“No,” Mama Lil said it plain and simple. “I ain’t never heard of no girls to be doing that. Bebe. you need to be getting yourself a real summer job, something civilized.”

I’d been living with Mama Lil since I was six, when my own mama and daddy were killed in an apartment building fire. Lillian Johns was my mom’s mother. Everybody on our street called her Mama Lil and that was what I called her too. I had been butting heads with her ever since I could remember. And the older I got, the more at odds we were and the more conflicts we experienced.

For weeks I’d been asking Mama Lil to let me join the youth renovation team. It was a group of kids who had been chosen by city officials to work with engineers to help repair the Brooklyn Bridge. The project would last the summer and pay good money. It would help me get to college, where I wanted to study engineering.

But for Mama Lil, the thing that made her the most stubborn this time, was exactly my dream of becoming an engineer. In some respects, Mama Lil was right. It was true that there weren’t many black women engineers. But I wanted to build bridges more than anything.

“Let me go, Mama Lil,” I begged softly.

Mama Lil sat as still as a statue. “Mama Lil,” I said carefully, “if you don’t sign the bridge project permission form, I will sign it myself. Nobody will know the difference.”

The next morning, Mama Lil’s eyes looked red-tired. “I’m going to the bridge,” I said firmly. “I know, Bebe,” she said. From her housedress pocket, she took out a pen and signed the form. “Bebe. that bridge is lucky to have you,” she said.

I hugged Mama Lil good and hard, smiling big, right at her.

...

Ahead, in the distance, stood the Brooklyn Bridge. This was the best spot to see the bridge. I’d come to this corner and studied the bridge a million times. And on every one of those times, I was taken with what I’d come to call Brooklyn Belle.

At night, Belle was dressed in tiny light. On a cloudless night like this one, she was a sight like no other in the whole city. Jeweled in light. Beautiful.

I had drawn Belle in the high-noon light, at sunset, on snowy days, and on foggy twilight mornings. I was proud of my drawings, but with each page they showed a sad truth about Belle: She needed repair. That bridge renovation project needed me; and I needed it, in more ways than I could count.

Sonya and her family have been homeless since she was 3 years old. Over the years, they have moved more than 15 times to different shelters around New York City. Moving around was hard on Sonya. At school, Sonya hid her homelessness from teachers and other students. She didn’t want to be treated differently than other kids.

In sixth grade, Sonya discovered a way to deal with some of her stress (压力). She began studying dance at her middle school. “It was a way for me to express myself, instead of just holding everything in” she explains. Soon, Sonya auditioned (试演) for a summer dance camp run by Alvin Alley, a famous dance company. She was accepted. “I was delirious,” says Sonya.

Dancing became an even more important part of Sonya’s life in high school. But things were not going well for Sonya at school. Each time her family moved to a new shelter, Sonya missed school. As the second­oldest of six kids, Sonya often took care of her younger sisters and brothers. She helped them get ready in the morning and took them to school. They would be on time, but Sonya would be late.

Worrying about her family kept Sonya from thinking about her own future. That changed the summer after 11th grade. Sonya learned she would have to go to summer school to graduate. She became determined to succeed, no matter what. “It was a wake­up call,” she says. “I had to focus on (集中精力于……) school and on myself.”

Sonya made up the work that she had missed, and finally graduated from high school. No one in her family had gone to college before. But in September 2015, Sonya enrolled (登记入学) in the State University of New York at Potsdam. She plans to become a doctor for kids and to teach dance to children who have disabilities.

I remember the first day I saw her playing basketball. I watched in wonder as she ran circles around the other kids. She managed to shoot jump shots just over their heads and into the net. The boys always tried to stop her but no one could.

I began to notice her at other times, basketball in hand, playing alone, sometimes until dark. One day I asked her why she practiced so much. She looked directly in my eyes and without a moment of hesitation she said, “I want to go to college. The only way I can go is if I get a scholarship. I like basketball. I decided that if I were good enough, I would get a scholarship. I am going to play college basketball. I want to be the best. My daddy told me if the dream is big enough, the facts don’t count. Then she smiled and ran towards the court to repeat the routine I had seen her over and over again.

One day in her senior year, I saw her sitting in the grass, head cradled in her arms. I walked across the street and sat down in the cool grass beside her. Quietly, I asked what was wrong. “Oh, nothing,” came a soft reply, “I’m just too short.” The coach told her that because of her height she would probably never get to play for a top ranked team — much less offered a scholarship — so she should stop dreaming about college.

She was heartbroken and I felt my own throat tighten as I sensed her disappointment. I asked whether she had talked to her dad about it yet. She lifted her head from her hands and told me that her father said those coaches were wrong. They just didn’t understand the power of a dream. He told her that if she really wanted to play for a good college, if she truly wanted a scholarship, that nothing could stop her except one thing — her own attitude. He told her again, “if the dream is big enough, the facts don’t count.”

The next year, as she and her team went to the Northern California Championship game, she was seen by a college recruiter. She was indeed offered a full scholarship to a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) women’s basketball team. She was going to get the college education that she had dreamed of and worked toward for all those years.

It’s true: If the dream is big enough, the facts don’t count.