Summary

In Chapter 12, the girls all take care of each other as they begin their periods. They have supplies for the girls who begin later and offer comfort and advice. When Alex says she cannot talk to her mother and has no older cousins or aunts to help, one of the girls has supplies she took from the nurse's office. Though Alex does not tell her mother, a box of supplies with written directions appears. Wanting to feel closer to Marla, Alex opens the package Marla gave her before the Mass Dragoning. She reads a love letter to Marla from a woman named Edith, though she has no frame of reference to understand.

In Chapter 13, Bertha begins turning their yard into a garden that grows larger with each season. She stops spending so much time inside, preferring to be in the garden. Alex becomes...