Lily goes third, after the geode and the pinecone. She holds it up with both hands. White, branching, light as chalk.
"It's the most beautiful rock I ever saw," she says.
Mrs. Reeves asks to see it. Lily brings it to her desk. The class watches. It fits in her palm, porous and dry, smooth where the waves wore it down.
"It is beautiful," Mrs. Reeves says. She gives it back.
At lunch she sits in her car with the windows up. She doesn't eat. She just sits there, hands open on her lap.