Okay, maybe it really was a baby, but it couldn’t possibly be alive.

Very slowly, she walked back to the overturned shell. The ocean was so quiet that she could hear her heartbeat thudding in her ears. Standing above the shell, she forced herself to look down.

It was a baby, a naked baby, and not only was it stained with blood, it was lying next to what looked like a pulpy mountain of blood. And the baby was alive. There was no mistaking the tiny movement of its head toward the sea, no mistaking the weak, mewling sound escaping from its doll-like lips.

Fighting nausea, Daria took off her tank top and knelt in the sand.

Carefully, she began to wrap the shirt around the baby, only to pull away in horror. The bloody mountain was attached to the baby! There was no way to leave it behind. Gritting her teeth, she wrapped the shirt around everything—baby, mountain and half a dozen shells—and stood up, cradling the bundle in her arms. She walked as quickly as she could up the beach toward the Sea Shanty. She stopped once, expecting to be sick, but she felt the trembling of the small life in her arms and forced her feet to continue walking.

Once in the Sea Shanty, she lay the bundle down on the kitchen table.

Blood had soaked clear through the tank top, and she realized there was blood on her bare chest as she ran up the stairs to her parents’ third-story bedroom.

“Mom!” She pounded on their bedroom door.

“Daddy!” ^ She heard her father’s heavy footsteps inside the room. In a moment, he opened the door. He was tying his tie” and his thick, usually unruly, black hair was combed into place for church. Behind him, Daria could see her mother, still asleep in their double bed.

“Shh.” Her father held a finger to his lips.

“What’s the matter?” His eyes widened as he saw the red stain on her chest, and he stepped quickly into the hall, grabbing her by the shoulder.

“What happened?”

he asked.

“Did you get hurt?”

“I found a baby on the beach!” she said.

“It’s alive but it’s all” — “What did you say?” Her mother sat up in bed, her brown hair jutting from her head on one side. She looked suddenly wide-awake.

“I found a baby on the beach,” Daria said, pushing past her father to reach the bed. She tugged her mother’s hand.

“I put it on the table in the kitchen. I’m afraid it might die. It’s really tiny, and it’s got a lot of blood on it.”

Her mother was out of the bed more quickly than Daria had seen her move in months. She pulled on her robe and slippers and raced down the stairs ahead of both Daria and her father.

In the kitchen, the baby was just where Daria had left it, and the bundle was so still that she feared the baby might now truly be dead.

Daria’s mother did not balk for an instant at the bloody sight, and Daria was impressed and proud as her mother lifted the crimson tank top away from the infant.

“Dear God in heaven!” Daria’s father said, taking a step backward. But her mother was not repelled. With the practiced hands of the nurse she had once been, she began moving efficiently around the kitchen. She filled a pan with water and put it on the stove, then wet a dish towel and began cleaning the baby with it.

Daria leaned close, made less afraid by her mother’s matter-of-fact handling of the situation.

“Why is it so bloody?” she asked.

“Because it’s a newborn,” her mother said.

“She’s a newborn.”

Daria looked closer and could see that the baby was indeed a girl.

“Where exactly did you find her?” her mother asked.

“She was under a horseshoe-crab shell,” Daria said.

“Under a horseshoe-crab shell!” her mother exclaimed.

“She was with all the shells washed in from the tide,” Daria said.

“Do you think the storm last night washed her up on the beach?”

Her mother shook her head.

“No,” she said.

“She would have been washed clean then. And she would have been dead.” Her lower lip trembled and her nostrils flared with quiet rage.

“No, someone just left her there.”

“I’m calling the police.” Daria’s father headed for the living room and the phone. His face had gone gray. Aunt Josie passed him on her way into the room.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Oh my God!” Her hand flew to her mouth as she saw the baby lying on the kitchen table.

“I found her on the beach,” Daria explained.

“All by herself?” Aunt Josie asked.

“Where on the beach?”

“Right in front of Cindy Trump’s cottage,” Daria said.

She saw her mother and aunt exchange glances. People always did that when they talked about Cindy Trump, but Daria didn’t have a clue why.

“The placenta is attached,” Aunt Josie said, peering closer, and Daria knew she must mean the bloody mountain still lying next to the baby.

“I know.” Daria’s mother shook her head as she rinsed out the wet cloth under the faucet.

“Isn’t this just unbelievable?”

Daria thought of Chloe and Ellen still asleep upstairs. They shouldn’t miss this. She started toward the kitchen door. “Where are you going?” her mother asked.

“To get Chloe and Ellen,” Daria said.

“It’s not even eight o’clock,” her mother said.

“Don’t wake them yet.”

“Teenagers sleep the sleep of the dead, I swear,” Aunt Josie said.

Chloe and Ellen would probably blame her for not waking them, but Daria thought it best to be obedient just then. She stepped close to the table again and watched as her mother slipped the blades of the kitchen scissors into the boiling water for a moment, then snipped the cord coming from the baby’s belly button. Finally, the baby was free of the horrible, pulpy mass. Aunt Josie brought a towel from the downstairs bathroom and Daria’s mother wrapped it around the newly bathed baby and lifted the bundle to her chest. She rocked the baby back and forth. “Poor darling little thing,” she said softly.

“Poor little castaway.” Daria thought it had been years since she’d seen so much life in her mother’s eyes.

The policemen and rescue squad arrived within minutes. One of the rescue-squad workers, a young man with long hair, nearly had to pry the infant from Daria’s mother’s arms. Still wearing her robe and slippers, she followed the baby to the ambulance. She stood watching the vehicle as it drove away, and she stayed there for several minutes after the ambulance had turned onto the beach road from the cul-de-sac.

