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?” Sarah asks, speaking more firmly than I’ve ever heard her before. Especially to a teacher.
    Now is especially when I want to know. Now, with Zach in the morgue.
    â€œI understand that you’re all upset, but for some people understanding the processes involved can help with grief,” Yayeko says, and I find myself nodding. I am desperate to understand. “We are all of us subject to the same laws of nature.”
    â€œAnd of God,” Sarah says.
    â€œThe first thing that happens after death,” Yayeko says, “is that blood and oxygen stop flowing through the body. Gravity causes the body’s blood to drain from capillaries in the upper parts and to pool in the lower blood vessels. So that parts of the body seem pale—those upper surfaces—and parts seem dark.”
    â€œWhat if you’re already pale?” Tayshawn wants to know. The class laughs but I’m not sure he meant to be funny.
    â€œPale is a relative term, Tayshawn,” Yayeko says. “The lower parts of your body become darker than the upper parts.”
    â€œWhat do you mean upper part, then?” he continues. “Like your head?”
    â€œIt depends on how the body is positioned. If it’s lying supine—on its back—then the blood pools there. In the heels and calves and buttocks, the back, the back of the neck, the head. The face will be pale.”
    Tayshawn nods to show he understands now. I wonder how they found Zach. Which parts of him were pale, which dark?
    â€œNext, the cells cease aerobic respiration so they can’t maintain normal muscle biochemistry. Which means what?”
    Only two hands go up. Mine and Lucy O’Hara’s.
    â€œLucy?”
    â€œThey stop making energy.”
    â€œOut of what?”
    â€œGlucose,” Lucy says. “Oxygen.”
    â€œYes.” Yayeko continues, “And when that stops, calcium ions leak into muscle cells, preventing muscle relaxation, which causes rigor mortis.”
    â€œWhen the body goes all hard?” Tayshawn asks. There are more giggles, but he ignores them.
    â€œYes,” Yayeko says. “The cells begin to die and can’t fight off the bacteria, which causes the body to decompose and the muscles to become soft again. As soon as the body dies, flies are attracted to it. They start to lay eggs in open wounds and orifices. The eggs turn into maggots—”
    â€œNo,” Sarah says, holding her hand over her mouth and running from the room. Two girls get up and follow her. I’m also imagining maggots eating Zach. Maggots in his eyes, maggots between his toes, maggots all over him. Wriggling, feeding, tearing into his body. I have to concentrate to keep from joining the other girls in the bathroom.
    On the way out of class Brandon hisses at me. “You’re not normal,” he says.
    Tell me something I don’t know.

    AFTER
    â€œI bet you killed him,” Brandon says on the way out of biology. “You probably got your dad to make him disappear.”
    â€œI heard it was you,” I tell him. “That you read somewhere if you kill and eat the brains of people who are better than you then you get to be like them.”
    â€œThat makes you safe,” Brandon says. “And everyone else in this school.”
    I laugh and almost tell him touché. He walks away. I follow. “How come you’re always hissing at me on the way in and out of class?”
    â€œAre you kidding? I can’t have anyone see me voluntarily talking to a murdering freak like you. I wish you’d go back to wearing that mask. That way none of us has to see your freaky face.”
    â€œShut up, Brandon, or I’ll have my dad take care of you.” Briefly I imagine what it would be like to have such a dad. Ready at a moment to kill all my enemies.
    Brandon’s eyes flick at me as if he’s trying to assess whether what I said could be true, but doesn’t want to