about
Tori
Baylor is a dancer and an animal lover. Or is she an animal lover and a dancer?
On the first day of school, she discovers that her class will dissect a frog
this year, and she gathers her courage to tell the forbidding Mrs. Stengle she
doesn't want to take part. The new science teacher's rudeness comes as a shock,
and Tori wishes she had a close friend to laugh it off with. Dance classes six
days a week, however, leave little time for friends.
Tori wonders if she should forget her dream of a ballet
career and plan to work with animals instead. Her mother's arthritis is
worsening, and Tori feels guilty seeing her limp off to work to pay for her
lessons. She'd love to be an animal rights activist, if she could be brave
enough. But not to dance--how could I bear
it? she asks herself. Her mother, who once hoped to become a dancer, has
always told Tori and her sister, "Be sure to have a second string to your
bow," meaning a second career choice. I
do have two strings, Tori thinks, dance
and animals. But which should be my
first-string future?