To her relief, Fatty mostly left her alone. Pin seemed to intimidate him, which was fine by her.

It was just as well they’d left Riverview. Once Mr. Hecht’s exclusive newspaper story ran in the Daily News, and everyone knew that the boy they’d known as Pin was actually a girl named Vivian, she’d been hounded by the boys in the park. Surprisingly, only Clyde was polite to her.

“I don’t blame you now,” he said a few days before she and her mother moved out. “You with your sister…it’s a bad old world for young girls. I don’t blame you one bit.”

Now, in her freshman English class, she sat staring at a blank page in her composition book and waited for the bell to ring, signaling the end of the school day. At first, the other high-school students had boiled with curiosity over the girl who’d dressed as a boy who’d dressed as a girl, and escaped from a murderer.

But Pin felt shy and tongue-tied in her stiff new sailor dresses and shirtwaists. The other girls bored her, and the boys showed little interest, once she rebuffed their feeble attempts at flirting. Her classmates didn’t taunt or torment her, as she’d feared. After the first few weeks of school, they simply ignored her.

She lifted her gaze from the page to the wall clock, watched as the second hand ticked along. The bell rang. The classroom erupted into a chorus of laughter and chatter, chairs being scraped back and people racing for the door. She gathered her textbooks, waiting till the room emptied before she stood.

“Vivian? Miss Onofria?”

Pin headed to the door, halting only when someone grasped her arm.

“Vivian Onofria, I’m speaking to you.”

She looked up to see the school principal, Miss Weiss. Miss Weiss always dressed in sensible clothing, a plain dark-blue street dress and brogues. She wore her brown hair in a boyish bob, a recent fashion for women.

“Sorry, miss,” Pin said, flushing. She still couldn’t get used to being addressed by her given name.

“Someone’s here to see you. In my office, come with me, please.”

Pin followed her down the hall, avoiding the eyes of students who stared as she passed. She’d stayed out of trouble since arriving here; she was a mediocre student, but only one among many. Now she wondered if her continual failure to remember she was Vivian Onofria, not Pin Maffucci, had earned her detention.

“I’ll be in my office,” Miss Weiss said as she waved Pin into the waiting room. The school secretary, Miss Kingsley, glanced up at her and smiled.

“Here she is! Vivian, you have a visitor.”

A tall, broad-shouldered man unfolded himself from a chair and stood, holding his hat.

“Pin,” he said, and grinned.

“Mr. Carrera!” She grinned back, for what felt like the first time in weeks.