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you invite her to your party, I’m not coming! She’s weird and you know it. Besides, she spends so much time in that barn of theirs with the cows, we could all catch hoof and mouth.”
    â€œYou stop, Patsy. I almost peed my pants last time you got me laughing about Mary. I told you I didn’t want to have her any morethan you do, but Mumma says I have to. You know what she’s like when she sets her mind to something.”
    â€œI’m with Patsy, Vi. It’s your birthday. Can’t you tell your mother that it will ruin your day if Mary comes?”
    â€œI’ve told her and told her, but she just about took a switch to me. Said I was cruel and that I should think of Mary Bethany like some kind of poor little animal.”
    â€œWell, she got the animal part right.”
    The girls started to giggle uproariously at this last remark. Soon one grabbed at her crotch and said, “I got to go; you’ve done it again!” They streaked across the playground back toward the school. Recess was almost over anyway.
    High up in the branches of the old oak shadowing the packed dirt and a rusted swing set that made up the playground, Mary Bethany tried to decide whether she should go back to class and finish out the day or head home. She closed the book she’d been reading—the tree was one of her favorite places for privacy—and weighed the pros and cons. If she headed for home now, she could take the long way by the shore and maybe find some sand dollars bleached by the sun or some razor clamshells. She had a whole string of them hung in garlands on a big birch in her secret place back in the woods. It was as far away from her house as she could get and still be on their land. When the wind blew, the long shells made a soft clatter that she pretended were real chimes.
    But if she didn’t go back, the girls would win—again. They wouldn’t know they’d won. They hadn’t looked up and seen her in the tree. Not that they would have cared. Not that they would have said anything different. No, they wouldn’t know they’d driven her away again. But she would.
    Tucking the book, one from the library, carefully under her arm, Mary climbed down with ease. She was tall for her age and athletic—another thing her fellow sixth-graders liked to mock. “If itwasn’t for those bitty titties, Mary could pass for a boy any day,” she’d heard Patsy say more than once.
    She looked out at the ocean. The school had a clear view of Granville’s bustling waterfront. The men were bringing in the day’s catch. With a sigh, she turned and trudged toward the worn stairs that led into school. There had never really been a choice. She wasn’t about to let them control what she did.
    Up in the tree listening to them, she’d had a strange feeling. Almost like she didn’t exist. They were talking about her and saying her name, but she didn’t know who that person was. And it had come to her that she didn’t know who that person wasn’t either. Who was Mary Bethany anyway?
    Her sister, Martha, knew who she was. Always had. She’d left school and the whole entire island the minute she’d turned sixteen. That had been three years ago when Mary was only nine. Martha had been a bossy big sister, always after Mary to keep her side of the room tidy and not bring in any of what Martha called trash and Mary called her treasures—a nest that had fallen to the ground, pieces of beach glass and bits of china dug from an old cellar hole. Each week, Martha had heated water on the stove, filled the big washbasin, and scrubbed Mary so hard, her skin turned bright red and her scalp stung. After Martha left, Mary sometimes forgot all about the ritual, and her mother never reminded her. It wasn’t the kind of thing she did. Mrs. Bethany put food on the table three times a day, did her chores in the garden, and saw to her chickens. Martha