked, "That doesn't sound so boring," she added.

"Oh," Mr. Bufurd said, "you're interested now, Maureen, now that you know it's about murder?"

The girls giggled again.

"It's about a great deal more than that though, isn't it, Ms. Arnold?" he challenged.

"I thought so," I said. "There are a great many questions about life and love in it."

"Love?" another girl piped up. She had short, dark brown hair with brown eyes as big as quarters in her pudgy face.

"And sex," Mr. Bufurd added nodding. "Don't forget the sex, Tamatha. Isn't that right, Ms. Arnold?"

"I don't think it's exactly what you would call R-rated," I replied and he really laughed.

All the girls looked perplexed. It was as if he and I had instantly embarked on a private

conversation.

"Okay," he said. "Can you remember any line that impressed you, aside from the obvious 'To be or not to be?' "

I looked at the other girls and then at him. He waited with one hand still pressing the chalk to the board and the other on his hip.

"To thine Own self be true," I said.

His smile widened in tiny increments like the ripples in a pool of water and then he bowed his head and said, "Welcome to Dogwood, Rain."

As soon as English class ended, most of the other girls gathered around me to ask questions. They wanted to know where I was from and why I had entered Dogwood so late in the school year. Neither Grandmother Hudson nor my mother had really prepared me with the details of our fabrication, so I had to make it up as I went along, telling them I was part of a unique exchange program involving young people from the inner cities, a program sponsored by a private charity. They were so accustomed to their parents being involved in charities, no one challenged it. Rather, they were fascinated with my background and fired question after question at me about life in a so-called ghetto community. They were intrigued with crime and gangs, but I knew that to them the details of my former life seemed like something from a television program. No matter what I said, they didn't seem to think of it as real.

One girl, Audrey Stempelton, dark-haired and a little dumpy because of her wide hips and short legs, remained in the background listening attentively, but not speaking whenever conversations with me erupted. I saw from the look in her eyes that she wanted to join in our conversations, but was shy. After lunch, she worked up enough courage to approach me in the hallway as I walked to class with the others.

"I live near you," she said. "We have the house just south of the Hudsons."

She said it all quickly and walked faster as if she was terrified I might continue the conversation.

"What's wrong with her?" I muttered.

"Audrey's a neurotic introvert," Maureen Knowland explained with the tone of an expert. "She's almost like an idiot savant because she's so good on the stage:'

"On the stage? As what? A singer?"