“Let me ask first.” She has to get the question out before they lecture her, if she’s to have any chance. And she does want to go to the party, she’s pretty sure. Even if it’s scary.

“You’re slushing all over the carpet in here. Jesus Christ.”

Hazel swallows the back talk welling in her throat. She has to stay on her father’s good side. She treks to the foyer and unbuckles her snow pants. She throws them on the newel post, where they land on coats and scarves piled like a mass of colorful ice cream. When she returns to the living room her mom rises for tea.

“Do you want lemon ginger, Haze?”

“No, but let me ask first.”

“Go ahead,” her father says. “No one’s stopping you.”

“I just wanted to ask. Like, there’s this party.”

“A birthday party?”

“For New Year’s.”

“Well, I didn’t see a card for that.” Hazel’s father shifts in his chair, making a sound like farting.

“Melissa and Kit invited me in person.”

Hazel’s dad shakes his head. He says Melissa’s eyes are clotted with makeup and that kids with single moms go feral. Once Melissa’s mom came to pick Melissa up, and he didn’t show her the pins. He wedged his body in the door, sealing the house until Melissa came down to leave. “That sounds like it goes past eight thirty.”

“That’s the whole point.” He won’t understand if Hazel says she wants to know what Esther Meng is like, or that she can’t stand to be parted from Melissa and Kit for yet another defining episode. “I want to see the new year start.”

“Those parties aren’t for children,” her mom says. “Why don’t you stay home that night?”

Hazel’s mom has a cloud of pale hair that she burns dry every morning. Whenever Hazel meets her focus, her frown springs into a grin. The grin is toothy and tight, like a sad shark that smiles only because of its anatomy.

“I never get to see the year change,” Hazel says. “You never stay up.”

“It’s nothing special,” her dad says. “You count down, you cheer. You might sing a song, if you’re lucky. Best to just stay home.”

Hazel clomps up to her room, chewing on a frightening urge to yell at him. She lets Ratty out, pets his back until her breathing slows. He’s a shrunken cow, with his chocolate splashes on white fur. His muzzle is substantial for a rodent, his cascade of whiskers intelligent. He has a window of white in each dark eye.

He skitters across her bed, measuring. When he knows he’s trapped, he settles on the quilt, hiding his face with his tail.

The next day is December thirtieth. Hazel, Melissa, and Kit meet on the ramp of I-95 to flash the oncoming lanes, forming a row ten feet from the shoulder. Melissa calls, “Three, two, one, flash!” and they lift their shirts. The idea is based on a Boston radio program that says on Wednesdays you have to flash cars if the bumper sticker says WOW. WOW means Whip ’em Out Wednesday. But they don’t wait for the stickers.