“Oh, great. A slap. Terrific.” No wonder Stella’s head had felt fizzy and why her stomach ached. No wonder she was in such a terrible mood. “Welcome to the world of pain.”

Stella had changed her clothes, folding the stained skirt and panties into her backpack, slipping the blue blazer over the new black dress. She realized that the fabric was practically see-through. You had to have courage to wear something like this, even when it was half covered up. You had to have faith that you could pull it off and not look like a total fool. Stella smoothed down the skirt and buttoned her blazer, then went to wash her hands. So far, this business of being a woman had been exhausting.

“I hate my mother,” Stella said idly as she dried her hands and dashed on more lipstick. In the flickering light of the washroom she looked especially pale without lipstick and extraordinarily trashy with it. “She watches over me like I’m some sort of wilting flower.”

“You think your mother’s bad? At least she’s never killed anyone.”

“Only emotionally.”

They laughed as they rushed to Miss Hewitt’s class.

“If anyone bothers you about not wearing your full uniform,” Juliet whispered, “tell them you’re bleeding to death. That ought to shut them up.”

“Right.” Stella was self-conscious in the black dress. She wondered if she had put on too much lipstick.

“And let me deal with the authority figure. You know how sincere I can pretend to be.”

Once inside the classroom, Stella scuttled to her desk while Juliet apologized to Miss Hewitt for their lateness. Juliet explained they’d had female problems, the sort of thing her mother had never had time to explain to her since, Juliet reminded Miss Hewitt, Mrs. Aronson was in the state prison at Framingham and was a vile murderess who had left Juliet to fend for herself in the cruel world. How could Miss Hewitt debate that? How could she dock them points for tardiness? Stella was impressed by Juliet yet again. A loyal friend was so comforting, even on a day as horrible as this. Quickly, Stella set to work on her exam. She had actually studied, hoping to raise her faltering grade out of the realm of the C’s, and she might have done exactly that if she hadn’t happened to look up after writing her name. Her gaze settled on Miss Hewitt and once it did, she couldn’t look away. There, plain as day, was a fish bone, right in the middle of the math teacher’s throat.

Stella blinked. She’d been dizzy after all; she probably wasn’t seeing straight. But when she looked again, the bone remained exactly where it had been, wedged in tightly. It was a delicate object, white and narrow, a trout bone, perhaps. From its form and shape anyone could tell it would be impossible to cough up once it had caught in the trachea.

Stella’s pulse was pounding and her mouth had gone completely dry. Right away, she understood that she had somehow managed to see Miss Hewitt’s future, the physical manifestation of the math teacher’s fate. Sitting at her desk, ignoring the exam for which she had dutifully studied, helpless against the forces of destiny, Stella’s complexion turned ashen. Her heart bumped against her ribs and her head spun. When she fainted, the other girls in the classroom gasped and left their desks so they could gather round. Someone pulled down Stella’s sheer skirt, for modesty’s sake; another student rolled up her blazer, in order to cushion Stella’s head on the hard, tile floor.

Naturally everyone understood the situation once Juliet announced that Stella had gotten her period for the first time and that her cramps had indeed been wicked. The school nurse was called in to assist with smelling salts and a cold compress. At last, Stella came to consciousness, sitting up slowly, hands clutching her aching head. For an instant she didn’t know where she was, not until she saw Juliet Aronson’s worried face.

“Happy birthday,” Juliet said.

It was Juliet who convinced the math teacher to allow Stella to leave early. Poor Miss Hewitt, as unaware of her own dire future as she was blind to Juliet Aronson’s manipulations, assured Stella that she could make up the test after the weekend. A taxi was called, her coat was retrieved from her locker, and that should have been the end of Stella’s troubles. But on the way home, Stella spied a pea-shaped object inside the taxi driver’s skull. She nearly fainted again, but she held herself together with sheer will. She would not act like a baby. She would not let this get the best of her, whatever it might be, a curse or an omen or a crossed wire somewhere inside her head. She opened the taxi’s window and forced herself to breathe deeply; just in case there was more to see, she kept her eyes closed all the rest of the way down Beacon Street.