Spokane Books

“Arnold," she said one day after school, "I hate this little town. It's so small, too small. Everything about it is small. The people here have small ideas. Small dreams. They all want to marry each other and live here forever."
"What do you want to do?" I asked.
"I want to leave as soon as I can. I think I was born with a suitcase."
Yeah, she talked like that. All big and goofy and dramatic. I wanted to make fun of her, but she was so earnest.
"Where do you want to go?" I asked.
"Everywhere. I want to walk on the Great Wall of China. I want to walk to the top of pyramids in Egypt. I want to swim in every ocean. I want to climb Mount Everest. I want to go on an African safari. I want to ride a dogsled in Antarctica. I want all of it. Every single piece of everything."
Her eyes got this strange faraway look, like she'd been hypnotized.
I laughed.
"Don't laugh at me," she said.
"I'm not laughing at you," I said. "I'm laughing at your eyes."
"That's the whole problem," she said. "Nobody takes me seriously."
"Well, come on, it's kind of hard to take you seriously when you're talking about the Great Wall of China and Egypt and stuff. Those are just big goofy dreams. They're not real."
"They're real to me," she said.
"Why don't you quit talking in dreams and tell me what you really want to do with your life," I said. "Make it simple."
"I want to go to Stanford and study architecture."
"Wow, that's cool," I said. "But why architecture?"
"Because I want to build something beautiful. Because I want to be remembered."
And I couldn't make fun of her for that dream. It was my dream, too. And Indian boys weren't supposed to dream like that. And white girls from small towns weren't supposed to dream big, either.
We were supposed to be happy with our limitations. But there was no way Penelope and I were going to sit still. Nope, we both wanted to fly:”
― Sherman Alexie