“I don't believe she knew there was such a thing as menstruation until half an hour ago.

“Hand me that little brush there, Miss Desjardin. Yes, that's it.” She handed him a little brush with the legend Chamberlain Hardware and Lumber Company NEVER Brushes You Off written up the handle. He began to brush his pile of ashes onto the paper. “There's still going to be some for the vacuum cleaner, I guess. This deep pile is miserable. I thought I set that ashtray back on the desk further. Funny how things fall over.” He bumped his head on the desk and sat up abruptly. “It's hard for me to believe that a girl in this or any other high school could get through three years and still be alien, to the fact of menstruation, Miss Desjardin.”

“It's even more difficult for me,” she said. “But it's all I can think of to explain her reaction. And she's always been a group scapegoat.”

“Um.” He funneled the ashes and butts into the wastebasket and dusted his hands. “I've placed her, I think. White.

Margaret White's daughter. Must be. That makes it a little easier to believe.” He sat down behind his desk and smiled apologetically. “There's so many of them. After five years or so, they all start to merge into one group face. You call boys by their brother's names, that type of thing. It's hard.”

“Of course it is.”

“Wait 'til you've been in the game twenty years, like me,” he said morosely, looking down at his blood blister. “You get kids that look familiar and find out you had their daddy the year you started teaching. Margaret White was before my time, for which I am profoundly grateful. She told Mrs. Bicente, God rest her, that the Lord was reserving a special burning seat in hell for her because she gave the kids an outline of Mr. Darwin's beliefs on evolution. She was suspended twice while she was here-once for beating a classmate with her purse. Legend has it that Margaret saw the classmate smoking a cigarette. Peculiar religious views. Very peculiar.” His John Wayne expression suddenly snapped down. “The other girls. Did they really laugh at her?”