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"What are you doing?" I heard Celine cry. She was in my doorway. "Why aren't you dressed?"

I didn't reply. I clutched my stomach and took deep breaths.

"Janet!"

"What's happening now?" Sanford asked.

"She's not getting dressed. Look at her," Celine demanded.

"Janet," Sanford said. "Are you all right?"

"No," I groaned. "Every time I try to stand, it hurts."

"She can't possibly go today, Celine. You'll have to postpone it," he told her.

"Are you mad? You can't postpone this. There are so many girls trying out. They'll choose their quota before she has a chance to compete. We've got to go," Celine insisted.

"But she can't even stand," he protested.

"Of course she can. Stand up," Celine ordered. She wheeled toward the bed. Sanford held out his hands to stop her.

"Celine, please?'

"Stand up, stand up, you ungrateful urchin. Stand up!" she screamed at the top of her lungs.

I had to try again. I rose and put my feet down. Sanford stood and watched as I made the effort. As my body straightened, the pain in my stomach shot up into my chest. I cried, folded, and fell back to the bed. "Stand up!" Celine shouted.

Sanford forcefully turned her around in the chair.

"Stop this. She has to go. Stop it, Sanford. Stop it," she cried. He continued to wheel her forcefully out of my room.

"She probably needs some kind of medication. I'll have to take her to the doctor," he said.

"That's ridiculous. You fool. She won't get into the school. Janet!" she cried, her voice echoing in the hallway.

My body tightened. I was so frightened. I squeezed my eyes shut to clamp out the world around me. There was a buzzing in my ear and then a darkness, a comfortable, easeful darkness in which I no longer felt the pain and the agony.

I felt like I was floating. My arms had turned into paper-thin wings. I was drifting through the darkness toward a pinhole of light and it felt so wonderful, so easy. I glided and turned, dove and rose, fluttering.

Then I passed what looked like a wall of mirrors on both sides, drifting, gently raising and lowering my paper-thin wings. I looked at myself as I continued toward the light.

And amazingly, I was a butterfly.

Twelve

What's wrong with her?" I heard a voice say. It sounded far away, like a voice at the end of a tunnel, so it was hard to recognize it.

"All of her vital signs are good. This is some sort of anxiety attack, Sanford?'

"That's ridiculous," another voice snapped. The darkness began to diminish a bit. "She has nothing to make her anxious. She has more than most girls her age have."

"You don't know as much about her past as you think you do, Celine, There are many things working in the subconscious mind. And then this might all be due to the psychological trauma of having her first period," he added.

"Did you ever hear anything so ridiculous as that? Please, Doctor," Celine insisted. "Give her something "

"There's nothing to give her but a little time and then a lot of tender loving care, Celine?'

"What do you think she's been getting?"