KAT
“HOLY——” MEG FINISHES THE SWEAR UNDER HER BREATH AS SHE TUMBLES INTO a large pit of lava, then lets out a whole stream of them as the screen pronounces her death. Again. She was all dreamy when I first arrived this evening, and I let her replay her entire afternoon’s date for me even though I was—still am—desperate to talk about our project. But then as soon as I started talking about all the things we need to get done by Christmas, she muttered, “Bah, Christmas,” then hopped to her feet and suggested a LotS break. Now she’s been playing the same speed run over and over for the last twenty minutes, getting more and more frustrated with each death.
I sit on the bed, supposedly watching over her shoulder, but mostly just playing with a button on my sweater and thinking about our science project. And how we’re going to fail. We’re definitely going to fail.
One science failure . . . two high school failure . . . three life failure . . .
Meg moves her cursor toward the retry button, and before she can hit it, I snap, “Will you stop playing for a minute and talk about our project?”
She releases the mouse and swivels her chair to face me. I expect anger, but her face is flat and empty.
“You okay?” I ask.
She marches over to the bed and flops down beside me, staring up at the ceiling. “Fine. Just stupid Stephen-the-Leaver getting into my brain.” With her arms limp at her sides, she’s unusually still, and it weirds me out.
I’m not sure what to say. Not sure why she’s suddenly thinking about him instead of about her date. “He must have been a crap dad,” I try.
“No. That’s the worst part. He was actually a good guy.” She huffs as if affronted by his appalling level of goodness. “He’d take me on trips sometimes. This one time he took me down to Calgary for the weekend. Just the two of us. We spent the entire Saturday at the zoo. The polar bears had this plastic barrel that they liked to toss around and float on, like chubby sunbathers. They were hilarious. He let me drag him back to their enclosure like four or five times that day.”
“I’m sorry.” I’m still not sure what to say.
She sits up. “It’s fine.” She scrunches her nose, then grins, like making a silly face has fixed all the world’s problems. “Not worth any brainpower. Now, what were you freaking out about?”
“I’m not—” I break off. I am. I am freaking out. It’s already December and we haven’t tested a single person. “We’re supposed to show Mr. Carter our update tomorrow. And we’ve got nothing.”
One failure . . . two . . . two . . .
“We’re fine. We’ve got that questionnaire, and—” She stops, looks at me, then hops off the bed and points at the blankets. “Do your cocoon.”
Two . . . two . . .
I obediently lie down on the edge of the bed, grab Meg’s blanket, then roll, wrapping it tightly around me. When I reach the other side of the bed, Meg grabs the remainder of the blanket and pulls it over me, tucking it in.
“Feel better?” she asks.
I feel ridiculous, is what I feel. And safe.
Two caterpillar . . . three warmth . . . four security . . .
Meg sits on the now-blanketless bed beside me. “Look, we’ll be fine. We just need to show Mr. Carter we have a plan, right? We’ve got to test how many people? Twenty?”
“Thirty.” Seven testing . . . eight planning . . .
“Right,” she continues. “Okay, so here’s the plan: over the Christmas break, I’ll do ten and you do ten. Look, I’ll even do fifteen and you can do five, if you want, since people aren’t your thing. And then we’re already, what, three-quarters—”
“Two-thirds—”
“—right, that’s what I said. Two-thirds of the way through. Then we’ve still got a month or two to finish the rest.” She leans an elbow on my cocoon.
“And do all the data analysis,” I add.
“That’s easy.”
“And make the presentation board.”
“Dude, I’m sure you could do that in like, what? One night?”
She’s right. The presentation board is the easy part. Last year I did the whole thing on a Saturday. “You really think you can do fifteen people over Christmas break?”
She giggles. “Well, I don’t think Grayson would be very happy about that.”
I roll my eyes.
She grins, then forces on a serious face. “Yes, I definitely can. I mean, Grayson’s posse is like seven people right there. Easy-peasy.”
“Okay,” I say. My breath comes normally. “Okay.”
MEG
KAT MUST STILL BE FREAKING OUT ON MONDAY MORNING, BECAUSE WHEN Mr. Carter comes around to do our project checkin, she lets me do all the talking. And I nail it. I talk about the timelines we’ve written up and the questionnaire we’ve made and the control factors we’ve identified, and I knock that thing so far out of the park it bounces off a UFO passing by Mars on an expedition to conquer the earth, scaring the aliens away.
“Sounds great,” Mr. Carter says. “Just be careful not to fall behind on those deadlines.”
Sounds great. Because it is. Everything is. Kat looks relieved, I’ve decided not to care about Stephen-the-Leaver anymore—not that I cared in the first place—and I’ve finally got this school thing figured out.
And I’ve got Grayson. After school I ride the bus with him all the way to his archery club, like the perfect girlfriend I am, then stand with him in the swirling snow as he kisses me gently, passionately good-bye, like the perfect boyfriend he is.
I run all the way home, imagining the snow’s gone and I’m soaring on my skateboard instead.
It’s Monday, which means Mom won’t be home with the halflings for an hour or two, and I’ve got the house to myself. I can amp up the music, or watch LumberLegs videos while dancing around like a maniac.
I do a little pirouette, hopping about as I whip into the kitchen. I’m so amped up, I don’t even notice her until I pull the pitcher of no-name red punch—the drink of champions—out of the fridge and whirl around to grab a glass.
“Mom! What are you doing home?”
Mom sits at the kitchen table, arms crossed, eyebrows furrowed. “Your math teacher called today. Again.”
“Holy gumdrops. She’s basically stalking me at this point. I think we should probably call the cops.”
Mom doesn’t laugh. “She said you still haven’t been doing your homework. And that you’ve got a big test coming up next week.”
Ugh, I hate math. It’s basically the worst. “I know, I know. I’m sorry. But I’m doing awesome in science, so it balances out.”
Mom stands up, almost toppling her chair. “Meg, this is serious. You’re in high school now. You’ve got to start figuring out how to—”
“I will. Scout’s honor.” I make a peace sign and hold it over my heart. That’s a thing, right?
“Yes, you will,” Mom says. “Because there will be no more going out, no more television, no more video games until you start consistently getting your homework done.”