“It doesn’t matter.” She waves my question away. She was going to offer yoga, too, but Monique thought it was satanic, so that didn’t go anywhere. But since my mother is the principal now, she might offer a class in yoga, too. I watch her as she talks and try to pin down the difference I see in her. She has definitely learned some things over the summer. She moves differently, with more intention, somehow. Maybe it’s confidence. “It’s not really about cheerleading,” she says. “It’s about the same thing it’s always been.”

“Dance.”

“Yeah. I was ready to give up on it, but it was because of what you said, at the beginning of the summer.”

“What did I say?”

“You said that if we wanted a future, we needed a plan. So—now—we have a plan.”

“So you mean those two—”

“Yeah,” she says. “I’ve been hanging out with them all summer, off and on, starting pretty much right after you left for Maine. They’re not so bad.”

“I thought they hated us. Because of Junior Davis.”

“Serena, just let that whole Junior Davis thing go, okay? Rack and I worked it out. Anyway—” She looks around to make sure the deceased aren’t eavesdropping. “He doesn’t really love her”—she puts air quotes around the word love—“but he needs her. This is his fourth time taking algebra, and he needs to pass if he wants a football scholarship. She has organizational skills. And a car.” She talks about all the pieces Junior needs to put together if he wants to go to college next year.

I narrow my eyes at her. “You didn’t make any kind of a bargain, did you? Like, you’ll leave Junior alone if she—”

She cuts me off. “It doesn’t matter. They like us, those two. They think we’re interesting.”

“Do we get to decide if we think they’re interesting?”

“Just go with it, okay, Serena? For once in your life? Angel and Rack get a kick out of you. They think you’re funny. And the boys think you’re kinda cute, so—”

“What boys?”

“See?” she says. “You’re interested.”

At that moment, an enormous pickup truck comes bumping up the cow path toward us, taking out a row of corn on either side. “Help us, Jesus!” I throw up my hands. “We’re being invaded!” Claudette Mizerak is driving.

“That’s her dad’s truck,” Grimshaw explains.

“It’s her dad’s corn, too.”

They pull up and stop. Claudette Mizerak’s head pops up through the sunroof and says, “Hi, cheerleaders!”

“Here’s a quiz,” says Angel, hanging out the window. “What’s the most important ingredient in the making of a cheerleader?”

“I give up,” I say.