“Were you?”
“No! Anyway, my mom and Bryony’s mom went in on a lawyer and the whole thing got dropped, but there are only five cops in this town, and they all hate me. And Bryony, who they already hated because her mom’s black.”
What an awesome town. I like Rachel, but she seems to be about the only good thing about it. Well, maybe also Bryony. Still. The sooner I can get my mom to move, the better. I wonder why our English teacher didn’t send me to the principal’s office? So weird.
Mom is sleeping when I get home, which is probably a step down from yesterday when she was sitting up and staring at the wall. I make myself a snack and then go out with my camera. The house we’re living in has a front yard but not really a backyard. There’s a light on a post in the middle of the front yard. Someone’s used bricks to build sort of a planter around the base of the lamppost and planted flowers in it, but it’s been a dry summer and no one’s been watering, so the flowers are straggly and sad. The grass in the yard is crunchy.
Across the street, I can see the lush green lawn of someone who diligently waters. That neighbor also has a statue of a goose, which has been dressed up in a bonnet sewn out of cloth.
I take pictures of the goose and the flowers, and then I notice there are a ton of spiders living on the lamppost, with webs strung on the fancy little iron curlicues under the light itself. You don’t normally see a lot of spiders living together, but the light attracts bountiful insects, enough to feed every spider on there.
I take pictures of the spiders and their webs, wondering what the term is for a whole lot of spiders. A colony of spiders. A creepy-crawly of spiders. A spider condominium. A spider collective. I’ve never been a fan of spiders the way Firestar is, but looking at them through the camera makes me appreciate them more: their clever legs, which they can use two at a time or four at a time to manipulate webs and prey. Webs are cool, but these are tangled and dusty and full of leftover moths. Firestar has this picture they took once of an absolutely glorious web that a spider put in the corner of their family’s front porch; it’s damp from dew and catching the morning light. Spider artwork. Rachel-level spider artwork, not Steph-level spider artwork.
“Steph,” Mom calls from the door.
Well, the good news is she’s out of bed. I look around; the light is starting to fade.
“Do I need to come in?” I ask.
“Yeah, I want to lock up.”
I follow her inside. She locks the door and barricades it with a chair. “How was your day?” she asks, like she’s trying to be normal.
“It was okay. The school here is terrible.”
She grimaces and doesn’t answer.
Maybe it is mental illness—more than a real threat, I mean. It seems that way on days like today when she’s barely responsive. I don’t think she hallucinates or anything, though. Anyway, it’s not like I can force her to go to a psychiatrist, any more than I can force her to go back to Thief River Falls.
I know there’s no real point, but I say, “If I were in Thief River Falls, I could take Spanish 3, and I wouldn’t be reading The Scarlet Letter for the third time, and I could take a photography class.”
“I’m sorry,” she says.
I go into my room, and I upload the pictures from my camera to my laptop so I can get a better look at them. There’s one decent picture of one of the spiders, so I upload that and tag Firestar. Then I go into my Clowder to tell everyone about the awful English teacher.
“I can’t believe she was going to rip up someone’s art,” Marvin says.
“Yeah, that’s really evil,” Icosahedron says.
“Is she ancient?” Hermione asks. “Like one of those teachers who’s still teaching even though she hates kids because in two more years she can retire?”
“No,” I say. “No gray hair, no wrinkles.”
“Someone should persuade her to quit,” CheshireCat says. “They would be doing her a favor.”
“Skywrite you suck, quit your job,” Firestar suggests.
“Um, I do not own a plane,” I say.
“Sharpie on her desk?” Boom Storm says.
“That’s vandalism!” Although hey, if I want to get in trouble … I don’t know if I want to get in trouble for something stupid like vandalism, though.
“Is there anything at all good about this school?” CheshireCat asks.
“Rachel,” I say. I take a picture of the drawing she did of me and upload it.
“That’s what you look like?” Marvin says.
“Yeah, I guess I don’t ever post pictures of myself, do I?” I feel suddenly nervous. But this isn’t even a photo—it’s just a drawing! Animal pictures are expected on CatNet, but plenty of other people post selfies, too. Hermione posts them. Icosahedron posts them. Marvin, Firestar, and CheshireCat don’t.
“Are there any other English classes you could switch into?” CheshireCat asks.
“It’s too small a school, and anyway, this is the class Rachel’s in. And the other grades’ classes are taught by the same teacher.”
“You know, I’ve researched this,” CheshireCat says, “and there are drones available for very reasonable prices if you want to try skywriting…”
When I arrive at my English class the next morning, Ms. Campbell’s name is still written on the board in her curly cursive handwriting, but the person up at the front of my
