Violet was startled when the professor tripped and almost ran over to see if he was all right, but he got up and righted himself almost immediately and went on like nothing had gone wrong at all. Violet envied his ability to do that; she figured she would have been frozen with embarrassment if it had happened to her.

Then she was frozen, in astonishment, when he went on to describe the assignment. It was as bad as she had thought, and worse. Dancing! Violet had had some rudimentary lessons in the basics from Miss Howard, but had never actually danced for real, nor did she think she really knew how.

She looked around, trying to figure out what to do. She thought that trying to find a partner to dance with would be unbearably awkward, but she dreaded the prospect of trying to dance alone as much or more. She wished she knew someone well enough to feel comfortable asking them.