That day she said nothing. She didn’t even hand Marianne one of her Post-it notes that read, “Hey—start reading!” or “Hey—answer at least four questions on the worksheet and we’ll call it even.” Marianne really appreciated those Post-it notes. Why couldn’t Mr. Garcia do something private like that?

Marianne doodled little ocean waves in the margins of her book and tried to think of what she’d say in the meeting that day:

I’ve just been really tired.

I take total responsibility. I understand.

I’ll ace the next test, I swear.

At the end of class, as everyone ran off, Ms. James walked out with Marianne toward Ms. Clarke’s office and told her, “I’m joining you for your meeting today.”

That was a very bad omen.

And the signs just got worse from there. When Marianne walked through the front office toward Ms. Clarke’s room, she could have sworn that scary music played as if someone was about to pop out from behind a table with a horror movie mask on. Inside, a sight more worrisome than any Pennywise costume greeted her. Her dad and mom sat there silently. Her dad wore a blank expression. Marianne gave him an optimistic “Howdy!” but even that didn’t perk him up. Her mom remained entirely still except for her pointer finger, which played with her wedding ring, flicking the teeny diamond half a centimeter back and forth across her skin.

Ms. Clarke looked like she was about to tell Marianne someone had died.

For a moment Marianne thought maybe someone had. Granny? A great-aunt or -uncle? Oh no, was it their cat, Possum? What happened to Possum?

“Is Possum okay?” Marianne asked as she walked in.

“What?” they all answered at once, each more confused than the next.

“Phew,” she mumbled.

“Marianne, take a seat…”

As Ms. Clarke broke the news to her that midterm scores would be announced the next day and that Marianne had failed three of the four, and as she began to list Marianne’s grades from the previous semester and her current point totals for the present one, and as Ms. James jumped in to say something about Marianne’s “wonderful presence” in class and her one “lovely, if a tad jumbled, paper” on The Diary of Anne Frank, Marianne tried to do exactly what she did in math class: let her daydreams carry her away.

Lillian called it “The Drift.”

“Marianne’s doing the Drift again, Dad!” she’d announce when speeches about homework started.

The drifting combined with the bad grades had concerned her parents so much that they’d taken her to doctors and gotten tests done, but nope, nothing was outside the norm. Not in that way.

Marianne could’ve sworn they were almost disappointed.

“You’re just choosing not to listen to us,” her dad had reprimanded her.

“Well … yeah!” Marianne had been shocked that they hadn’t known that already.

So, right then, she worked her hardest to concentrate on the strange painting on Ms. Clarke’s wall that resembled a little kid’s drawing of a skull filled in with paint splotches. She attempted to ponder who would get kicked off her favorite reality show and how they’d take it. But try as she might not to listen as Ms. Clarke spoke, a new, urgent warning came through loud and clear: