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up my "missing" homework in her room. (She made fluttering noises of concern and mentioned a meeting with my parents. Not good.) Nobody bothered to tell me that study hall was being held in the library today. By the time I find it, the period is almost over. I'm dead. I try to explain to the librarian, but I keep stuttering and nothing comes out right. Librarian: "Calm down, calm down. It's OK. Don't get upset. You are Melinda Sordino, right? Don't worry. I'll mark you present. Let me show you how it works. If you think you're 24 going to be late, just ask a teacher for a late pass. See? No need for tears." She holds up a small green pad — my get-out-of-j ail-free cards. I smile and try to choke out a "thank you," but can't say any- thing. She thinks I'm overcome with emotion because she didn't bust me. Close enough. There's not enough time for a nap, so I check out a stack of books to make the librarian happy. I might even read one. I don't come up with my brilliant idea right then and there. It is born when Mr. Neck tracks me through the cafeteria, de- manding my "Twenty Ways the Iroquois Survived in the For- est" homework. I pretend that I don't see him. I cut through the lunch line, loop around a couple making out by the door, and start down a hall. Mr. Neck stops to break up the PDA. I head for the Seniors' Wing. I am in foreign territory where No Freshman Ffas Gone Be- fore. I don't have time to worry about the looks I'm getting. I can hear Mr. Neck. I turn a corner, open a door, and step into darkness. I hold the doorknob, but Mr. Neck doesn't touch it. I hear his footsteps lumber down the hall. I feel the wall next to the door until I find a light switch. I haven't stumbled into a classroom; it is an old janitor's closet that smells like sour sponges. The back wall has built-in shelves filled with dusty textbooks and a few bottles of bleach. A stained armchair and an old- fashioned desk peek from behind a collection of mops and brooms. A cracked mirror tilts over a sink littered with dead 25 roaches crocheted together with cobwebs. The taps are so rusted they don't turn. No janitor has chilled in this closet for a very long time. They have a new lounge and supply room by the loading dock. All the girls avoid it because of the way they stare and whistle softly when we walk by. This closet is aban- doned — it has no purpose, no name. It is the perfect place for me. I steal a pad of late passes from Hairwoman's desk. I feel much, much better. DEVILS DESTROY Not only is the Homecoming pep rally going to spring me from algebra, it will be a great time to clean up my closet. I brought some sponges from home. No need to goof off in filth. I want to smuggle in a blanket and some potpourri, too. My plan is to walk toward the auditorium with the rest of the crowd, then duck in a bathroom until the coast is clear. I would have made it past the teachers with no problem, but I forgot to factor in Heather. Just as the Escape Bathroom comes into sight, Heather calls my name, runs up, and grabs my arm. She is bursting with Merry weather Pride, all perk and pep and purple. And she assumes I am just as happy and excited as she is. We troop down for the brainwashing and she can't stop talking. Heather: "This is so exciting — a pep rally!! I made extra pom- poms. Here, have one. We'll look great during the Wave. I bet 26 the freshman class has the most spirit, don't you? I've always wanted to go to a pep rally. Can you imagine what it must be like to be on the football team and have the whole school sup- porting you? That is so powerful. Do you think they'll win tonight? They will, I just know they will. It's been a hard sea- son so far, but we'll get them going, won't we, Mel?" Her enthusiasm makes me itch, but sarcasm would go right over her head. It won't kill me to go to the rally. I have some- one to sit with — that counts as a step up on the ladder of so- cial acceptability. How bad could a rally be? I want to stand by the doors, but Heather drags me up into the freshman section of the bleachers. "I know these guys," she says. "They work with me on the newspaper." The newspaper? We have a newspaper? She introduces me to a bunch of pale, zitty faces. I vaguely rec- ognize a couple; the rest must have gone to the other middle school. I curve up the corners of my mouth without biting my lips. A small step. Heather beams and hands me a pom-pom. I relax an eensy bit. The girl behind me taps me on the shoul- der with her long black nails. She had heard Heather intro- duce me. "Sordino?" she asks. "You're Melinda Sordino?" I turn around. She blows a black bubble and sucks it back into her mouth. I nod. Heather waves to a sophomore she knows across the gym. The girl pokes me harder. "Aren't you the one who called the cops at Kyle Rodgers's party at the end of the summer?" 