I set down my pencil atop my math and turned to her.

“I honestly don’t see how you do it. I’ve been here all my life and I’m like a disease. You’ve been at our school for like two minutes and you’ve got friends falling out of your ears. You yell at cool kids in the hall and you’re a hero instead of getting stomped? You’ve got two parents who sign you up for cool things like fencing lessons? It blows my mind. What is that like? Seriously, what in the world is that like, to have a life so…nice?”

Claire had been twisting a lock of deviant hair around a finger. She let it go and it sprung back to her cheek like the staysail of a boat after being severed. Her expression was not one of offense or anger but rather of darkened curiosity, as if weighing whether I was prepared for a truthful response. I judged that I wasn’t, but it was too late: she removed her beret and shook out her hair, which leapt in all directions, a regiment of serpents to back her up. Then she lifted that pink backpack from the chair, set it upon the table, unzipped it, and withdrew the last things I’d expected to see.

Clothes, pretty ones, the kind of ensemble that would vault a girl like her into the popular crowd the instant she walked through school doors. A svelte pink dress with teal trim and matching hair ribbon. A pair of heeled shoes, two sparkly earrings, a tangled strand of pearls. And loads of cosmetics: eye shadow, lipstick, blush, nail polish, and several other containers I wasn’t qualified to identify. The last item she removed was a well-used jar of makeup remover. She held this for a moment longer as if it carried the most significance.

“We do have a nice life.” She spoke carefully. “We have a nice house. Mum keeps it nice because that’s how Da likes it. We have nice hobbies. It’s not just fencing lessons I’ve been instructed to take, it’s piano, voice—all the best diversions for some Scots out to be an upstanding American family. We have nice food—turkey, potatoes, greens. Da likes us to have nice food, he makes sure that’s understood. And we dress very nicely. Very nicely indeed. I’d say if you were to stop by our place and peek in our window around dinnertime, you might nominate us for the nicest family in all of San Bernardino. Perfect for postcards and TV sitcoms—all we’re missing are the spunky little dog and wacky neighbor.”

The pink backpack sat between us on the table like an engorged insect on a dissection slab, cut open and spilling its ugly secrets.

“Monsters don’t always look like monsters,” she said.