I look at the school. That ugly beast, with its writhing insides, its sour, nauseous belly full of unhappy adolescence. I look back at the sky, with its infinite possibilities. It looks like it could just turn itself inside out like a giant piñata and rain candy all over us until we are buried—chocolate-smudged faces and happy toothaches. I look at Dee, who grins, and makes my heart heat up with some real, actual happiness. I reconsider.

*   *   *

Dee says she’ll wait on the big boulder outside the school. Me and Lottie’s rock.

“You’d better get going if we’re doing this.”

I hurry through the front doors as the bell rings. I have, scrunched up in my hand, a note that Dee just scribbled for me, using my back as a surface to write against. She folded it up and handed it to me, telling me to give it to my teacher.

“What’s it say?” I asked her.

“Says that you’re fed up and you’re taking a personal day.”

I opened it.

Please excuse Stevie from school today. She is spending the day with her father.

She’d signed it with a pretty good estimation of my mom’s loopy Tiffany. It’s brilliant. For starters, the excuse of visiting with my dad is an ace in the hole. I mean, what teacher, let alone Pete, is going to deny a kid from a clearly broken home the chance to visit with her dad?

The corridors are loud; it rings in my ears. I stride past my locker, not looking for Lottie, not caring, right into homeroom and zero in on Pete, who is at his desk rummaging through a bag. He sees me coming, and his face lights up.

“Hi there, Stevie! How’s the morning going so far?”

He seems so far away to me now. I never go to their house anymore; it feels like a different life, back when he was someone I would confide in, someone I could talk to and trust. Now he’s just my teacher.

“Um, good.” I hand over the note. “I’m spending the day with my dad.” I look away. “Hope that’s all right with you,” I mumble. And I am hoping that he doesn’t run into my mom anywhere in town and mention this.

He reads it and nods, a somber look on his face.

“Of course, Stevie. I know how much you must be looking forward to that. Say hi for me.” He doesn’t even know when he’s being blatantly lied to. I can’t believe I used to think he got me, that he got anything.

“Yeah, okay, I will,” I bullshit. “He doesn’t come around much, so we kind of have to jump on it when he does.”