I stood in line, and when my turn came I danced out into the middle of the room. When I'm not just doing moves, but actually dancing, it's as if my body does all the thinking. My mind shuts off and just hears the music. All the things I've learned about dance seem to be stored in my arms and legs, not in my brain. "You make that look so easy," said Lisa Jones after I finished my steps.

    "Thanks," I replied. Lisa had gone before me. She'd done pretty well except that she stumbled backward a little when she came down from her pas de chat.

    Lisa is one of the nicest girls in class, but the truth is, I'm not very close to her or any of the others. I've always felt like a bit of an outsider.

    Since I'm the youngest and newest member of the class, I suppose it's natural that I would feel like an outsider. And then, being black sets me apart from the other girls, too. Not that anyone has ever even mentioned it to me, but all you have to do is look in the practice mirror to see it. One cocoa-colored face with dark eyes standing among the other white faces.

    I was never so aware of the color of my skin until we moved to Stoneybrook. Our old neighborhood back in New Jersey was very integrated. Being black just wasn't an issue. But it became a big issue once my family moved to Stoneybrook.

    We came because my dad's company transferred him to Stamford. (The transfer included a big promotion, so he was happy about it.) My sister Becca (she's eight) and I weren't nearly as excited. (My brother Squirt is just a baby, so he didn't care one way or the other.) Besides leaving our family and friends (like my cousin Keisha who was both family and my best friend), we had to adjust to a new school and a new neighborhood. Believe me, some people in Stoneybrook weren't one bit glad to see a black family move into their all-white neighborhood. It was rough at first. But we stuck it out and now everything is mostly okay.