“Uh . . . nothing, really . . . just a . . . a pendant.” Thank heavens she said pendant, and not locket. If she had said locket, they might become curious. Too late! Carrie was already moving toward her.

“Let’s see it,” she demanded.

“I’d rather not. It’s . . . it’s fragile.”

“She’d rather not?” Carrie sneered. “Belonged to your late mother, I presume.” The Queen of Snark, Rose thought. Carrie’s eyes narrowed. She took a step closer. “An heirloom, perhaps?” One of Carrie’s tinted blue eyebrows took a hike toward the blue streak in her hair.

“An heirloom for a nobody?” Brianna giggled. Her pointy little rodent snout wiggled just a bit, giving her a comic touch in Rose’s mind. You might be a champion ice-skater but you don’t have the snark down, Brianna. Gotta work on it, Rat Girl, Rose thought.

Ugh, I might be Wonder Woman in my head, but I’m pure Jell-O inside. Rose felt as if every vital organ were quivering and on the brink of collapse. The numbers on her internal Richter scale were climbing. She was heading toward a seven quake—body quake, that is.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rose replied, trying to steady her tremulous voice. Lisa now slid toward the bathroom door and rested herself firmly against it to block anybody coming in.

“Tell her what you found out, Brianna.”

“My mother heard that your grandmother never had a husband, and her daughter never had one either. Your mom. But of course she’s dead. And your dad seems MIA.”

“MIA?” Rose’s voice cracked.

“Missing in action.” Carrie spat out the words. Rose’s hand moved to her throat where the locket rested, a secret inside it. Might he look like her? Then she would no longer be a nobody. Perhaps somebody’s daughter instead? Somebody who just might be alive and not dead.

“So where in the world would you get an heirloom? An heirloom is a valuable object that has belonged to generations of a family. What family?”

“It’s none of your business.” Her heart was clamoring in her chest. She folded her hand around the locket. Around the secret that she might not believe. A secret father? But how could that be?

“Now there’s where you’re wrong, Rosy!”

Carrie lunged toward her and had her hands on her neck. “Let me go. Let me go!” Rose screeched, and at the same moment a voice thundered from the other side of the door.

“This door needs to be opened immediately. I have a sick student here who needs to get in.”

“Oh God, the Elf.” Lisa quickly slid away from the door and Ms. Elfenbach entered with a greenish-looking sixth grader who promptly vomited on Carrie’s shoes. “Ick! That little creep.”

“Stop that, Carrie.” Ms. Elfenbach quickly guided the girl to the sink, where she vomited again.

Rose fled from the bathroom.