I hadn’t seen her lose it like this. ‘WHY are we arguing about this CRAP?’ ‘Yeah, it can’t be that bad in a Boston suburb,’ said Marcia do...btfully. ‘Get on with it, okay?’ ‘Right,’ said Lana, with a long exhalation. She sat down. ‘The 25 are too many. I got back to them—in person’—she looked up and grinned. ‘I told them we had limited resources, this was a charity, so we thought the size of the gift should be the deciding factor.’ ‘But how many?’ I asked. ‘Just the six of us,’ said Lana ‘This. Itwas also during this time that I was introduced to Wen Xi, a daughter ofanother uncle. She was young and tall. Though she wasn't beautiful atall, she reminded me suddenly of the fox spirit up in the caves in themountains all those years ago because of her relative height. I had anidea suddenly, though a desperate one.I told Wen Xi about the problems of the state, about personalsacrifices, and also about the fox spirit up in the mountains. Iconfided in her my plan, and that was for her to wear. I'm just trying to help. Usgirls have to stick together don't we?"Leighton was stunned. You could have pushed him over with a feather.She thought he was a girl. He had been wearing girls clothes. Hisfamily had seen him wearing girls clothes. No wonder his sister hadbeen having him do all those things. Hair curlers, pajamas, and nailpolish. He tried to find the words to explain it all away, but hecouldn't. He didn't know what to do."Girls stick together?" was the only response he could. A reminder had been hung up from last year’s graduating class at the beginning of the school year in the main courtyard. Emily had come to school with pink panties on one day, and had found herself within 10 minutes of entering the school grounds bound to a cross, gagged, and forced to display her incorrect uniformed body for the rest of the school year. She had not been able to attend classes, and therefore she had failed her high school exams, instantly sentencing her to a life of slavery.