For the rest of the week, Zoe tried her best to keep an eye on Skylar. Since P. E. was the only class she had with her, there wasn't much opportunity to interact with her and try to get closer to her. Of course, there was the first meeting of the breast cancer awareness club, but it ended up getting delayed to Friday at the last minute. So Zoe had to wait a little longer for that opportunity.

When Friday did come, Zoe ran into a little more drama before the meeting. Zoe woke up that morning feeling more lightheaded than she usually did. She groggily got out of bed, went into the bathroom, and locked the door behind her. She sat down on the toilet and started peeing like she did every morning. But while she was doing her business, she looked down and saw a patch of blood in her panties. The sight was so surprising, Zoe wasn't able to stop herself from screaming.

Almost at once, Zoe heard her mom outside the door. "Zoe?" her mom asked. "What's wrong, honey?"

"I..."

"Wait," Zoe's mom said, and from the way she said it, she seemed to realize what was going on. "Is it..."

"Yes! It's...you know...a girl thing!"

Zoe's mom gasped. "Don't worry, Zoe, it's okay," she said. "I put the pads in the bottom drawer."

"Got it," said Zoe. She reached over, opened the bottom drawer below the sink, and got out one of the sanitary pads she and her mom had bought at the store. It took some figuring out to get it inside her panties, but she managed. When she did, she pulled up her pants and went to wash her hands.

Zoe's mom was waiting outside the bathroom when she came out. "How does it feel?" she asked.

"It's...kind of weird," Zoe admitted. "Having a pad in my underwear like a diaper."

Her mom laughed. "Don't worry, you'll get used to it."

"But I've got school today," said Zoe. "And I have P. E."

"Don't worry. No one will notice if you don't call attention to yourself. And you can switch out your pad with a tampon before you do P. E."

"I guess..."

"Hey, at least you didn't turn into a giant red panda."

Zoe looked at her mom quizzically. "What?"

"You know, like in Turning Red. That Pixar movie that came out in March."

"Oh yeah. But the girl in the movie didn't turn into a panda because she got her period. It was because of the curse her family had."

"Well...you know what I mean," Zoe's mom said.

"Yeah," Zoe agreed.

***

Even though Zoe knew perfectly well nobody could tell she was on her period, she still felt self-conscious. She tried to be friendly with Miles, and Alan, and especially Brittany, but she couldn't stop thinking about the pad in her underwear and how it was soaking up the blood from her vagina. She ended up taking several extra trips to the bathroom just to check herself.

P. E. was the worst, because getting changed meant taking off clothing. Zoe went to a private corner of the locker room to change, with the intent of staying under the radar. But right as she was putting her P. E. shirt on, Avery came up to her. "Hey Zoe," she said. "I heard the breast cancer awareness club meeting was delayed to today?"

"Yeah," said Zoe. "Me and Miles are gonna go to it."

"Can I come, too?" Avery asked.

Zoe shrugged. "I guess."

Just then, Zoe heard a banging noise from nearby, like someone had just hit their locker. "What was that?" she asked.

Avery frowned. "What?" she asked.

"I thought I heard something," said Zoe. She looked around, but she didn't see any other girls in the vicinity. "It was like someone hit their locker or something."

"Maybe it came from inside a locker?" Avery suggested.

The thought shook Zoe. "You mean someone's hiding in a locker somewhere?"

"I don't know."

Zoe closed her own locker, locked it up, and started knocking on the doors of the other lockers. "Who's in there?" she asked. She went to the lockers one by one and knocked on them, hoping to catch whoever was hiding, but there was no answer.

"You think a boy snuck in here?" Avery asked.

"Yes," Zoe answered. "I...I've heard stories..." When she'd been Zack, he and Miles had sometimes fantasized about sneaking into the girls' locker room to check out the hot girls, but she wasn't about to tell Avery this.

"Well, if Skylar's cursed this locker room, then they're in for a surprise," said Avery.

Zoe laughed. "Hell yeah," she said. "But that is what we're trying to stop..."

"True," said Avery. "But we should go. We can't miss the warm-up."

"Yeah, you're right," Zoe sighed. She and Avery left the locker room and went out to start the class' warm-up session. As Zoe did her girl push-ups (which were way easier than regular push-ups), she ended up putting the locker room thing out of her mind. She might've just imagined that noise. It couldn't have been that big a deal...could it?

***

After P. E. was over, it was time for the breast cancer awareness club meeting. Zoe and Avery both met up with Miles and went to Mrs. Fury's classroom where the meeting was being held. There they found Alan and Skylar waiting, along with some of the other kids who'd signed up for the club.

"Good afternoon, everyone," Alan said when everyone had assembled. "My name's Austin Chase. I'm going to be your club president."

"And I'm Skylar Gregson," said Skylar. "I'll be the vice president."

"This club is meant to promote awareness of breast cancer," said Alan. "I'm sure a lot of you knew my mom, Mrs. Delaney Chase, because she was a teacher at this school. She was diagnosed with breast cancer a year and a half ago, and she eventually died this year."

"We know that there are many other victims and survivors," said Skylar. "That is why we are hosting this club-to spread awareness of breast cancer and its effects."

"We'll start by wearing shirts and bracelets," said Alan. "But our ultimate goal is to fund the construction of a Delaney Chase memorial in the local park. The state officials have given us permission to do it, but we're going to have to raise the funds for it on our own."

"How are we gonna raise the funds?" Miles asked.

"I'm glad you asked," said Alan. "We've ordered T-shirts to sell to our classmates, and they should ship two weeks from now. But next week, we're gonna have a meeting where we make pink bows and ribbons to sell to people."

"The way it works," Skylar explained, "Is that we'll give you all order forms to give to people. They'll pay you for a T-shirt, or a bow, or whatever, and put their name on the order form, and then you'll give them whatever they ordered when it's ready. Alan and I decided that I'd be the one in charge of collecting sales, so I'll have you report to me for the order forms."

Zoe looked at Miles. "This is gonna be easier than we thought," she mouthed. Miles nodded. Since Skylar was the one in charge of the order forms, winning her over would be really easy. If they sold lots and lots of shirts, bows, and ribbons, then Skylar would be impressed and more likely to consider Zoe a "friend."

"But we're gonna have to sell a lot of stuff," Avery said, sensing what Zoe and Miles were thinking.

"Then we'd better get started," said Zoe.

To be continued...