Halloween at school is even weirder than regular school. Halloween is too confusing to do it at school. Not to be, like, a total buzzkill, but I feel like it’s so easy to get way too into dressing up for the whole day, and then you’re just the douchebag trying to sit down in a SpongeBob costume in math class. So I always skirt the issue in regular clothes, erring on the side of disdain. Today I’m just wearing a big T-shirt over a black unitard and Timbs. While Rowie and Marcy share my resistance to dressing up for school, Tess, of course, does it with unabashed eagerness. She also never tells anyone what her costume’s going to be beforehand; she’s into surprises or something. We’re shambling into Mrs. DiCostanza’s AP English class second period, waiting for Tess to make her grand entrance. Just before the bell, she strolls in wearing a long kind of Laura Ingalls Wilder dress with fake blood all over it, holding a bloody ax under her arm.

“Who the eff are you supposed to be?” I lean over and whisper as she slips into her seat.

“Lizzie Borden. Duh,” she says.

“Who the balls is that?” I hiss back.

“You know. ‘Lizzie Borden took an ax, gave her mother forty whacks, and when she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.’”

“Sick,” I say approvingly. I was actually born late the night of Halloween, during a huge blizzard. It’s like one of those back-in-my-day-I-walked-to-school-uphill-both-ways legends: I was born right smack in the icy middle of the Halloween blizzard nearly seventeen years ago. Pops couldn’t drive very fast in the midnight hell-snow, so I was mostly born right smack in our 1984 Colt Vista supercruiser, and my birthday’s technically November first, which is tomorrow. Marcy always pretends to forget, but she’s definitely up to something.

“Ladies, let’s rein it in,” Mrs. DiCostanza says tersely. Marilyn DiCostanza is no fucking joke. There is absolutely no messing with this woman; she’s a Holyhill institution. She’s head of the English department and has been teaching AP English here for twenty years. Everyone says that if you can get in with her good enough to ask her to write you a college recommendation, you’ll get in anywhere you want, because all the committees know her (yes, these are the titillating urban legends Holyhill has to offer). Some of the other kids talk shit about her because she’s so strict, but I secretly worship her. She’s supersmart and sometimes she even throws things. In HolyHell, where parents will drop a lawsuit quicker than you can say jumpin’ Jehosaphat, throwing things at your students takes some serious ovaries.

“Hey, Mrs. D.” The four of us sidle up to her. “Can we talk to you for a second?”

“Make it quick,” she says, ordering some papers.

“Would you be the faculty adviser for our new student group?” Tess asks.

She looks up and smiles. “Ah, yes, I remember my ill-timed entrance into your attempt to convince Ross Nordling about this. Remind me of the particulars?”

“It’s, um,” I say. “It’s a gay-straight hip-hop alliance. Called Hip-Hop for Heteros and Homos.”

“Excuse me?” Marilyn DiCostanza says.

“It’s not as crazy as it sounds, I swear,” Marcy says. “Nordling tried to make us sign that racist hip-hop policy, so we decided to form a combination hip-hop/gay-straight discussion group to prove that people can learn from hip-hop. We want to talk about gender and race and culture and stuff.”

“It sounds a little crazy,” Mrs. D. says, “but I must admit I thought making students sign that policy was ludicrous. Let me know when your next meeting is and I’ll come learn more?”

“Mos def,” Rowie says.

“What?” Mrs. D. asks.

I giggle. “We’ll definitely let you know.”

“Ah,” she says. “Well. Super. Now take your seats, please.

“In honor of Halloween,” Mrs. D. begins as we sit, “I have made the ambitious decision to spend today’s class discussing Christina Rossetti. Who would like to begin by reading the poem ‘Goblin Market’?” A pointy witch hat sits on her desk.

“We’re not going to read ‘The Raven’?” Tess asks eagerly, her hand popping up. “I love ‘The Raven.’”⁴²

42. Ultra-stealth text from Marcy: I’d know she quotes Radiohead on her Facebook profile even if we weren’t friends.

Mrs. D. cracks a smile. “I left Poe off the list because I thought it was a predictable choice, but if ‘The Raven’ sets your heart on fire, Tess, we’ll try to squeeze it in at the end. Oh, and also, the little ghost in the back is my daughter Johanna. Her school is closed today, so she’ll be joining our discussion.”

The name makes me start; Johanna is my mother’s name, after the Bob Dylan song, or that’s what Pops told me, anyway. I turn around to see a small besheeted figure wave shyly at us. Seeing Johanna makes me wonder what would happen if I ever met my mother on the street, randomly, a meeting I’ve both fantasized about and feared. How would I know she corresponded with me, her body with mine? How would I recognize her? Sometimes I don’t remember what she looks like. Looked like. Would she recognize me?