27 A block of ice freezes our section of the bleachers. Heads snap in my direction with the sound of a hundred paparazzi cam- eras. I can't feel my fingers. I shake my head. Another girl chimes in. "My brother got arrested at that party. He got fired because of the arrest. I can't believe you did that. Asshole." You don't understand, my headvoice answers. Too bad she can't hear it. My throat squeezes shut, as if two hands of black fingernails are clamped on my windpipe. I have worked so hard to forget every second of that stupid party, and here I am in the middle of a hostile crowd that hates me for what I had to do. I can't tell them what really happened. I can't even look at that part myself. An animal noise rustles in my stomach. Heather moves to pat my pom-pom, but pulls her hand back. For a minute she looks like she'll defend me. No, no, she won't. It might interfere with her Plan. I close my eyes. Breathe breathe breathe. Don't say anything. Breathe. The cheerleaders cartwheel into the gym and bellow. The crowd stomps the bleachers and roars back. I put my head in my hands and scream to let out the animal noise and some of that night. No one hears. They are all quite spirited. The band staggers through a song and the cheerleaders bounce. The Blue Devil mascot earns a standing ovation by back-flipping right into the principal. Principal Principal smiles and awshucks us. It has only been six weeks since the beginning of school. He still has a sense of humor. Finally, our own Devils hulk into the gym. The same boys who got detention in elementary school for beating the crap 28 out of people are now rewarded for it. They call it football. The coach introduces the team. I can't tell them apart. Coach Disaster holds the microphone too close to his lips, so all we hear is the sound of his spitting and breathing. The girl behind me jams her knees into my back. They are as sharp as her fingernails. I inch forward in my seat and stare intently at the team. The girl with the arrested brother leans forward. As Heather shakes her pom-poms, the girl yanks my hair. I almost climb up the back of the kid in front of me. He turns and gives me a dirty look. The coach finally hands the wet microphone back to the princi- pal, who introduces us to our very own cheerleaders. They slide into synchronized splits and the crowd goes nuts. Our cheer- leaders are much better at scoring than the football team is. CHEERLEADERS There are twelve of them: Jennie, Jen, Jenna, Ashley, Aubrey, Amber, Colleen, Kaitlin, Marcie, Donner, Blitzen, and Raven. Raven is the captain. Blondest of the blondes. My parents didn't raise me to be religious. The closest we come to worship is the Trinity of Visa, MasterCard, and American Express. I think the Merryweather cheerleaders confuse me because I missed out on Sunday School. It has to be a miracle. There is no other explanation. How else could they sleep with the football team on Saturday night and be reincarnated as virginal goddesses on Monday? It's as if they 29 operate in two realities simultaneously. In one universe, they are gorgeous, straight-teethed, long-legged, wrapped in de- signer fashions, and given sports cars on their sixteenth birth- days. Teachers smile at them and grade them on the curve. They know the first names of the staff. They are the Pride of the Trojans. Oops — I mean Pride of the Blue Devils. In Universe #2, they throw parties wild enough to attract col- lege students. They worship the stink of Eau de Jocque. They rent beach houses in Canciin during Spring Break and get group-rate abortions before the prom. But they are so cute. And they cheer on our boys, inciting them to violence and, we hope, victory. These are our role models — the Girls Who Have It All. I bet none of them ever stutter or screw up or feel like their brains are dissolving into marshmallow fluff. They all have beautiful lips, carefully out- lined in red and polished to a shine. When the pep rally ends, I am accidentally knocked down three rows of bleachers. If I ever form my own clan, we'll be the Anti-Cheerleaders. We will not sit in the bleachers. We will wander underneath them and commit mild acts of mayhem. THE OPPOSITE OF INSPIRATION IS . . . EXPIRATION? For a solid week, ever since the pep rally, I've been painting watercolors of trees that have been hit by lightning. I try to 30 paint them so they are nearly dead, but not totally. Mr. Free- man doesn't say a word to me about them. He just raises his eyebrows. One picture is so dark you can barely see the tree at all. We are all floundering. Ivy pulled "Clowns" as her assign- ment. She tells Mr. Freeman she hates clowns; a clown scared her when she was a little girl and it put her into therapy. Mr. Freeman says fear is a great place to begin art. Another girl whines that "Brain" is just too gross a subject for her. She wants "Kittens" or "Rainbows." Mr. Freeman throws his hands in the air. "Enough! Please turn your attention to the bookshelves." We dutifully turn and stare. Books. This is art class. Why do we need books? "If you are stumped, you