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strapped into the bed, her thin wrists and ankles caught fast in the leather buckles. The big one was cinched tightly around her chest, although she was doing an admirable job of fighting against it, writhing and struggling like a fish in a net.
    “Janie!” I said, racing to the bed. “Are you okay?”
    “Delia!!!” she shrieked. “Get me out, get me out, get me out!”
    “I’m trying!” I said, fumbling with the buckle on her right ankle.
    “No, my hands,” she panted, wild-eyed. “Please. Do my hands first.”
    My parents’ footsteps thundered down the hall. They rushed in just as I was starting to undo my sister’s right hand.
    “What on earth ?” Mom cried.
    Without waiting for an explanation, my parents each grabbed a strap and went to work. The leather was so dried with age that it cracked wherever it was bent, leaving a pattern of fine lines in the dull brown surface.
    “What happened here?” Mom asked. “What were you girls doing?”
    “Now hold on,” I said, so surprised that I let go of my sister’s wrist. “ We girls weren’t doing anything. She, Janie somehow got herself strapped down.”
    “I did not!” Janie snapped, shaking her bound wrist at me. Mom reached across to finish what I’d started.
    The thing was, I actually believed my sister. How would she have gotten herself strapped in? Even if she’d been able to buckle her own ankles and torso, how could she do both of her hands?
    “You have to be more careful,” Mom said. “What if we hadn’t been around?”
    My sister’s jaw set. “ I didn’t do it. I was asleep. ”
    Fear started to rise inside me like an approaching tsunami. The house was closing in on us.
    Mom gave Janie a dubious look. “Sweetheart, how else would you have gotten stuck in the restraints?”
    “Janie,” Dad said, “you need to tell us the truth. How did this happen?”
    Janie’s eyes narrowed. Her mouth began to open.
    The air in my lungs turned dry and heavy and hot.
    I knew what she was going to say before she said it. The impact of her words was as inevitable as two cars skidding toward each other across an icy intersection.
    “Delia did it.”

OBSERVATIONS MADE AFTER THE FACT
    Despite this incident, and despite everything she went on to tell herself in the coming years, what happened to me that night was not my sister’s fault.

S he’s lying,” I said.
    “Delia,” my father said, his words coming slowly at first, and then gaining speed, “the drama queen act has to stop. You have done everything in your power to ruin this for the whole family, and I for one am sick of it.”
    “Ruin it?” I asked. “It came ruined!”
    “Brad,” Mom said, clucking her tongue. “You know I hate the phrase drama queen .”
    “Yes, and I’m sorry, but it applies.” Dad took a deep breath and turned to face me. “I know you feel like you’re some sort of victim in all this, but here’s the fact: You did something wrong. And you got caught. And now you can accept the consequences like a man.”
    Mom hmmphed.
    “Like a grown-up , then,” Dad said. “You only think about yourself. And that needs to change.”
    I turned away.
    “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.
    Did they seriously not understand?
    “Leaving,” I said. “So go ahead and start cooking up some new consequences.”
    “Cordelia,” Dad said. His voice was as serious as death. “You’re not leaving.”
    I didn’t even bother looking back. I threw the words over my shoulder.
    “Watch me,” I said.
    *  *  *
    My messenger bag was right where I’d left it, but my purse was gone, and I couldn’t leave without my wallet and phone. I paused, imagining for a moment that I’d heard shrill laughter—then shook it off and went back to my room. My purse was lying limply on the floor, its contents spread out as if a wild animal had rifled through them.
    I heard my parents coming down the hall, their low, tense voices punctuated by Janie’s excited outbursts. Then