I walked down the aisle and sat in the back row and tried to ignore all the stares and whispers, until a blond girl leaned over toward me. Penelope! 

Yes, there are places left in the world where people are named Penelope! 

"What's your name?' Penelope asked. 

"Junior," I said. 

She laughed and told her girlfriend at the next desk that my name was Junior. They both laughed. Word spread around the room and pretty soon everybody was laughing. 

They were laughing at my name. 

I had no idea that Junior was a weird name. It's a common name on my rez, on any rez. You walk into any trading post on any rez in the United States and shout, "Hey, Junior!" and seventeen guys will turn around. 

And three women. 

But there were no other people named Junior in Reardan, so I was being laughed at because I was the only one who had that silly name. 

And then I felt smaller because the teacher was taking roll and he called out my name name. 

"Arnold Spirit," the teacher said. 

No, he yelled it. 

He was so big and muscular that his whisper was probably a scream. 

"Here," I said as quietly as possible. My whisper was only a whisper. 

"Speak up," the teacher said. "Here," I said. 

"My name is Mr. Grant," he said. 

"I'm here, Mr. Grant." 

He moved on to other students, but Penelope leaned over toward me again, but she wasn't laughing at all. She was mad now. 

"I thought you said your name was Junior," Penelope said. She accused me of telling her my real name. Well, okay, it wasn't completely my real name. My full name is Arnold Spirit Jr. But nobody calls me that. Everybody calls me Junior. Well, every other Indian calls me Junior. 

"My name is Junior," I said. "And my name is Arnold. It's Junior and Arnold. I'm both."

I felt like two different people inside of one body. 

"Where are you from?" she asked. 

She was so pretty and her eyes were so blue. 

I was suddenly aware that she was the prettiest girl I had ever seen up close. She was movie star pretty.  

"Hey," she said. "I asked you where you're from." Wow, she was tough. 

'Wellpinit," I said. "Up on the rez, I mean, the reservation. 

"Oh," she said. "That's why you talk so funny." 

And yes, I had that singsong reservation accent that made everything I said sound like a bad poem. 

Man, I was freaked. 

I didn't say another word for six days.