may take some time to study the masters." He pulls out an armful. "Kahlo, Monet, O'Keeffe. Pollock, Pi- casso, Dali. They did not complain about subject, they mined every subject for the root of its meaning. Of course, they didn't have a school board forcing them to paint with both hands tied behind their backs, they had patrons who under- stood the need to pay for basic things such as paper and paint. . . " We groan. He's off on the school-board thing again. The school board has cut his supply budget, telling him to make do with the stuff left over from last year. No new paint, no ex- tra paper. He'll rant for the rest of the period, forty-three min- utes. The room is warm, filled with sun and paint fumes. Three kids fall dead asleep, eye twitches, snores, and every- thing. 31 I stay awake. I take out a page of notebook paper and a pen and doodle a tree, my second-grade version. Hopeless. I crum- ple it into a ball and take out another sheet. How hard can it be to put a tree on a piece of paper? Two vertical lines for the trunk. Maybe some thick branches, a bunch of thinner branches, and plenty of leaves to hide the mistakes. I draw a horizontal line for the ground and a daisy popping up next to the tree. Somehow I don't think Mr. Freeman is going to find much emotion in it. I don't find any. He started out as such a cool teacher. Is he going to make us thrash around with this ridiculous assignment without helping us? ACTING We get a day off for Columbus Day. I go to Heather's house. I wanted to sleep in, but Heather "really, really, really" wanted me to come over. There's nothing on television, anyway. Heather's mom acts very excited to see me. She makes us mugs of hot chocolate to take upstairs and tries to convince Heather to invite a whole group for a sleepover. "Maybe Mel- lie could bring some of her friends." I don't mention the pos- sibility that Rachel would slit my throat on her new carpet. I show my teeth like a good girl. Her mother pats my cheek. I am getting better at smiling when people expect it. Heather's room is finished and ready for viewing. It does not look like a fifth-grader's. Or a ninth-grader's. It looks like a commercial for vacuum cleaners, all fresh paint and vacuum- cleaner lines in the carpet. The lilac walls have a few artsy 32 prints on them. Her bookcase has glass doors. She has a tele- vision and a phone, and her homework is neatly laid out on her desk. Her closet is opened just a tad. I open it farther with my foot. All her clothes wait patiently on hangers, organized by type — skirts together, pants hanging by their cuffs, her sweaters stacked in plastic bags on shelves. The room screams Heather. Why can't I figure out how to do that? Not that I want my room screaming "Heather!" — that would be too creepy. But a little whisper of "Melinda" would be nice. I sit on the floor flipping through her CDs. Heather paints her nails on her desk blotter and blathers. She is determined to sign up for the musical. The Music Wingers are a hard clan to break into. Heather doesn't have talent or connections — I tell her she is wasting her time to even think of it. She thinks we should try out together. I think she has been breathing too much hairspray. My job is to nod or shake my head, to say "I know what you mean," when I don't, and "That is so unfair," when it isn't. The musical would be easy for me. I am a good actor. I have a whole range of smiles. I use the shy, look-up-through-the- bangs smile for staff members, and the crinkly-eye smile with a quick shake of my head if a teacher asks me for an answer. If my parents want to know how school went, I flash my eye- brows upward and shrug my shoulders. When people point at me or whisper as I walk past, I wave to imaginary friends down the hall and hurry to meet them. If I drop out of high school, I could be a mime. Heather asks why I don't think they would let us in the musi- cal. I sip my hot chocolate. It burns the roof of my mouth. 33 Me: "We are nobody." Heather: "How can you say that? Why does everyone have that attitude? I don't understand any of this. If we want to be in the musical, then they should let us. We could just stand on- stage or something if they don't like our singing. It's not fair. I hate high school." She pushes her books to the floor and knocks the green nail polish on the sand-colored carpet. "Why is it so hard to make friends here? Is there something in the water? In my old school I could have gone out for the musical and worked on the newspaper and chaired the car wash. Here people don't even know I exist. I get squished in the hall and I don't belong anywhere and nobody cares. And you're no help. You are so negative and you never try anything, you just mope around like you don't care that people talk about you behind your back." She flops on her bed and bursts into sobs. Big boohoos, with little squeals of frustration when she punches her teddy bear. I don't know what to do. I try to soak up the nail polish, but I make the stain bigger.
