There’s a soft sniff behind us. Bree stiffens, rises to look over the back of the seat, ignoring the driver’s voice, worn to sandpaper, face front face front. “How long have you been back there?”

“Just a couple seconds.” Hazel’s defensive. I look around the edge of the seat and find her pinned by Bree’s stare, a blue-mascaraed friend seated beside her, smiling nervously around a nibbled hangnail. “We didn’t hear anything.”

“Then how do you know there was anything to hear?” Without breaking eye contact, Bree slides slowly back onto our seat. “Curiosity killed the cat, Hazel Mae.”

“Satisfaction brought him back.”

“No, it didn’t.”

In the school hallway, congestion, suffocation. Bree and Sage pair off against the masses, already in private conversation, not needing me now, and I want so badly to follow. The words I should’ve said on the bus—Will you cut again today?—Are you going to the skate park?—and most definitely Take me with you—sit on my tongue like something Ma would’ve forced me to eat as a little kid—creamed spinach, cauliflower—bringing tears to my eyes and bitterness to my mouth because I won’t swallow them. I’ll just walk around like this all day, tongue-tied.

I’m called in for the usual guidance office meet-and-greet first thing. After two days without a summons, I thought I’d gotten out of it. Guidance is a closet-size space reserved for someone named Mrs. Mac, according to the bright quilted sign hanging from a tack on the door. I knock, hear a muffled reply.

Inside is lamplit—a Tiffany-style stained-glass number on the filing cabinet used in favor of the overhead light—and there are enough potted plants and climbing vines to give the room a cool, shadowed feel.

She’s too big for the room, the woman sitting at the desk, though a large part of it may be her hair, a platinum-blond cloud framing a plump face behind pearlized glasses. She beams at me. “Clara! Has to be Clara Morrison. I know everybody around here, but you’re a new one on me.” She takes off the glasses and waves me in, adjusting her position at the cluttered desk. “Please, come right in, take a seat.”

The seat is padded, egg-shaped, covered in geometric-patterned fabric, obviously something she brought from home. I sink in until I’m looking at her from an odd half-reclining angle, one hand still gripping my backpack strap like a lifeline.

She clasps her hands on the desk. Her pink sweater pattern involves pom-pom balls. “Let’s have a proper introduction. I’m Mrs. Macintyre, head of guidance.” She laughs. “I just like saying that. I’m the whole department.” She rests her elbow on the desk, chin on fist. “How are you settling in so far?”

“Pretty well.” I shift my butt around, trying to scoot up.