Oh, wait—I know. How about some girl who hadn't been struck by lightning and developed weird psychic powers overnight? Hey, yeah. That girl might be luckier than me. That girl might be way luckier than me. Don't you think?

I looked down at Mullet Head. Actually, not that much down, because he was about as tall as I was—which isn't saying much, understand.

Anyway, I looked down at him, and I went, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Just like that. Real smooth, you know? I'm telling you, I had it on.

But it didn't matter. It didn't matter at all.

One of the boys, a skinny one clutching a trumpet case, said, "Hey, yeah, you are that girl. I remember you. You're the one who got hit by lightning and got all those special powers!"

The other boys exchanged excited glances. The glances clearly said, Cool. Our counselor's a mutant.

One of them, however, a dark, delicate-looking boy who had no parents with him and spoke with a slight accent, asked shyly, "What special powers?"

The chubby boy with the unfortunate haircut—a mullet, short in front and long in back—who'd outed me in the first place smacked the little dark boy in the shoulder, hard. The chubby boy's mother, from whom it appeared he'd inherited his current gravitationally challenged condition, did not even tell him to knock it off.

"What do you mean, what special powers?" Mullet Head demanded. "Where have you been, retard? On the little bus?"

All of the other boys chuckled at this witticism. The dark little boy looked stricken.

"No," he said, clearly puzzled by the little bus reference. "I come from French Guiana."

"Guiana?" Mullet Head seemed to find this hilarious. "Is that anywhere near Gonorrhea?"

Mrs. Mullet Head, to my astonishment, laughed at this witticism.

That's right. Laughed.