It looks like algae. Heather wipes her nose on the bear's plaid scarf. I slip out to the bathroom and come back with another box of tissues and a bottle of nail- polish remover. Heather: "I am so sorry, Mellie. I can't believe I said those things to you. It's PMS, don't pay any attention to me. You have been so sweet to me. You are the only person I can trust." She blows her nose loudly and wipes her eyes on her 34 sleeve. "Look at you. You're just like my mom. She says 'No use crying, just get on with your life.' I know what we'll do. First, we'll work our way into a good group. We'll make them like us. By next year, the Music Wingers will be begging us to be in the musical." It is the most hopeless idea I have ever heard, but I nod and pour the remover on the carpet. It lightens the polish to a bright vomit green and bleaches the carpet surrounding it. When Heather sees what I have done, she bursts into tears again, sobbing that it isn't my fault. My stomach is killing me. Her room isn't big enough for this much emotion. I leave without saying goodbye. DINNER THEATER The Parents are making threatening noises, turning dinner into performance art, with Dad doing his Arnold Schwarze- negger imitation and Mom playing Glenn Close in one of her psycho roles. I am the Victim. Mom: [creepy smile] "Thought you could put one over on us, did you, Melinda? Big high school student now, don't need to show your homework to your parents, don't need to show any failing test grades?" Dad: [Bangs table, silverware jumps] "Cut the crap. She knows what's up. The interim reports came today. Listen to me, young lady. I'm only going to say this once. You get those 35 grades up or your name is mud. Hear me? Get them up!" [At- tacks baked potato.] Mom: [annoyed at being upstaged] "I'll handle this. Melinda. [She smiles. Audience shudders] We're not asking for much, dear. We just want you to do your best. And we know your best is much better than this. You tested so well, dear. Look at me when I talk to you." [Victim mixes cottage cheese into applesauce. Dad snorts like a bull. Mom grasps knife.] Mom: "I said look at me." [Victim mixes peas into applesauce and cottage cheese. Dad stops eating.] Mom: "Look at me now." This is the Death Voice, the Voice that means business. When I was a kid, this Voice made me pee in my pants. It takes more now. 1 look Mom square in the eye, then rinse my plate and retreat to my room. Deprived of Victim, Mom and Dad holler at each other. I turn up my music to drown out the noise. BLUE ROSES After last night's interrogation, I try to pay attention in biol- ogy. We are studying cells, which have all these tiny parts you can't see unless you look at them under a microscope. We get 36 to use real microscopes, not plastic Kmart specials. It's not bad. Ms. Keen is our teacher. I feel kind of sad for her. She could have been a famous scientist or doctor or something. Instead, she's stuck with us. She has wooden boxes all over the front of the room that she climbs on when she talks to us. If she'd cut back on the doughnuts, she'd look like a tiny grandmother doll. Instead, she has a gelatinous figure, usually encased in orange polyester. She avoids basketball players. From their perspective, she must look like a basketball. I have a lab partner, David Petrakis. Belongs to the Cyber- genius clan. He has the potential to be cute when the braces come off. He is so brilliant he makes the teachers nervous. You'd think a kid like that would get beat up a lot, but the bad guys leave him alone. I have to find out his secret. David ig- nores me mostly, except when I almost ruined the $300 micro- scope by twisting the knob the wrong way. That was the day Ms. Keen wore a purple dress with bright blue roses. Baffling. They shouldn't let teachers change like that without some kind of Early Warning Alert. It shakes up the students. That dress was all anyone talked about for days. She hasn't worn it since. STUDENT DIVIDED BY CONFUSION EQUALS ALGEBRA I slide into my desk with ten minutes left in algebra class. Mr. Stetman stares at my late pass for a long time. I pull out a clean sheet of paper so I can copy the problems off the board. 37 I sit in the back row, where I can keep my eye on everyone, as well as whatever is going on in the parking lot. 1 think of my- self as the Emergency Warning System of the class. I plan dis- aster drills. How would we escape if the chemistry lab exploded? What if an earthquake hit Central New York? A tornado? It is impossible to stay focused on algebra. It's not that I'm bad at math. I tested at the top of the class last year — that's how I got Dad to pay for my new bike. Math is easy because there is no room for debate. The answer is right or it is wrong. Give me a sheet of math problems and I'll get 98 percent of them right. But I can't get my head around algebra. I knew why I had to memorize my multiplication tables. Understanding fractions, and decimals, and