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the bottom of the box, we found a pair of boots and one pair of shoes. The boots had fur trim around the top and fit my sister perfectly. She couldn’t wait to wear them.
    We tried on skirts and sweaters to see what would fit. We liked everything but the shoes. These looked like old-lady shoes. We knew our motherwould never wear them to work at the canning factory. Our mother was not an old lady.
    I held the shoes in the air, and my sister and I both laughed. “These are such a joke,” I said. The shoes were brown and heavy, with dark brown laces, and holes punched into the sides. They had thick, clunky heels, not like today’s heels. They were shoes a ninety-year-old woman would wear.
    When Mother came home from work that evening, she looked at every item.
    “Try on the shoes,” she said.
    “Not me,” said my sister.
    “I don’t mean you,” said Mother. “I mean Eve.”
    “Not me,” I told my mother. “I’ll never put those ugly things on my feet.”
    “They’re not so bad,” said Mother. “You’re the one who needs new shoes for school. I’m only asking you to try them on.”
    To my horror, the shoes fit.
    “I’ll never wear them,” I said. “These are old-lady shoes. I am thirteen years old. No one in my class owns shoes like these.”
    “Your others have worn out,” Mother said. “These are made of leather. Look at them. They’ll be good school shoes.”
    School was to start the following week.
    I looked to my sister for support, but she looked away.
    “The shoes don’t fit,” I told my mother. “They hurt my feet.”
    “Stand up straight,” my mother said. She pushed on the leather toe with her thumb. “You have extra room at the toe. A perfect fit.”
    “You’ll never make me wear them,” I said. But I said this to my mother’s back.
    My mother turned around and looked at my face. “Don’t talk behind my back, Eve. You’ll have to wear the shoes. I don’t have extra money to buy new ones.” I was so angry, I ran upstairs to my bedroom. I turned on my radio and set the volume as high as it would go. Mother couldn’t hear, but the loud noise made me feel better.
    The next day, after Mother left for work, my sister and I walked beside the river.
    “I should have thrown the shoes into the river,” I said. “Mother didn’t know we’d find shoes in the box. Not until she came home from work yesterday.”
    But I knew our mother really couldn’t afford new shoes. I knew I’d have to wear the ugly shoes on the first day of school. And every day after that.
    I hated getting on and off the school bus because I didn’t want anyone looking at my feet. When I walked in the terrible shoes, I could hear the noise of thick heels. Clomp, clomp, clomp. I felt as if I had flashing lights on my feet.
    I knew the other girls at school talked about my shoes. No one said anything directly to me. I was already different because my parents were divorced. I was different because my parents were deaf. I wanted to fit in, and I didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for me.
    After a few weeks, the heel on one of my shoes began to loosen. It wobbled on the nails that held it. I was glad the heel had started to come off. If I could make it break, I’d get new shoes after all.
    I scraped the wobbly heel against rocks. I scraped it against the floor. Everywhere I went, I tried to make the heel snap off the shoe.
    At school, when the weather was good, students had to line up outside. Girls in one long line, boys in another. When the bell rang, we marched inside and went to our classrooms. Our teachers followed us into the school.
    In early October, rain had fallen for days, making the ground wet and muddy. Students could not line up outside the school until the rain stopped.
    When the sun shone again, I took my place in line and waited for the bell to ring. I scraped my shoe along the muddy ground. I was still trying to break the heel.
    To my surprise, the wobbly heel suddenly fell off. At the same