First and always was her hair. Long and untamed and red. And there was the milky skin that was standard issue with the hair, and freckles like red-pepper flakes across her nose. The best of her features—her blue-green eyes—were not enhanced by cinnamon-colored lashes.

Mama came up behind her, placed her hands on Leni’s shoulders. “You are beautiful and you will make friends at this new school.”

Leni wanted to take comfort from the familiar words, but how often had they proven untrue? She’d been the new girl at school a lot of times, and she’d never yet found a place she fit in. Something was always wrong about her on the first day—her hair, her clothes, her shoes. First impressions mattered in junior high. She had learned that lesson the hard way. It was hard to recover from a fashion error with thirteen-year-old girls.

“I’m probably the only girl in the whole school,” she said with a dramatic sigh. She didn’t want to hope for the best; dashed hopes were worse than no hopes at all.

“Certainly you’ll be the prettiest,” Mama said, tucking the hair behind Leni’s ear with a gentleness that reminded Leni that whatever happened, she wasn’t ever really alone. She had her mama.

The cabin door opened, bringing in a whoosh of cold air. Dad came in carrying a pair of dead mallards, their broken necks hanging, beaks banging into his thigh. He set his gun in the rack by the door and laid his kill on the wooden counter by the dry sink.

“Ted took me to his blind before dawn. We have duck for dinner.” He slipped in beside Mama and kissed the side of her neck.

Mama swatted him away, laughing. “You want coffee?”

When Mama went into the kitchen, Dad turned to Leni. “You look glum for a girl going off to school.”

“I’m fine.”

“Maybe I know the problem,” Dad said.

“I doubt it,” she said, sounding as dispirited as she felt.

“Let me see,” Dad said, frowning in an exaggerated way. He left her standing there and went into his bedroom. Moments later, he came out carrying a black trash bag, which he set on the table. “Maybe this will help.”

Yeah. What she needed was garbage.

“Open it,” Dad said.

Leni reluctantly ripped the bag open.

Inside, she found a pair of rust-and-black-striped bell-bottoms and a fuzzy ivory-colored wool fisherman’s sweater that looked like it used to be a man’s size and someone had shrunk it.

Oh, my God.

Leni might not know much about fashion, but these were definitely boy’s pants, and the sweater … she didn’t think it had been in style in any year of her life.

Leni caught Mama’s look. They both knew how hard he had tried. And how profoundly he’d failed. In Seattle, an outfit like this was social suicide.