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to enjoy. We have the most stunning revelations in the most mundane circumstances. We’re sort of magical, really. Thus was it revealed to me that I could not leave this particular restroom in this particular filling station on this particular giant island in this particular ocean on this particular day in this particular year.
    So I sat down on the toilet.
    I sat and I sat, and then I sat some more. I sat so long that the nail brigade tired of its labors and boarded the bus. I sat so long that I grew accustomed to the fetid smell of the hot bathroom. I sat so long that Leann gently knocked on the door and called my name not once, not twice, but three times.
    “Just a minute,” I said. “Just a sec.”
    In reality, I sat no more than twenty minutes. But stuck in that bathroom with only my hateful inner monologue for company, as my heart pounded in my ears and I perspired rivers, as my clothes took on the lingering scent of the shit and piss around me, I felt certain in the knowledge that to leave was to die. So I had to stay.
    Then I heard the bus horn honk loudly and violently, four times in a row. Even in my stupor, I was a little surprised. Our driver was a mild-mannered guy. I couldn’t picture him laying on the horn like that.
    I heard footsteps approaching the door.
    “Hey, Sara?” came a nervous voice that I recognized as Mr. D’Angelo’s. “Um, I know you’re not feeling well, but uh, I was wondering if you were maybe gonna wrap it up in there?”
    Then came another voice, equally nervous.
    “Sara,” Mr. Brixton said. “I’m terribly sorry to rush you, but your classmates are rather eager to get to the beach and, well, I wouldn’t say one of them has overpowered the driver, but she certainly seems unafraid to express her displeasure with the horn, and these small villages really do not appreciate the buses to begin with, and I’m afraid that the noise will rather antagonize . . .”
    “If it’s a woman’s thing,” Mr. D’Angelo offered, talking over Mr. Brixton, “it turns out the station does sell Midol or whatever, so I can go buy you some with a soda, and you can just take a nap on the bus if you don’t wanna come out to the beach with us. It’s just, the gang is getting restless and . . .” His words were interrupted by another blast of the horn.
    God bless adolescent rage and peer pressure. If there was one thing in my life that frightened me more than anything my untamed brain could conjure, it was the very real disapproval of my peer group. Amber and her friends had never been on my side, but now it sounded as if the whole group was turning. And I couldn’t abide that, no matter what my inner voice howled in protest.
    I rose from my perch on the toilet seat, shakily opened the latch, and stepped out into the blazing sunshine. Then the earth tilted in front of me, and I hit the ground.
    It was probably the most dramatic exit I’ve ever made from a lavatory. The response was appropriate: Mr. Brixton let out a very small, very controlled English shriek and Mr. D’Angelo gasped, “Oh, shit!”
    “Can she hear us?” Mr. Brixton asked.
    “SARA!” Mr. D’Angelo yelled. “CAN YOU HEAR US?”
    To my disappointment, I found that I had not lost consciousness and could, in fact, hear him loud and clear. I had landed with one cheek on the ground, and I could feel a couple of knee scrapes begin to gently ooze blood. It was my knees that had given out in the first place, so I figured they deserved whatever they got. It seemed a rather inauspicious time for them to take a lunch break, and I dimly thought I might have a talk with them once we reached Heaven or The Great Calzone in the Sky or wherever people go when they die in Sicily.
    Mr. Brixton knelt down and rummaged through his briefcase. For a moment, I caught a glimpse of thirty-nine befuddled, fascinated teenage faces pressed against the glass windows of a luxury air-conditioned motor coach. Then he stood up again, blocking my view