I got in trouble for dancing at Tolo. Many of my fellow students can claim the same fate; a cut wristband and trip to the time-out bench wasn’t exactly a rare occurrence. But people reacted differently when they saw me. “Tory Sheffield, in trouble at the dance?! Our school is bonkers indeed!”

See, I’m a bit of a goodie-two shoes. I take rigorous classes. I’m not really a partier. I participate in various extracurricular activities. I’m a white girl in a fairly well-off family. My parents attended competitive colleges. I get stopped to show a hall pass about 5.6 percent of the time.

When I walked into the office to face my punishment for the dance the day we returned from break, the school cop took one look at me and said, “You are in trouble?” He laughed to himself.

For these reasons, no one expected to see me exposing a pregnant belly to the world one overcast Saturday morning.

Fine, I won’t build up suspense until the end of this story, though I did quicken your heart rate for a moment. I’m not pregnant.

But for one morning, through the eyes of my fellow Seattleites, little miss Tory Sheffield transformed into a knocked-up sixteen-year-old clad in a trendy sweats-and-Birkenstocks combo and an old winter coat. Underneath the coat lay the finishing touch: a leotard with a four inch protruding lump.

Finding my pregnant belly was no small task, but at last I located one and planned an excursion for the following morning. Next I chose an alias: Victoria. I picked this pseudonym on the pretense of fully engaging this new role, a bit of method-acting. My first few minutes in this new persona were some of the most painful I have ever experienced.

They played out something like this: Victoria enters bus, putting one hand on lower back for good support. Victoria sits near the front and twiddles thumbs on top of belly, not knowing exactly what to do with herself. Although Victoria is the only soul on the bus, and probably within ten feet of the driver, the driver belts out, “32ND AND CHERRY!” and other stop locations to fill the excruciating silence.

At last, other characters began to trickle on, filling the bus with their personalities. I usually stick out on this bus — a lone, collected white girl amongst a melting pot of races and wide-ranging, outspoken individuals.

This first bus ride was no different.

But a feeling of alienation washed over me mainly because of my expectations of how the public would react to me. Because of the Tolo episode, I figured a goodie-two-shoes pregnant white girl would evoke more shock than the average pregnant teenager, especially from other races and therefore especially on this Metro Route 3. I expected a feeling of total isolation. And I expected to bravely combat this feeling with a courageous attitude.

Alas, my thoughts were cut off as the bus lurched to a stop and my water broke.

At this time, I will take a brief intermission to explain something about my persona. It is purely coincidental that I chose the alias “Victoria” and that there was a fifteen-year-old girl named Victoria who appeared on Maury to proclaim, “I don’t care what my mama says, I’m gonna have a baby.” My persona’s name was founded on my full name, not on the presumption that having three pacifiers, multiple blankets, and designer clothes will earn a mother overwhelming love and devotion from a one-month-old.

So my water didn’t actually break. Instead, I left the uneventful bus ride behind and wandered aimlessly downtown for about twenty minutes. Finally I collected myself and worked up the confidence to approach strangers with a psychological experiment.

“Hi, I’m doing a survey on how make-up affects age. How old do you think I am?” I posed. The most frequent answer was “twenty-five and smokin’ hot!” but these were interspersed with many late-teenage ages and even a “twenty.” (Score!)

But the people who guessed in the later years were those who took an extra step back and gave me and my baby a once, twice, and even thrice up-and-down scan. Did that man on the corner only mutter “eighteen” because he hoped I was this age, finding it more socially acceptable for a teen to become pregnant at this time?

I was surprised by how members of my own race acted more outraged with me than members of other races; somehow many white people gave me the feeling that I was an embarrassment to people like them.

As I walked around, I bumped into a group of high-school Girl Scouts hollering at passers-by. A couple of the girls were busy shouting and motioning some contrived cheer when I walked up. Unfortunately, I didn’t hear that lovely cheer ever again, for they gave me so much attention that for a moment I forgot I hadn’t just pulled off my invisibility cloak and waved hello.

These girls were my age. They looked somewhat like me. They could well be in my situation, and I think this terrified them the most. It was not pleasant to stand around waiting for one of the girls to grapple with an age speculation. I can’t even remember her guess.

As the Girl Scouts refused to break their gazes, I hollered, “Sorry this girl is gettin’ some and you ain’t gettin’ nothing but fat from Tagalongs!” and snapped my fingers. Ok, so perhaps I didn’t snap my fingers. Or utter that phrase. But if those scouts could read minds, that’s what they would have heard.

The truth is I was beginning to enjoy this “bad girl” image. I passive-aggressively giggled at the scrutinizing judgment and frowns. Here, though, I’m afraid I fell out of character. My stuffed belly leotard was light as a feather, so in no way could I feel the true weight of pregnancy.

While I embraced the luxury of not being viewed as a version of perfection, I broke all ties with Victoria, the true pregnant teenager who would be floundering along, somehow summoning the strength to ignore the stares. If there’s one thing that Victoria from Maury’s got that the pregnant me didn’t, it’s guts.

Later in the afternoon, I shed the leotard in order to complete my age-survey. I gave people the same spiel, only with my belly in my bag. The answers were considerably lower: mostly sixteens and fifteens. And fine, one thirteen.

The frustration from this last answer aside, the ride home with the fake baby bump once again covering my stomach was pretty enjoyable. Although nothing on that bus was protruding more than my belly, I ironically felt like I stuck out miles less than normal. I had somehow become a part of this odd assortment of people, riding home on the Route 3 on a Saturday afternoon. It seemed the melting pot of races and personalities, so used to scrutiny itself, stared more with admiration for the courage a real pregnant teenager needs.

As I walked through the Central District, one man said, “God bless ya, child, raising a baby.” A smile plastered itself on my face, and remained intact for multiple blocks.