Tess leans over and whisper-sings the White Stripes’ “Little Ghost” in my ear. Though the sheet makes it hard to tell, I’d place this Johanna at about eleven or twelve, and think that she’s younger than a child I’d imagined someone of Mrs. D.’s stature having.

“Will someone volunteer to read the poem?” Mrs. D. asks. I raise my hand. She nods at me. “Thanks, Esme. Whenever you’re ready.”

I begin to read; the poem is long, lyrical, more than a little sensuous, rhythmic, and riddled with graphic fruit. It seems to be about two sisters walking through this surreal bazaar where sketchy goblins try to sell them evil fruit. One sister, Lizzie, is the good, virtuous, cautious one, and the other one, Laura, is too curious for her own good:

“‘No,’ said Lizzie, ‘no, no, no;

Their offers should not charm us,

Their evil gifts would harm us.’

She thrust a dimpled finger

In each ear, shut eyes and ran:

Curious Laura chose to linger

Wondering at each merchant man. . . .

Laura stretched her gleaming neck

Like a rush-imbedded swan,

Like a lily from the beck,

Like a moonlit poplar branch,

Like a vessel at the launch

When its last restraint is gone.”

I look up. Mrs. DiCostanza smiles expectantly.

“So — first impressions? Where do we start with this poem?”

I love the dead silence that always follows open-ended questions like this, especially when they’re about poetry. We’re all word nerds, the Sister Mischief cohort, so I’m just waiting to see who jumps on it first.

It’s Marcy, hot on the buzzer. “The metric structure is pretty complex,” she answers. That’s my girl, finding the beats in everything. “It mostly alternates between iambic tetrameter and trimeter, but a lot of the lines stop short at dimeter.”

“Can someone translate that into English?” Anders Ostergaard quips from the back. What a genius.

Johanna DiCostanza lifts up her ghost face and smiles helpfully at him. “It means that the emphasis is on every second syllable, and that there are alternately three and four poetic feet per line. And that some of the lines stop at two feet.”

“Oh, snap!” I hoot, raising a snicker from the class.

“Yo, Mrs. D., your kid is like crazy smart,” Elijah Carlson, another of the white hats, contributes. I see Johanna kind of shrinking in her chair and remember viscerally how much it sometimes sucked to be the smart kid.

“Yes, my kid is smart,” Mrs. D. says. “Nicely observed, all of you. So what’s the thematic content of ‘Goblin Market’? What kind of narrative does it enact? And why did I choose it for Halloween?”

“Because it’s about goblins and it’s creepy as fu —?” Elijah offers another insight.

“Watch yourself, Mr. Carlson,” Mrs. D. responds swiftly.

Tess raises her ax. “This poem feels really sexual to me. Like, kind of violently sexual. This is a really intense sister relationship.”

“Can you push that a little bit harder?” Mrs. DiCostanza asks.

Tess continues. “It kind of feels like a fight with seduction. Like, Laura’s the greedy sister, the curious sister, and she gets all up in the market, but Lizzie’s a little more prudish, a little more wary. And the goblins are all after them in this sort of rapey way.”

“Do you think we’re meant to interpret this poem as an allegory?” Mrs. D. asks. “Is this a cautionary tale about girls and sex?”

“No,” Rowie pipes up unexpectedly. “It starts off wanting to make you think that. But it ends up being more like the sisters vanquishing the goblins, outwitting them at their own game.” She pauses. “As a whole, this feels to me like a poem about love between women.”

Rowie’s pupils dart around as if she’s being followed. Mrs. D. nods.

“I like that interpretation very much, especially considering it’s ultimately Lizzie’s love that saves Laura from ruination and death. Can we unpack the significance of fruit in the poem a little bit more —”

Mrs. D. still has her mouth open to continue her sentence when she is abruptly cut off by a whoop in the hall, followed by the fire bell. She hangs her head, having taught too many Halloweens to feign surprise. Resignedly plunking her witch hat onto her head, she ushers the class and Johanna toward the door.

We squeeze out the door with no preparation for what we’re entering. The hall is a scene of unbridled sensory chaos. Everyone’s pressing their ears and squinting against the jangling bell and flashing alarm lights, but, even more jarring, the central cafeteria floor is covered in a tempest of wretched shit — there are suds everywhere, suggesting that soap is one of the ingredients to this liquid disaster, and there’s gobs of something thick and shiny that looks a lot like Crisco mingling with the bubbles. I hear Wu-Tang’s “Shame on a Nigga” pumping, but I don’t know where it’s coming from. As we gape from the doorway, various stained people run by: two guys chortle as they slick the slime off their vintage North Star hockey jerseys, and a short girl weeps as she realizes her suede skirt is ruined. I clap a hand over my mouth, awestruck.

