The protesters were in their same spots, camped out on lawn chairs with their signs propped against their knees. Close up, Janine could see that some of them had marked the letters on their signs in pencil before going over the lines with permanent marker, and had written their slogans along ruled guidelines, also marked in pencil. POETRY or PROFIT? read one of the signs that Janine could see. She thought about her poem, which when she last looked (just this morning), was still on the Ranch’s web page. It wasn’t making any money—Janine had no idea how many times anyone had looked at it, even—but someone had added links: to the Wikipedia page about Terri Schiavo, to the foundation her parents had established in her name, and, somewhat disturbingly, to the Talking to Tad radio show.

The protesters did not look up at as Janine skirted around their long, silent line, but kept their eyes trained on the school. In the Kangaroo, she bought tampons and seven bottles of water, then carried the heavy bag of water back to the protesters. She walked in front of them, then went down the line, pulling the water bottles from the thin plastic bag and handing them over without speaking. Thank you, they each said. At the end of the row there was a woman wearing a visor decorated with metal buttons and peering through a pair of binoculars.

“Is he in there?” she asked.

“Who?”

“Tad Tucker,” said the woman, letting the binoculars rest on a string around her neck and looking up at Janine. “Today’s the first day of classes, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Janine confirmed. “But I haven’t seen him. I heard that he’s coming on Wednesday.”

“You hear that?” the woman called down the line. “Some inspiration!”

“Wednesday!” said another woman. “No wonder it’s so quiet today.”

“I’m not sure, though,” Janine said, afraid she’d said too much. “Who knows if he’s coming at all. May I sit down?”

The woman inched her chair over enough that Janine had a small patch of grass to sit on and resumed looking through her binoculars. “You’re a student here? What do you think about a politician using your school for political gain?”

“Maybe he just wants to write,” Janine said.

“Then why isn’t he here?” The woman looked again through her binoculars, as if he might be hiding behind the bushes somewhere.