"Not very good at primness without the costume to match," she says, which is true of her so far. She can play the part when she has to wear a dress and do her hair and pretend to not be a classless street urchin, but it's a hard sell when dressed in roguish blacks. "I'll have to practice more."

She plants one hand on the ground to shift onto her knees, exchanging one unsustainable position for another. Then she flips the edge shells back over, slides them around, and lifts them. There's a pebble under each. The middle one reveals the original pebble, and she grins.