“Not really,” I said quietly. I could still hear Tanner’s voice shouting the word dyke ringing in my ears, but the idea of saying anything about that to my mother in that office at that moment seemed as possible as turning into a bird and flying out the window. Or something.

“Are you sure?”

The phone on her desk started ringing.

“Yeah.”

Lucy looked like she wanted to say many things to me. There was a knock on the door.

“Well. We’ll revisit this when I get home. Go to class.”

And then she stood up, walked over to me, and peeled a pepperoni off the top of my head I legit didn’t know was there. She flicked the pepperoni into the trash, opened the door, and walked out of her office and into the room where Tanner and his parents were waiting with Principal Lynde.

“Are you going to talk to her?” Tanner’s father barked at Principal Lynde, clearly pointing at me. “Where’s that kid going?”

The last thing I heard as I exited into the hall was his booming voice: “DISGUSTING.”

Berry had to go to Band practice after school, but she sent me a text of a bunch of pizzas and happy faces. Which, every time I thought about the look on Tanner’s face when the pizza hit him, I agreed, but then I got home after school. And then an hour later Lucy got home, and it felt like it was less happy faces and more the face with all the lines on it.

I won’t give you the whole thing. But the highlights were as follows.

I was in serious trouble.

Lucy’s first day at her new job, which was already going to be really difficult, was a nightmare for reasons that did not need to be described to me in detail in order for me to take them seriously. But needless to say, it wasn’t just the students who thought a militant dyke was taking over their precious school.

The PTA, including Tanner’s family, had already expressed serious doubts as to Lucy’s qualifications. Through a series of emails. And voicemails.

Sitting on the couch, Millie frowned, rubbing Lucy’s back. “It’s your first day. It’s Anne’s first day. How can they even presume to judge anything?”

“Right,” Lucy sighed. “Well, Lynde said she is considering this incident as ‘meriting a probationary approach to my job.’ ”

Millie looked like she wanted to say more, but she gave Lucy a hug instead.

So. Yeah, I guess since there were bigger things going on, in the end, I was not grounded. But they were disappointed.

This is the ultimate lesbian punishment, by the way. Disappoint ment.