Quebec’s National Assembly unanimously votes to break ties with the monarchy

I t’s a hot day in early summer, and I’m trying to hide my shameful body in the sand by the polliwog pond. The polliwogs have grown into fat squiggly black dots, with slender tails. They swim in funny, jerky motions across the pond, where dragonflies hover above water shimmering slimy and mysterious in the July sunshine. The polliwogs are metamorphosing into frogs, and I’m metamorphosing too, although not in a good way. The long skinny body that I’m covering with sand looks nothing like the film stars in the movie magazines of the 1950s. The skinny calves and knobby knees, the legs that...