‘You’re a seabird, Nora Barnacle. Born from a shell.’ She eyes me over the golden rim of her teacup.‘Not born from an egg, Granny, like other ...birds?’‘No, not from an egg at all, loveen. A shell. For the barnacle is a rare and magical goose.’‘I like magic.’ I try to sip my tea from the china the way Granny does, heartily but with grace. ‘Where does the shell come from?’ I ask.Granny leans closer, breaks a piece of currant cake in half and puts it into my mouth. The rest she chews herself and she. We arrived without incident and I went in to see Mrs. Thomas."Ah come in and sit down Amanda," she said.I took a seat and waited not sure what she wanted to see me about."Amanda, I've been hearing that you have been getting into a lot of fights," she said."I've not started anything," I said, "They keep attacking me." Yes, well I believe you, but that's not the way you are being portrayed to the powers that be. This business with hiding yourself and so forth has got rumours started that you are. In order to alleviate those fears Roxie had me do my domestic chores tokeep busy. From laundry to dusting, in no time I was done and we wererelaxing. It was then I let all my fears out and my feelings aboutbecoming female.As I spoke I was becoming distraught and incoherent as the tears flowedheavily. Roxie drew me toward her and held my quivering body. I had theself-pity blues along with the why me questions. I was a decent personthat dedicated my young life to serving the citizens of the city. “Why you be asking ‘bout ho’s Miss Taylor.” “Oh, you know me, just tryin’ to save the world. You take care now Lash. And spend that on food will ya please?” I said, slowly starting to drive away toward home. “Ya sure will Miss Taylor, you take care now.” It took only five minutes to get on the I-5 north. The drive to our home in Bothell was off the 405 and traffic shouldn’t be too bad this time of day. Pulling into our driveway, I saw Connie’s van. I wasn’t sure she would be.