“Thank you,” she said. She looked at me specifically. “Thank you both. I’m glad Willow has such a good friend.”

My smile faltered, if only slightly.

“Could I borrow your phone, Ezra?” she said. “I’ll handle your father.”

What happens when two high-paid, overworked doctors leave their jobs early to address a family emergency and work together—despite their infinite differences—to be parents for once?

For starters, they threatened to press charges—against every boy involved, against the school, against Principal Durden herself—unless this shit was fixed. Like, miracle-from-Jesus fixed. Basically, someone had better walk on some fucking water. Otherwise, the Slevins would burn this school and its reputation to the ground. They would take this story to the Chicago fucking Tribune and the Sun-Times if they had to. And boy, did they have a headline for her: “Teenage Girl Sexually Harassed by Male Classmates, Is Punished for It by Principal.”

With one parent, Principal Durden might have stood her ground. Maybe. But with two parents who had simultaneously left work early—still in their lab coat/surgeon scrubs—demanding blood and retribution, Principal Durden caved and admitted that maybe the punishment was “a tad hasty” and perhaps she “misjudged the situation.” She promised to have the incident erased from Willow’s records, and that she was free to drop out of theater.

Except that Willow didn’t want to drop out.

“Are you kidding me?” said Willow. “The play is in four days! If I drop out two days before the performance, they’re screwed. Then Wynonna is screwed, and she’s the star of the play! Then Ezra’s screwed, even though he only has three lines, and he auditioned to be a tree. Besides, I want to be in the play! Do you know how long I’ve practiced for this role?”

“Wait, Ezra’s in the play?” said Dad. “I thought this was a detention sort of thing?”

“He and his friends, like, broke into school on a holiday.”

“They did what? Why?”

Willow shrugged. “Your son’s a menace to society. Anarchy is why.”

“You know what?” said Mom. “I don’t want to know why. That’s not the issue right now. The issue is that you’re in this play with at least three boys that have been sexually harassing you—God knows if there’s more—so if you’re not dropping out, I want them to drop out.”

“What? No! They all have important roles!”

“You’re kidding. You’re telling me all three of those little bastards have important roles?”

“Jayden is Sir Toby Belch, and Patrick is Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and Thad is Fabian,” said Willow, like this was all self-explanatory.

“So, what? You expect us to just let this play go on, as is? Then it’s like you were never un-punished? Where’s your justice, Willow? You may not care about your justice, but I, for one, want justice for you!”