I dress quickly. If I don’t make the first fifteen minutes of class I’ll be marked absent. They’ll call you. You sound so normal on your voicemail. Like a regular grown-up. Would they just leave a message? Would they call your work? Where does work think you are? Your phone’s next to the empty fruit bowl on the kitchen bench. I plug it in every couple of days but no one calls. Not once in thirty-one days.

I grab a banana and check the clock: 8:47. I should be on my way to school already. I tip some food in Splinter’s bowl and hold the back door open while he runs out for a wee. I light some more incense sticks on the back porch. Refill the vaporizers. He slinks back in and I slam the door behind him, grab the parent-teacher notice off the bench—leaving several pages of failed signatures behind—and bang out the front door. My backpack thumps in rhythm with my running feet and the voice in my head counting me to school.

I WONDER IF I’m a hologram. A kid laughs at something I say but I can’t remember what it was. I move the right way and nobody notices that there’s something not quite solid about me. A teacher ruffles my hair.

The parent-teacher notice is heavy in my bag. I can’t wait to get rid of it; I don’t want to get rid of it. That cold thickness sits at the bottom of my throat. I want to get lost in the day but I can’t with that piece of paper in my bag.

When the bell goes I can’t swallow.

IT SITS IN a pile on the edge of Ms. Pham’s desk, looking just like all the others. The numbers on the page in front of me keep getting tangled. I don’t look as she scoops all the notices off the side of her desk and starts to go through them.

“Rae?”

The chest-rat starts trying to push its way out. I fight with it till I can get a breath.

“Yes?”

“Isn’t Mum coming this term?”

“She’s got a work thing.”

Ms. Pham frowns. “Let her know she can call to make another time if she needs, okay?”

“She said she’ll let you know if she has any questions.” It comes out squeaky.

“Okay. Good.” She gives me a smile and moves on to the next notice. I bite my tongue on the traitor who wants to tell her you won’t call. And why. And what that means about me.

I look down at the worksheet in front of me.

The only people who realize I’m alone are the people who see why. That woman who knew I was a thief, the man in the park who knew I was nothing. The people that make my insides stop.