percentages, and even geometry — all that was practical. Toolz eye kan youz. It made so much sense I never thought about it. I did the work. Made honor roll. But algebra? Every single day, someone asks Mr. Stetman why we have to learn algebra. You can tell this causes him great personal pain. Mr. Stetman loves algebra. He is poetic about it, in an integral-number sort of way. He talks about algebra the way some guys talk about their cars. Ask him why algebra and he launches into a thousand and one stories why algebra. None of them makes sense. Mr. Stetman asks if anyone can explain the wangdiddler's role in the negative hotchka theorem. Heather has the answer. She is wrong. Stetman tries again. Me? I shake my head with a sad smile. Not this time, try me again in twenty years. He calls me to the board. 38 Mr. Stetman: "Who wants to help Melinda understand how we work our way through this problem? Rachel? Great." My head explodes with the noise of fire trucks leaving the sta- tion. This is a real disaster. Rachel/Rachelle clogs up to the board, dressed in an outrageous Dutch/Scandinavian ensem- ble. She looks half-cute, half-sophisticated. She has red laser eyes that burn my forehead. I wear basic Dumpster togs — smelly gray turtleneck and jeans. I just this minute remember that I need to wash my hair. Rachelle's mouth moves and her hand glides over the board, drawing funny shapes and numbers. I pull my lower lip all the way in between my teeth. If I try hard enough, maybe I can gobble my whole self this way. Mr. Stetman drones something and Rachelle flutters her eyelids. She nudges me. We are sup- posed to sit down. The class giggles as we walk back to our seats. I didn't try hard enough to swallow myself. My brain doesn't think we should spend any time hanging around algebra. We have better things to think about. It's a shame. Mr. Stetman seems like a nice guy. HALLOWEEN My parents declare that I am too old to go trick-or-treating. I'm thrilled. This way I don't have to admit that no one in- vited me to go with them. I'm not about to tell Mom and Dad that. To keep up appearances, I stomp to my room and slam the door. 39 I look out my window. A group of little creatures is coming up the walk. A pirate, a dinosaur, two fairies, and a bride. Why is it that you never see a kid dressed as a groom on Halloween? Their parents chat at the curb. The night is dangerous, parents are required — tall ghosts in khakis and down jackets floating behind the children. The doorbell rings. My parents squabble about who will an- swer it. Then Mom swears and opens the door with a high- pitched "Ooooh, who do we have here?" She must have handed out only one mini-chocolate bar to each creature — their thank-yous do not sound enthusiastic. The kids cut through the yard to the next house and their parents follow in the street. Last year, our clan all dressed up as witches. We went to Ivy's house because she and her older sister had theatrical makeup. We traded clothes and splurged on cheap black wigs. Rachel and I looked the best. We had used baby-sitting money to rent black satin capes lined in red. We rocked. It was an unusually warm, wicked evening. We didn't need long underwear and the sky was clear. The wind kicked up, skimming clouds over the surface of the full moon, which was hung just to make us feel powerful and strong. We raced through the night, a clan of untouchable witches. I actually thought for a moment that we could cast spells, could turn people into frogs or rabbits, to punish the evil and reward the good. We ended up with pounds of candy. After Ivy's parents went to bed, we lit a candle in the totally dark house. We held it in front of an antique mirror at midnight to see our futures. I couldn't see anything. 40 This year Rachelle is going to a party thrown by one of the exchange students' host families. I heard her talk about it in algebra. I knew I wouldn't get an invitation. I would be lucky to get an invitation to my own funeral, with my reputation. Heather is walking with some of the little kids in her neigh- borhood so their mothers can stay home. I am prepared. I refuse to spend the night moping in my room or listening to my parents argue. I checked out a book from the library, Dracula, by Bram Stoker. Cool name. I settle into my nest with a bag of candy corn and the blood-sucking mon- ster. NAME NAME NAME In a post-Halloween frenzy, the school board has come out against calling us the Devils. We are now the Merryweather Tigers. Roar. The Ecology Club is planning a rally to protest the "degrading of an endangered species." This is the only thing talked about at school. Especially during class. Mr. Neck has a steroid rage, screaming about Motivation and Identity and sacred School Spirit. We won't even make it to the Industrial Revolution at this rate. I get hosed in Spanish. "Linda" means "pretty" in Spanish. This is a great joke. Mrs. Spanish Teacher calls my name. Some stand-up comic cracks, "No, Melinda no es linda." 