Weeding is next, which should be a breeze compared to turning the compost. But once I reach the beds, I’m not sure these are the ones Earl meant. I bend down to look, get onto my hands and knees to push back the leaves of a big lettuce so I can see underneath.

Before I know it, there’s a noise that lifts my eyes up. There’s a figure charging toward me out from the shade by the trees and the sheds. It’s running, waving. Nick, running at me like I really am the quarterback and he’s on the other team.

“What are you doing, you idiot? Stop, you idiot! You idiot!”

I rise to my knees and look down at my hands, barely able to choke up a flimsy, “What?”

“What are you doing?” His face and arms are red like the cartoon villain in an antacid commercial.

“What do you mean?” I really don’t know what he’s talking about. “Earl asked me to weed the—”

“Those aren’t weeds. Ugh, moron! These are my radish seedlings! They’re just starting to come up!”

“But I didn’t . . . I was just trying to see . . .”

“Just get away from them. Jesus!”

“They’re fine, I swear. I was just confused because . . .”

But the festering boil on two sunburned legs won’t even let me explain. Instead he mocks me. “I was confused. So, we’re all supposed to starve because some dumb little girl is confused. Why don’t you take your bright ideas and inexperience and ineptitude back to the Bad Place and launch a start-up?”

He drops to his knees to survey the damage, still muttering goddamn this and fucking that and insulting me, failing to notice that he’s having a fit over nothing. He’ll probably find his radishes coming up in a couple of weeks and think that he saved them from me. I just want to slink away and hide. I want to say sorry to everyone for everything. I’m exposed—the sun is high and hot, everyone is peering at me from their shelter in the shade—and I’m probably the least likely to die today but I’m craving it badly now, burning for it.

Taking up my tools and gloves, I feel as shaken as if I’d just been in a fight. I just want my mom and dad to come get me. That’s all I want. The thought seems to slice the inside of my forehead and I have to grimace it away or it’ll make me cry as I walk back toward all these faces, now settling into the games or chores, but still taking glances at me with bystanders’ expressions.