Free Come a Stranger by Cynthia Voigt Page A

suit; her hair was in dark braids that she’d wound around her head like a corona. She looked busy, she looked distant and calm, she looked beautiful.
    Mina was back where there was music around everywhere, every day. She was back where if you said Prokofiev, nobody said, “Who?”
    â€œYou’ve grown,” Miss Maddinton said, sounding doubtful, looking doubtful.
    What did she expect Mina to do? Not grow? Mina laughed out loud. “I guess. My mom says I’ve been shooting up and shooting out.”
    â€œYou can find your own way, can’t you? I’ve got to greet the new girls.”
    â€œThree-o-seven?” Mina asked, not that she didn’t remember, but just to savor this first minute a little longer. “Is Tansy here yet?”
    â€œShe’s up there,” Miss Maddinton said.
    At that, Mina couldn’t wait another minute. She grabbed her suitcase and hurrying as fast as she could with the heavy case banging against her leg went into the dormitory, went home.
    Room 307 was on the third floor. The second floor was for the littlest girls, the top floor for the fourteen year olds. Mina climbed two flights of stairs and pushed through the heavy door onto the corridor. She heard voices, she heard music. Looking at the numbers painted on the doors, she went on down the hall. Her feet wanted to jump and run, her heart wanted to stop it all from going by so fast already. Room 307 was down toward the far end of thecorridor. The door was open, but no music came out. Mina guessed Tansy was probably in somebody else’s room, visiting.
    But the room had only one bed in it. The room was too small for two beds anyway. The room was a single room.
    Mina put her suitcase down on the floor and sat on the bed. For a long minute her mind was empty—blank and silent, a cold white emptiness. Then she understood.
    They were seeing the outside of her.
    Because nobody, not even Tansy, had wanted to be her roommate. So the adults had put her into a single room too.
    Mina got up and set her suitcase on the bed. She unpacked her clothes into the dresser, then made up the bed and thought. She just hadn’t understood, she guessed; but as soon as she thought that she knew she was wrong. They had all been friends, they had all gotten along just fine. It was what her father had said, though, what he had noticed right away when he picked her up: She was the only little black girl there.
    Mina laughed out loud and dropped the pillow on the bed. Little? Well, she wasn’t any too little anymore. There were bras and a box of Kotex she’d unpacked with the rest of her things. She guessed, if they thought she was little, in any way, they were underestimating her. She guessed she was going to have to make friends with them all over again. She stretched her arms out, her broad shoulders up, and flexed her fingers. She didn’t mind that. She always liked making friends.
    The first thing that she wanted to do, now, had changed. Now the first thing she wanted to do was go outside and wander around a little. She wanted to have her bare feet on the grass that covered these hills. She wanted to put her palms up against the bark of the trees, to feel how strong and solid the trees were. She wanted to hear the way the wind blew through leafy branches, and she wanted to put her eyes once again on the gray stonebuildings that looked like they had grown up out of the earth to make the college. Once she had touched all of those things, once she’d gotten back in touch with those things that didn’t look at her and see just the outside, Mina would come back inside and start dealing with the human things.
    When Mina found Tansy, it was in a room with Isadora. They were sitting on their beds, not talking, not playing Tansy’s music, not doing anything. Tansy looked like her same mousy self. Isadora had grown up. You could see what she would look like when she finished growing, Mina thought; Isadora