41 They call me Me-no-linda for the rest of the period. This is how terrorists get started, this kind of harmless fun. I wonder if it's too late to transfer to German. I just thought of a great theory that explains everything. When I went to that party, I was abducted by aliens. They have created a fake Earth and fake high school to study me and my reactions. This certainly explains cafeteria food. Not the other stuff, though. The aliens have a sick sense of humor. THE MARTHAS Heather has found a clan — the Marthas. She is a freshman member on probation. I have no idea how she did it. I suspect money changed hands. This is part of her strategy to make a place for herself at school. I am supposed to be tagging along. But the Marthas! It's an expensive clan to run with; outfits must be coordinated, crisp, and seasonally appropriate. They favor plaid for au- tumn with matching sweaters in colors named after fruit, like apricot and russet apple. Winter calls for Fair Isle sweaters, lined wool pants, and Christmas hair ornaments. They haven't told her what to buy for spring. I predict skirts with geese and white blouses with embroidered ducks on the collar. I tell Heather she should push the fashion envelope just a teeny bit to be an ironic reflection of the 1950s, you know, in- nocence and apple pie. She doesn't think the Clan Leaders, 42 Meg 'n' Emily 'n' Siobhan, understand irony. They like rules too much. Marthas are big on helping. The name of their group came from somebody in the Bible (the original Martha Clan Leader became a missionary in Los Angeles). But now they follow the Other Martha, Saint Martha of the Glue Gun, the lady who writes books about cheery decorations. Very Connecticut, very prep. The Marthas tackle projects and perform good deeds. This is ideal Heather work. She says they run the canned-food drive, tutor kids in the city, host a walkathon, a danceathon, and a rockingchairathon to raise money for I don't know what. They also Do Nice Things for teachers. Gag. Heather's first Martha Project is to decorate the faculty lounge for a Thanksgiving party/faculty meeting. She corners me after Spanish and begs me to help her. She thinks the Marthas have given her a deliberately impossible job so they can dump her. I've always wondered what the staff room looks like. You hear so many rumors. Will it have a cot for teachers who need naps? Economy-sized boxes of tissues for emotional melt- downs? Comfortable leather chairs and a private butler? What about the secret files they keep on all the kids? The truth is nothing more than a small green room with dirty windows and a lingering smell of cigarettes, even though it has been illegal to smoke on school property for years. Metal folding chairs surround a battered table. One wall has a bul- letin board that hasn't been cleared off since Americans walked on the moon. And I look, but I can't find any secret files. They must keep them in the principal's office. 43 I'm supposed to make a centerpiece out of waxed maple leaves, acorns, ribbon, and a mile of thin wire. Heather is go- ing to set the table and hang the banner. She babbles on about her classes while I ruin leaf after red leaf. I ask if we can trade before I cause permanent damage to myself. Heather gently untangles me from the wire. She holds a bunch of leaves in one hand, twists the wire around the stem — one-two — hides the wire with ribbon and hot-glues the acorns into place. It's spooky. I hurry to finish the table. Heather: "What do you think?" Me: "You are a decorating genius." Heather: [eyes rolling] "No, silly. What do you think about this! Me! Can you believe they're letting me join? Meg has been so sweet to me, she calls me every night just to talk." She walks around the table and straightens the forks I just set. "You are going to think this is ridiculous, but I was so up- set last month I asked my parents to send me to boarding school. But now I have friends, and I know how to open my locker, and [she pauses and scrunches her face up] it's just perfect!" I don't have to choke out an answer because Meg 'n' Emily 'n' Siobhan march in, carrying trays of mini-muffins and apple slices dipped in chocolate. Meg raises an eyebrow at me. Me: "Thanks for the homework, Heather. You are so help- ful." I scoot out the door, leaving it open a crack to watch what happens next. Heather stands at attention while our 44 handiwork is inspected. Meg picks up the centerpiece and ex- amines it from every angle. Meg: "Nicejob." Heather blushes. Emily: "Who was that girl?" Heather: "She's a friend. She was the first person to make me feel at home here." Siobhan: "She's creepy. What's wrong with her lips? It looks like she's got a disease or something." Emily holds out her watch (the watchband matches the bow in her hair). Five minutes. Heather has to leave before the teachers arrive. Part of being on probation means she's not al- lowed to take credit for her work. I hide in the bathroom until I know