He puts the pots and bowls back into the cabinet and moves to the wall perpendicular to inspect the cabinets on either side of the stove. Isabelle swallows; if he keeps moving counterclockwise as he is, then her cabinet is next. She slides her back down the cabinet so that she is squatting against it, her heart racing and her breaths coming quick. If she had only known the exterminator was coming, she thinks, if only, if only. She might have tried to collect the ants, maybe, tried to lure them away with crumbs into the safety of a jar. She might have tried to construct a fake back wall for the cabinet so that the ants’ wall was covered. But what can she do now? She could try to distract the exterminator, she thinks, that might work. She could show him a spot in the living room or bathroom and swear that she’s seen roaches there. Or she could ask if he could work in another room just while she finishes up her homework—but her heart falls, because she cannot do these things—but she can, she thinks; she can speak up, but she won’t speak up. What is she afraid of? Hadn’t words only minutes ago been on the tip of her tongue when she’d reached out for the phone? She is a selfish girl, she thinks, selfish and awful and cruel, and now, because of her, the ants will be killed. She feels her jaw begin to tremble; she sets it tight, seething inside, swollen with helplessness.

The exterminator is just putting back the contents of the cabinet before hers; Isabelle presses her toes into the floor and her back as hard against the cabinet as she can. She wraps her arms around her knees, each hand grabbing the opposite wrist and locking tight.

“Isabelle, you need to get out of the way,” she hears her mother say. Isabelle stares at the red tiles of the floor, blurring the lines between them with her eyes; she will not look up. “Isabelle,” she hears again. “What has gotten into you today?”

“I can move on to the next cabinet,” the exterminator offers. Isabelle can see his boots on the floor now before her, one pant leg caught up in a tongue.

“No, you can’t.” Her mother sounds angry now. “Isabelle,” she says. “Move out of the way, please, right now.”

Isabelle breathes deeply through her nose. She can feel her nostrils flare, and she tightens her grip around her wrists. Her jaw is beginning to ache.