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different period in time!”
    The class was blank.
    “Duh,” said Timmy, speaking for them all.
    Next to Dove was Hesta, a girl whom Dove had always disliked. Hesta delighted in telling you that you looked a little heavy lately, had you put on weight? You looked a bit run-down, had your parents’ ugly courtroom divorce bothered you? You had done poorly on that exam, hadn’t you? Well, a person couldn’t skim along on favoritism forever, could she?
    That was Hesta.
    Hesta’s eyes were glued to Dove’s. She was staring the way you simply never stare at another living human being: incredulously, fascinated, perhaps even sickened. Her mouth fell slightly open, and the gum she was chewing lay in a pale green wad between her teeth. Her eyes never blinked.
    “I’ll give you a hint,” said Mr. Phinney. “For example,” he said, his desire to pass on his eagerness touching, “ bridges !”
    Bridges? thought Dove.
    “Bridges,” repeated Hesta. She crossed her eyes. The class inched toward snickering.
    Hesta’s method of going to school was simply to sit there and wait for it to be over. She never acted as if she even heard the teacher talking, and she certainly never attempted to respond to the teacher’s questions or lectures. She was almost worse than rude; far from being difficult or talking back, Hesta acted as if there were no teacher.
    “The technology of crossing rivers,” explained Mr. Phinney.
    A weird chuckle sounded right next to Dove. It did not seem to be Hesta. Dove did not know who in her class would laugh like that.
    Hesta could see something behind the curtains of Dove’s eyes.
    But what was it?
    “The history of bridging, don’t you see!” cried the teacher, as excited as Christmas morning. “From early pontoons lashed together with cords of rawhide to the Brooklyn Bridge! From—”
    Dove’s lungs were collapsing. Her chest was caving in. She tried to faint, but her lungs would not permit it. They inhaled.
    “I have a suggestion,” said Wing.
    Her fluted voice trembled like feathers in the breeze.
    Dove fell backward into the space in the head. Not in class! she said to Wing. Don’t you do this in class! You can’t be Wing right in the middle of my life!
    Wing said, “The history of snakes.” She hissed on the s’s , until the class trembled, seeing snakes coiled under desks, forked tongues lashing, cold skin quivering, poison sacs gathering.
    “The history of snakes, Dove?” said Mr. Phinney, frowning.
    It’s not me, Dove tried to say, I wouldn’t research the history of snakes. But Dove’s lungs had collapsed. Wing owned the voice now. It was Wing’s body now. Where am I? thought Dove.
    “Starting with Egypt, of course. Remember Cleopatra?” Wing spoke as if she did, indeed, remember Cleopatra. Wing stood up, using Dove’s body, and threw a pose like Egyptian royalty. “When the Romans were going to take Cleopatra prisoner,” said Wing, “and exhibit her like a beast in a cage, Cleopatra took her life like a queen. She held an asp to her bosom.”
    Wing cupped her hands around an invisible, snake. Her eyes widened in pain and horror, and yet in pride, as she allowed the asp to deliver death. “Poison,” said Wing, “can be a gift.”
    Nobody moved. They had frozen into place in the classroom as if bitten by Cleopatra’s asp. They were transfixed by Wing.
    Whom they thought was Dove.
    I’m here, thought Dove, I’m still here, don’t go away!
    “I have a perfume called Poison,” volunteered Connie. Of course Connie could never follow a conversation. Connie was always picking up a single word and running off in some other direction with it. “Why, Dove, just the other day, you bought a perfume called Venom ,” said Connie. “Isn’t that a coincidence? Both snakey names.” An immense shudder shook Connie’s body, but Dove, who was well acquainted with shudders, thought it was fake.
    “Why do they give perfumes names like that?” said Timmy, frowning.