I mean I had a part doing the one thing I loved more than almost anything except my dog, my parents, roller-skating, and disco. I did not expect everyone to be happy for me and my accomplishment of pulling off what was obviously a pretty stunning audition.

At the same time, getting the part meant spending more time with the Forevers. Sarah, Tanner, Gilly, and John had all gotten parts. Sarah was cast as Wendy, a part she could probably wear her Our Town dress for. Tanner was Captain Hook, which was a juicier part than he deserved, but then again he did have a pretty decent audition. John was going to be Smee, which, again, is a pretty solid role, and his audition was okay too. Gilly was one of the Lost Kids (aka the Lost Boys in the original).

The next day I felt a weird static in the air as soon as I opened my locker and noticed that Sarah and Tanner were looking at me from the other side of the hallway.

“Hey!” Berry bounced up to me. “What’s going on?”

“Just checking out the salt-and-pepper harbingers of doom,” I answered.

Berry looked over her shoulder, not entirely covertly. “Ugh.”

In homeroom, Mrs. Sherman showed up in a turtleneck that made me rethink my turtleneck. It really is such a precarious thing, the turtleneck. Mrs. Sherman looked like an actual turtle in hers, partly because it was a kind of avocado-green puttylike color that didn’t go with her skin tone.

That’s not me judging, although Lucy would say it sort of was.

It was English class when the static source was finally revealed—Sarah put up her hand and, before Mr. Davidson could call her name, rose from her seat.

“I have something to say, Mr. Davidson.”

“Is it about the poem we’re reading?” Mr. Davidson leaned on his desk. He was wearing cowboy boots that day. Also an interesting choice.

“No,” Sarah said, holding up her chin. “It’s about. . .the play.”

“Well.” Mr. Davidson put his book down on the desk. “Perhaps we can make it quick, then, or talk about it after cla—”

“I wanted to say”—Sarah placed her hands on the desk, then on her hips—“I wanted to say that I think that it’s inappropriate, the play you chose.”

“Peter Pan?” Mr. Davidson lowered his chin to peer at Sarah over his glasses. “You think Peter Pan is inappropriate?”

“I think, we normally do plays that are about, like, us, and our town, and who we are. And now, for like no reason, it’s like you’re doing this gay play.”

Just as an aside. Growing up with queer moms, I know about almost all LGBTQIA things. And J. M. Barrie, who wrote Peter Pan, wasn’t gay. I don’t know if that’s what qualifies something as a gay play, but he wasn’t.