She entered the room accompanied by a large lady who introduced herself as Mavis Jarrett, guardian. The girl hung her head and her three pounds of shoulder-length braids fell on either side of her wide face. Her thick, broad lips filled her face as she smiled, showing enviably clean, straight teeth. When the principal asked her name she looked up with big, bright, clear, black on pure-white eyes.

She must have heard the comment time and again. She said 'Thank you' before the principal had finished saying, 'What beautiful eyes you have.'

Then the principal asked her to give her name, to confirm what was on the application form.

'Pillaire Cappucchi.'

'Are you Jamaican?'

'Yes, Miss.'

'Have you lived abroad?'

'Yes, Miss.'

'For how long?'

'Summer holidays in Los Angeles with my mom and stepfather.'

'I see,' the principal said. She concluded the girl's stepfather must be Italian, a Mr. Cappucchi who had adopted her.

'I'm going to re-sit English and Math, do the SAT, and rejoin my mom in August of next year.'

'You have to select three more subjects, my dear. You need to be busy with more subjects. We'll help you to select these. By the way, Miss Jarrett, she is not allowed to wear false hair here. Please explain the importance of dealing with her own God-given hair - unless, of course, she is a cancer patient. Come, Pillaire, let me take you to your classroom.'

At the door the principal asked the subject teacher to excuse them and encouraged the new student to give her name.

'I'm Pillaire Cappucchi,' she said with an impressive accent.

The class echoed 'Pillaire Cappucchi' as the subject teacher pointed her to a seat.

They crowded around her at lunch break. 'Hey, Pillaire this, and Pillaire that. Pillaire Cappucchi.' Her name rang on their tongues. She was Miss Popularity, even after the three pounds of braids were removed, revealing a near-bald head.

Incident Number One came when a gang of girls from Instant High, her past school, marched on the schoolground to ill-talk Pillaire,announcing that she had not only borrowed their things but that everything about her was false. The teachers who were present dismissed the matter as the work of jealous and malicious teenagers.

She was already entered for the June '98 C.X.C exams, and classmates were predicting Level One passes for Pillaire, when a long distance call came from Los Angeles for the principal. The caller, with a deep American accent, identified herself as Miss Pamella Thompson, Jamaican-born and -bred, mother of Pamelita Thompson. She wanted to know how her daughter was doing as she prepared for the exams. She needed a verification letter from the school for U.S. Immigration. And she asked to talk to her daughter.

'We have no Pamelita Thompson here.'

'I know that she is there. What does she call herself now?'

Miss Thompson described her daughter, lapsing into patois when she said, 'She name Pamelita Thompson. Mek sure Pamelita Thompson is on har papers, 'cause ah don't want any trouble wid Immigration. Call har to de phone, please.'

Pillaire Cappucchi was summoned to the principal's office. She spoke with her mother and was in tears when she hung up.

The guidance counsellor gave assurance that she would initiate a programme of self-acceptance for the many students who did not think much of themselves and their given names. Pillaire was one of many high school students who were buying and wearing false hair, which cost up to $2,000, and who were bleaching their skins with soaps costing over $200 each, and who with their low self-esteem were fabricating names.

When last I saw her, Pamelita Thompson was waiting patiently at the Registrar General's Department, executing a name change to Pillaire Cappucchi.

- Veronica Carnegie