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“Yeah,” she answered. “Three girls beat me up. If I get in another fight, I’m going to juvie.”

A hyper classmate came running toward her locker, put her PSP down on the bench next to Joy, and dashed off. A few seconds later she ran back. “Hi!” she said.

The new girl glanced at the bench. “You should pick up your PSP,” she said. “Don’t leave anything around me. I’ve been known to have sticky fingers.”

Over the next several weeks, Joy got to know Ariana, a foster child whom social services had taken from the trailer park where she lived with her mother. She had transferred schools after her third fight. She confided to Joy that she used and sold drugs, cut herself, and shoplifted. She said that her foster parents barely fed her and her brother. Once, Joy was afraid Ariana was going to die because she was shaking so badly when she got to PE. It turned out she was high. Her brother had given her a new drug as a joke. Ariana was fifteen.

JOY’S AP ENGLISH CLASS, covered by a substitute teacher, was supposed to be working, but the students were restless. The girl next to Joy, a talented artist, put her pencil down on her desk and sighed. “I’m just gonna draw.” She scratched out an anime character on a piece of paper.

Joy smiled. Sara, an Asian-American, didn’t usually talk to her. “I used to be like you, sitting and drawing all day. It used to be my passion,” Joy said.

“I don’t draw that much,” Sara said.

“You draw every time you’re in this class,” Xavier chimed in.

“What do you wanna be when you grow up?” Joy asked.

“My parents want me to be a doctor,” Sara said.

“A doctor!” Xavier said in surprise.

“A doctor,” Joy mused. “When drawing is clearly your passion, you’re going to become a doctor.”

“Joy, you’re so mean!” interrupted Keisha, a girl who had been hostile to Joy lately. “Why do you want to destroy her dreams?! If she wants to become a doctor, then let her become a doctor!”

“Hold up, did I say that she couldn’t become a doctor?!” Joy snapped. “How exactly am I destroying her dreams? You want to tell me? How will I get in the way of her aspirations?”

Joy didn’t know why Keisha, who had been nice to her in the fall, had changed her mind about Joy. When Joy spoke in class, Keisha would stare at her as if she spouted gibberish.

“Nothing,” Keisha said. “If I argue with you, I’m not going to win.” They had crossed words before. She’s not a bad person; she just loses her bearings, Joy reminded herself.

“I want to be an artist,” Sara admitted.

“I can see you doing that,” Joy encouraged.

“But no, I’m going to become a surgeon,” Sara said, resigned.

“Because of your parents or do you want to?” Joy asked.

“I can be a surgeon and carve anime into people’s faces!” Sara joked.

“I don’t think that’s the best idea,” Xavier said.

“I can be a tattoo artist,” Sara said, brightening.

“Yeah, you could do that! And you can make a lot of money, if you do the intricate tattoos,” Joy said. “People would pay good money for that!”

A boy in front of Joy turned around. “Why the hell should she become a tattoo artist?!” he said. “Why would she downgrade from being a doctor to a tattoo artist?!”

“Maybe if you weren’t so small-minded, you could see that art is something she loves,” Joy said. “And she can make money being a tattoo artist. The more complicated the pieces, the more money she gets.”

“Why should anyone do crap like art when they can be a doctor or lawyer?!” the boy said.

“You are so ignorant!” Joy shouted. “Maybe if your parents didn’t embed that level of thinking within you, you could see there’s more to life than being just a lawyer or doctor. You need to seriously wake up.”

“Don’t argue with her,” Keisha warned him. “She’ll go on and on until she proves her point.”

In Jamaica, Joy had spent hours drawing, acting, and writing poetry. Since coming to America, she had neglected her artistic side because Citygrove didn’t encourage creativity like her Jamaican school did. After the conversation with Sara, Joy returned to spending her free time writing poetry and creating skits to practice her acting.