Excellence is my motto, so when Rudy picked me up that day, I gave him back the pendant. Did it work? he said. Oh yes, I said. Yes, it was excellent. I told you, he said. He said, Then while they’re dazzled you can use your sucker punch wham bam who’s the fool now, but I told him I didn’t want to practice my sucker punch that day I actually just wanted to go home and he said, Fine, but I have to get my hours because he was doing community service and his community service was me.

And at home Mama L asked, How is the internship with Rudy going, and I said, Good. And Mama K said, Good? Is he drinking? Is he being an asshole? You can tell us. And I said, It’s excellent. And the Mean Aunt asked, Is it helping you fit in at school better? And I said, Oh yes, oh certainly. I am excelling. At. It. And the Mean Aunt made some notes in her special binder that had everything in it that she said was for my life. She looked at Mama K and said, See, what did I tell you?

The Mean Aunt always acted like she could read my mind like she knew me best even when she said my mamas were totally delusional. But when I told her everything was excellent, which was not true, no friggin way, the Mean Aunt couldn’t even tell that I was lying. Also I don’t think the other kids were bowing down after all I think they were just tying their shoes. Also I felt sorry for Rudy for being a hillbilly and a criminal. He was flanged like me and the acorn kid and he didn’t even know. So it turned out that a lot of things that I thought were true were actually not true. Adult omniscience wasn’t true. It wasn’t true that Rudy’s jewels could protect me. It wasn’t true that an internship with a man could help me fit in. And all this time I thought I was Friend of Snake but that couldn’t have been true because that night I rolled over in bed and the black snake bit me in the face.

I was sleeping when it happened. I was sleeping in an inky pool in Mama K’s arms, and then she opened her mouth and a boy came out, a boy like me but with sharp teeth and a red tongue, and then the part of me that was made of thick oatmeal and buckskin was eaten away suddenly, like the pages of the Mean Aunt’s binder eaten away by mice, and then my face had the feeling of red and purple and then I was awake and all the women in my life were around me and none of them had their shirts on and breasts of all shapes and sizes swung over my head.