“No!” I said. I shook my head desperately for emphasis. “No, no, no, no, no.”

“No?” Imogen looked confused.

I glanced at the half-eaten pizza in front of me.

“It’s the pizza,” I said. “Goes through me like a brick. Believe me, anyone and anything in the vicinity when this bomb drops—”

“Whoa,” said Imogen, in a way that meant “Stop, please!” “Okay. Message received.”

I stood up. And then I nearly tripped and biffed it. It was then that I noticed the shoes I was wearing—punk-style black heels with metal studs.

If there was a God, he clearly hated me. If not, I had the evolutionary luck of the dinosaurs.

“Are you okay?” said Imogen. She didn’t even wait for an answer. She jumped up, moved around the table, and grabbed me for stability—one hand on my arm, the other on my hip. Because hips were a thing I had now.

This was the part where I would have had a raging boner. However, since my equipment had been rearranged, I felt something very different happening downstairs, and it was kind of freaking me out.

“I’m okay,” I said—or tried to say, but my voice cracked. I didn’t even know girls’ voices could crack. “I think my heel broke.”

“Really?” said Imogen. She crouched down and examined my shoe—placing a hand on my thigh for balance. “It doesn’t look like it—”

“Nope, definitely broke!” I exclaimed. I fumbled desperately to undo the straps on my shoes, then pulled them off. Beneath them, I was wearing fishnets. I slowly scanned my wardrobe upward—a ratty plaid skirt and a Pat Benatar T-shirt. Okay, the shirt was admittedly kind of cool.

Once the deathtraps were off my feet, I stood up—heels in hand—and rushed in slippery stocking feet to the cafeteria exit.

“Ezra!” Holden’s voice sliced through the bog of chatter. “What the hell, man?”

Instinctively, I looked over my shoulder. Holden, however, was talking to the other Ezra, who also happened to be making a hasty exit.

Wynezra had mirrored my timing. We reached the hallway at the same moment, at which point I almost expected her to bolt in the opposite direction.

Instead, she grabbed my elbow and pulled me into the girls’ bathroom.

“Ow, ow, ow!” I said. “Hey, I’m not allowed in here! Or… well, one of us isn’t allowed in here.”

Wynezra shoved me into the nearest stall and locked the door.

“I’ve had it up to here with you,” she said. She raised her hand half a foot above her head, indicating where “here” was.

“You think I want this?” I shrieked. I raised her studded heels like a murder weapon. “I almost died in these things! Are you trying to kill me?”

“If it gets me my life back, then sure!”