In a partial and disorganized set of notes for an essay for her English class at a private school, a sixteenyear- old girl tells the story of a set of events that lead her to a house of correction and to an opportunity to contemplate her life and begin over again. Though the details are not presented in chronological order, the full story does emerge upon careful reading.

At fifteen years old, the narrator, the child of wealthy parents in one of Detroit's most affluent suburbs, escalates her habits of stealing and vandalizing by shoplifting a pair of gloves from an "excellent" department store and gets caught. Her parents react by hushing everything up and smoothing it over, and she never gets whatever attention she was craving. Her mother just wants to know why "if she wanted gloves, why didn't you say so?". The narrator thinks...