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it would make a big change from the city. It had room for the children to run around outside and a little beach just up the way, on a creek. Momma and some of the women got it cleaned up and cleared out of the wildlife that moved in during the years it was empty. They rounded up a refrigerator and some decent mattresses. The new minister had a church in New York, which was the biggest and baddest place to work. So he’d appreciate the peace and tranquility of the country, Momma said.
    Poppa said he liked his two-week stint in New York least ofany of the cities he visited. He liked Richmond best, and he didn’t mind Birmingham either. He kept wishing, every year, that they’d send him to New Orleans, but Momma said she thought New York might be bad, but New Orleans was Sodom and Gomorrah all rolled up into one, and she’d just as soon he steered clear of that place.
    Momma missed Poppa when he was away all summer long. They all did. He called up on Sunday afternoons. He wrote letters and postcards. He even got one or two weekends home, when he was close enough by. But it wasn’t the same as having him there. Poppa minded it, but he went on and did it. “It’s not forever,” he told them. “It’s part of the work. And these men—they’ve earned a couple of tranquil months. We’re all doing the same work, aren’t we?”
    â€œThings are different up north,” Momma would back Poppa up. “Things are different down south. You children—you don’t know how easy your father makes it for you.”
    â€œI wouldn’t mind finding out,” Belle said.
    â€œYou will, and soon enough,” Momma answered. “For the time being, I advise you to count your blessings.”
    Belle looked around and studied everything she could see. She held up her hand as if to count on her fingers, but said there wasn’t one thing she thought of to count.
    Momma just laughed.
    â€œI wish I was the one going away to camp for the summer,” Belle said.
    â€œSo do I, honey.” Momma laughed again. “So do I.”
    â€œThat’s not funny,” Belle said, her voice going high and offended.
    It was too funny, and Mina laughed out loud over it. Catch her being thirteen like that, she thought, as Belle stormed out of the room.

CHAPTER 3
    F rom the first, Mina loved her room at camp, room 226, halfway down the long corridor. It had two beds, two windows, two dressers, two desks, and one closet which she shared with her roommate, Isadora. The beds were covered with brightly striped fabric, and the curtains matched the bedspreads. The windows looked out through the leafy branches of trees to the green quadrangle at the center of the college. Although the room was only on the second floor, there was always a breeze to keep it comfortable, because the college had been built along the ridge of the hills that bordered the broad river.
    They stayed on the campus for the whole eight weeks, except for one trip into the city of New Haven, to see a performance of Swan Lake at Yale University. Some of the girls, especially the older ones, complained that they felt cooped up, imprisoned, but Mina never did, not for a minute.
    There were seventy people living in the dormitory, and all of them were dancers. There were four dance classes, divided by age, with sixteen girls in each class. There were three dance instructors and three assistants who were taking the master classes as well as keeping an eye on the younger students. They all lived together and ate together and worked together. Music and dance, dance and music—that was what they did, all day long. They had a dance class every morning and a music class every afternoon,taught by a professor from the college. In the evenings, there was almost always something planned, either observing one of the master classes or listening to a concert given in the small college theater or watching a movie of a ballet or