Meanwhile, the policemen were full of questions, mainly for Daria.

They sat with her on the screened porch of the Sea Shanty and went over and over the details of her discovery until she herself began to feel guilty, as though she had done something terribly wrong and would be hauled off to jail any moment. After questioning her for nearly half an hour, they sent her inside while they spoke with her parents and Aunt Josie. Daria sat on the wicker chair in the living room, the one right next to the window that opened onto the porch, so she could listen to whatever the grownups had to say.

“Can you tell us what teenage girls live on this cul-de- sac?” one of the policemen asked.

Aunt Josie began ticking them off. “That cottage there on the beach,” she said, “There’s a fast girl lives there. Cindy Trump. I’ve heard the boys call her Cindy Tramp, because she’s easy, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, you shouldn’t say that, Josie,” Daria’s mother scolded.

“But I saw her yesterday,” Daria’s father said.

“She didn’t look pregnant to me.”

Daria leaned her cheek against the wicker back of the chair, positioning herself to hear better. This was fascinating talk.

“I saw her, too,” Aunt Josie said.

“She had on a big white shirt, like a man’s shirt. She could have been hiding anything under there.”

Daria could almost hear her father’s shrug of defeat. Aunt Josie had been married to his brother, who had died five years ago, and she always seemed to get her way with Daria’s dad.

Aunt Josie began speaking again.

“There’s that girl Linda, who” — “She’s only fourteen,” Daria’s mother protested.

“And she’s so shy.

Why, she can’t even talk to the boys, much less. ” Her voice trailed off.

“We’d still like to know what girls are on the cul-de- sac,” one of the policemen said.

“Whether you think they could be the mother of that baby or not. How about in this cottage? Any girls besides Supergirl? Daria?”

Super girl? Daria grinned to herself.

“Yes,” Daria’s father said, “but they’re good Catholic girls.”

“My daughter, Ellen, is fifteen,” Aunt Josie said.

“And I can assure you she was not pregnant.”

“Same for our daughter, Chloe.” Daria’s father sounded insulted that Chloe might be considered a suspect.

“She goes to Catholic University.

Got in when she was only sixteen, so you can guess she spends most of her time hitting the books. “

Daria wasn’t so sure about that. Chloe was smart enough to get good grades without doing much studying. “Anyone else?” one of the officers asked.

“In this cottage?” Aunt Josie asked.

“No, but there’s a couple more girls on this block. There’s Polly across the street.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Josie,” Daria’s mother said.

“She’s mentally retarded. Do you really think” — “She’s right to tell us,” one of the policemen said.

“Who else?” He and Aunt Josie sounded like old buddies.

“I think the only other one is that Jill girl,” Aunt Josie said.

“She’s the Fletcher girl.” Daria’s mother’s sounded resigned. Every girl on the cul-de-sac was going to be on that list, whether she wanted them to be or not.

Daria saw Chloe descending the stairs from the second story and put her ringer to her lips. Chloe frowned as she reached the living room. She walked over to her sister on bare feet.

“What’s going on?” she whispered, trying to peer out the window onto the porch.

“Don’t let them see you!” Daria grabbed a fistful of her sister’s wild black hair to pull her head down.

“Ouch.” Chloe extricated herself from Daria’s grasp.

“Why are the cops here?”

“I found a baby on the beach,” Daria said.

“You found what?”

“Shh,” Daria said. But before she could explain further, their father stepped into the room.

“Chloe, good, you’re here,” he said. His hair was mussed now. He could never keep it looking neat for long.

“I was just coming in to get you.

You and Ellen need to answer a few questions for the police. “

“Why?” Chloe looked surprised. Her usual olive complexion had a waxy cast to it in the pale morning light, and Daria guessed she was nervous about having to talk to policemen.

“It’s all right,” Daria said.

“I talked to them for a long time.

They’re pretty nice. ” Of course, though, I’m Supergirl.

“Get Ellen,” her father said to Chloe, who rolled her eyes and offered him a look of disdain before stomping up the stairs. That defiant attitude was brand-new. Chloe had been away at college all this year, only joining the family at the Sea Shanty a few days ago, and Daria had not yet adjusted to the change in her sister. Chloe had always been her parents’ pride and joy, with her straight-A report card and adherence to their rules. Suddenly, she was acting as though she didn’t need parents at all.

“And you.” Daria’s father looked straight at her, and she knew she’d been caught eavesdropping at the window.

“You go on upstairs now. You must be tired. It’s already been a long morning for you.”

Daria did not want to go upstairs; she wanted to hear what the police would say to Chloe and Ellen, and she should be able to. She was eleven now, not that anyone seemed to have remembered. And if it hadn’t been for her, this whole commotion wouldn’t be happening at all. But her dad had that stem look on his face that told her she’d better not argue.

She passed Ellen and Chloe on her way up the stairs. Ellen wore the same pale-faced look as Chloe, and they said nothing to her as she passed them. But when she was nearly to the second story, she heard Chloe call out to her.

“Hey, Daria,” she said.

“Happy birthday, sis.”

When she reached the upstairs hallway, Daria sat down on the top step, trying to remain within hearing range of the voices downstairs. She could tell who was talking, but little of what was said, and her mind began to wander. She thought about what she’d told the police, playing the interview over and over in her mind. If you lied to the police, could you be arrested? Would they arrest an eleven-year- old girl? She had not actually lied, she reassured herself. She had simply left out one fact—one small, probably insignificant piece of the story: the baby was not all she had found on the beach that morning.