Battle of the Beasts. Ned Vizzini

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      Tim Bradley stared at the tooth in horror. He looked at Cordelia, back to the tooth, back to Cordelia …

      “Uh,” muttered Tim, “I just remembered. I have to get a haircut this weekend. Maybe some other time.”

      Tim backed away, bumped into a table, and made himself scarce. Cordelia cupped the tooth-sushi in her hand and rushed out of the cafeteria. Kids gasped and stared, but there was nothing she could do – she needed help. She barrelled down the hall and pushed open the door to the nurse’s office, screaming: “You need to put it back in! Can you put it back in?”

      “Put what back where?” Nurse Pete said.

      Bay Academy’s school nurse weighed almost eighty kilograms, with big sweat stains in the underarms of his dress shirt. He was bald, with a small grey goatee, black glasses and fuzzy blue Uggs. The office was covered in posters about depression and lice.

      “My tooth fell out!”

      Nurse Pete pointed to a bench. Cordelia sat while he took the sushi, then handed her a towel to stop the bleeding. As it subsided, he placed the tooth and sushi in separate Ziploc bags.

      “Can you explain what happened?”

      “It just came out like a baby tooth.” Cordelia moved her tongue into the spot where her tooth had been. She could feel her exposed, ragged gumline.

      “Baby teeth get loose before they come out,” Nurse Pete said. “Was this tooth loose?”

      “No—”

      “But sushi’s very soft. It’s nearly impossible for food that soft to extract a tooth. This is very disturbing, could be serious.”

      “Like how serious?”

      “Gum disease, mouth ulcer, oral cancer—”

       “Cancer?”

      “Don’t jump to conclusions.”

      “You’re the one who said cancer!”

      “Here.” Nurse Pete handed Cordelia two Advil and a Solo cup full of water. “Take these. And most importantly … you need to see a dentist. A dental specialist. Have your mother make an appointment.”

      Yeah right, Cordelia thought as she took the Advil. Nurse Pete meant well, but of course she couldn’t discuss this with her parents. Her parents would send her to a bunch of specialists, but they wouldn’t find anything, because this was no normal tooth decay. This was a curse. And it had something to do with Kristoff House.

      Come to think of it, Cordelia thought, should I even tell Bren and Nell? If she told her siblings that her hands were turning geriatric and her teeth were coming out, what would that accomplish? It would be one thing if she were the little sister, and everyone was expected to take care of her. But she was the oldest – she was supposed to be the strong one. How can I expect to be successful at anything if I can’t even handle my own problems?

      Once she was out of the nurse’s office, Cordelia scratched at her arm as she walked down the hall. Nurse Pete had told her to go home but she didn’t want people to start talking about her, so she was just going to sit in class, keep her mouth closed, and eat broth and triple-whipped smoothies to protect her remaining teeth. But now her arm was itching something fierce. What’s going on?

      Cordelia began to pull back her sleeve. When she reached the itchy spot, several peach-coloured flakes fell on to the floor. Cordelia picked one up and examined it. Skin! There was a torn patch on her arm, as if the flesh had been peeled away like cheap black ink on a Lotto card. Like she’d been scratching for hours, getting through her skin—

      And under it was ice.

      No veins. No muscle or blood. Just clear blue ice.

      Terrified, Cordelia tapped the ice with her fingernail. It made a small clacking sound. She pulled her sleeve back down. Her flesh was cold beneath it. She wasn’t going to look. She wasn’t going to say anything. She wasn’t sure how, but she was going to deal with this herself.