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hiding in your secret past? Animal sacrifice?”
    “You really want to know?”
     
I stepped off the school bus that day into the heat, pulling a baseball cap low on my head. We were fifty miles down a deserted road on the far reaches of the naval base, on a field trip to study the petroglyphs, prehistoric art carved into the canyon walls.
    Ms. Shepard waved to us. “Everybody over here. Bring your sketch pads.”
    I shielded my eyes against the ferocious light, walking with my head down. The sunblock was hidden in my backpack, beneath my journal and a dog-eared copy of Ender’s Game . Pale skin, pale poetry, science fiction: Even I knew I was a geek.
    The canyon gashed for miles through black rocks splattered crimson and yellow with lichen. Carvings covered the walls like graffiti. Snakes. Deer. Bighorn sheep. Weird human figures with spirals for faces and shock waves erupting from their heads, rising ghostly and vivid sixty feet above me. The light seemed to hum.
    Ms. Shepard trudged through the soft sand, waving. “Imagine the young hunters hidden among the boulders. Picture the shamans carving these images to bring success to the hunt.”
    I stared up at the figure of a horned human with feet like talons. Someone pushed past, knocking my shoulder. Her voice came as small and sharp as a needle.
    “Watch it, Nosebleed.”
    My hand shot to my upper lip. Valerie snickered and walked on by.
    Ms. Shepard frowned. I found a wad of Kleenex in my pocket, but my nose wasn’t bleeding. I felt a zinging sensation along my arms. Valerie had gotten me again.
    Ms. Shepard twirled in a circle. Her peasant skirt flared and her chandelier earrings danced in the sun. “When shamans drew the prey animal, they gave the hunter power. Look. Can’t you see it?”
    I’ll say. The walls were covered with bighorn sheep. And hunters spearing sheep, archers shooting sheep, dogs attacking sheep. Plus creepy sheep: two-headed ones, and big ones with little ones inside. It was mayhem.
    “And these symbols. The snake represents fertility. And the spiral is the Mother Earth navel from which man emerged.”
    There were snickers and audible ick s. And behind me, whispering.
    Valerie and Abbie and Tommy were inching back from the group. Shooting a surreptitious glance at Ms. Shepard, Valerie slunk between two boulders and took off. Abbie looked around, checking that the coast was clear, and spied me.
    She froze. Behind her glasses, her expression said, New girl, don’t rat me out. Then she whispered, “Want to come?”
    Tommy nodded beside her. He was a wiry kid with powerful brown eyes and a convincing aura of cool, and whenever he looked my way my stomach hollowed. He mouthed, Come on, and slipped between the rocks. I followed.
    Abbie took off like a rocket, blond hair flying. Tommy and I sprinted behind. He shot me a smile. Exhilarated, I smiled back, thinking, I’m in .
    The break in the rocks led up a trail. After a hundred yards we caught up with Valerie. She was laughing. Until she saw me.
    “What’s she doing here?”
    Valerie had hips and boobs, wore tight tops and her jeans slung low, and smelled of perfume and cigarettes. She was domineering, popular, and cruel, and after two weeks of high school she ruled the freshman class like a hegemon. I couldn’t figure a way around her, because wherever I turned she was in front of my face.
    Like right now. “Why are you tagging along?”
    Abbie shoved her glasses up her nose. “I said she could come.”
    Valerie stepped up, inches from my face, and I felt myself shrinking. She tossed her brown hair over her shoulder. I was slow to recognize the deviousness behind her eyes.
    “You can come on one condition. You answer this riddle.”
    “Okay.”
    “If you didn’t have feet, would you wear shoes?”
    “No.”
    “Then how come you’re wearing a bra?”
    I blinked. A hot stone weighed on my stomach. Braying with laughter, Valerie ran ahead.
    Abbie yelled, “That’s mean!” Taking my