One late afternoon in July, Minetree and I were trying to survive the 94-degree heat on the screened porch. Minetree read the Richmond News Leader and frowned. He rubbed his temple with one finger. I rocked myself on the glider, downwind from the electric fan. Upstairs, the radio pumped out a Lawrence Welk polka. Mother was lying up there on her percale sheets, bare as the day she was born.

I was pretending to do biology homework. I'd flunked biology in the tenth grade. I was all adjusted to taking it again next year, when Minetree, my stepfather, said why don't I just get it over with at John Marshall summer school. I lasted three days out of respect for Minetree. After that, I didn't go to another single class. I took the bus every morning and got off at my friend Mary Tyler's stop. All the boys had jobs so the two of us hung around Dr. Clement's Drug Store and read movie magazines or went out to Maymont to the public pool. Then I'd lug my bookbag home around one o'clock as if I'd had a hard morning.

I hadn't figured out yet what I'd do when Mother and Minetree got my report card. Mother would definitely make a long speech about my actions having lifelong consequences. Minetree, who took up for me whenever he reasonably could, would say something like, "Hold it, honey. When you're 15 you don't know what lifelong means." Then he'd get on the phone with Mrs. Beazley, headmistress of my school, and arrange with her to let me retake biology. It wouldn't be a pretty scene, but it would be manageable. When Mother complained that I was getting too big for my britches and she didn't know where it was all going to end,