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The school changes the team name again after the principal decides that Hornets better suit them because wombats are a foreign species. Melinda jokes about the buzz chants the cheerleaders are creating, musing that she is allergic to hornets.

Melinda wakes up late for school, and her mother tells her to walk. She gets dressed and starts making her way, enjoying the pretty snow and the quiet. When she decides to stop for doughnuts at the bakery on the way to school, she encounters Andy Evans again. She freezes in the middle of the parking lot because “that’s how rabbits survive; they freeze in the presence of predators” (97). Andy notices her anyway, smiling a wolf smile and offering a bite of his doughnut. Melinda sprints away as fast as she can and decides spontaneously to skip school altogether.

Melinda wanders around past businesses and neighborhoods. She hops on a bus to the mall when she gets too cold. She finds it strange to see the mall just opening, never having been there at this time before. Melinda looks for spring clothes that she might be able to convince her mother to buy her later.