“This ish is bananas,” Rowie says. “B-A —”

“Cheese and rice!” Mrs. D. exclaims as shrieks begin to erupt from all the other classes emerging into the storm. “Come on, we’re taking the north stairs.” She snatches Johanna and marches our class toward the exit, but we move reluctantly, rubbernecking at the administrators who have begun to enter the scene.

People are catapulting into the bedlam, slipping and sliding around the lunchroom, veering and falling amid the teachers’ hapless protests. The white hats are all batshit trying to push each other down in the goop, and a group of burnouts form an impromptu blissed-out dance circle near the windows, obliviously gyrating in the muck. Coach Crowther tries to make his way over to break up the party — which I have half a mind to careen over and join — but totally eats it on his third step into the slippery lunchroom maw. As he writhes in the goo, I notice Marcy smirking like she knows something we don’t.

“Aren’t you going to help him?” I ask.

“Naw, I’m pretty sure they covered this in basic training. We should get moving,” she says, chuckling. “It’s about to get worse.”

“How do you —?” Rowie manages before the first water balloon hits, taking Lauren Wilshire down like she were made of Styrofoam. Shrieking, we scurry out of the line of fire as the ammunition descends like a hailstorm.

“NASTY!” Tess screeches as we try to run down the stairs. The banisters are covered in the same lardlike substance as the cafeteria floor, but mercifully, the terrorists have spared the stairs. Holding our hands up like hostages, we make our way down to the exit. There isn’t any more order outside the school: teachers don’t get training for emergencies like these, I suppose, and half the students have already started migrating over to the parking lot and driving out through the bus entrance on the other side of the school.

“Marce, you wanna fill us in here? I assume you have sources on this,” Tess says.

Marcy snorts and motions for us to draw back from the AP English crew a little, leaning in.

“Look, all’s I’m saying is I heard a little chatter about the hockey team trying out some new initiation strategies. I think the new guys had to come up with a prank that’d get everyone out of school early on Halloween,” she says.

“Oh, Lordy,” Tess says. “I hope Anders wasn’t up in this.”

“So why are we still here?” I say. “I say we follow the parking lot migration.”

“Won’t we get marked absent for the rest of the day if we bail?” Rowie says worriedly.

“Ummm,” Marcy says, “I think Project Mayhem here may have the fire alarm set to go off every fifteen minutes for the rest of the day.” The fire trucks roll up just as the alarm goes off again. I look over and see Mrs. D. on her cell phone, fighting with someone. The little ghost is fastened close to her side, taking in the anarchy around her with wonder. Wow, I think, some people have moms at times like these.

“They’ve already started to leave, Ross,” she argues, yelling into her BlackBerry speakerphone like a Hollywood agent. “You have to notify the parents so they can pick up kids who don’t have cars. You’d also be well advised to do so before the press gets wind of this.”

“Marilyn, I can’t close the entire goddamn school because some little asswipes decided to unleash a holocaust of — of — slop all over the building,” the voice of Principal Ross Nordling warbles hysterically from the other end of the speakerphone.

“Ross, you can’t expect kids to learn when they’re knee-deep in bullshit. I just heard there are animals loose in the school. It isn’t safe. I’m telling my class to call their parents.” Mrs. D. ends the conversation, pitching her phone in her purse.

“Animals?” Rowie asks.

“Tess, can I see your iPhone for a sec?” Marcy’s got that impish look in her eyes again.

“Where’s your phone?” Tess asks suspiciously.

“I need interwebs,” Marcy replies, grabbing the magic gadget. She clicks on it for a minute,⁴³ then gives us a thumbs-up.

43. Marcedemeanor DM @ KIND11Tips: If you guys have anyone near Holyhill, the high school’s been attacked. #holyhillholocaust

“Fuck all y’all, Holyhill.”

“What did you just do?” I arch an eyebrow at her.

“Direct-messaged the KIND-11 Twitter tip line.” Tess snatches her iPhone back and reads us the tweet.

“You said the school’s under attack?” Tess’s jaw hangs agape.

“The school is under attack. Sort of.” She hangs up, grinning at us.

“Oh, man,” Tess says. “Darlene would hit the roof if this was what I wore for my local TV debut.” She giggles and taps on her iPhone.⁴⁴

44. TheConTessa @Marcedemeanor: All hell’s breaking loose at Holyhill High. #holyhillholocaust

Marcy gets on her own phone and dials.

“Yo. No, you piss off, I know you’re at work. That’s why I’m calling. Look, just do me a favor and check the Twitter tip line. Naw, we didn’t get bombed or anything, but you’re still gonna wanna haul it over here. Dude, I am not trifling. Just grab whichever Botox Barbie is on duty and a camera and come here. Okay, bye.” She hangs up.

“Rooster?” I ask.

“You know it.” She grins.

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,” the megaphoned voice of Principal Ross Nordling reaches us. “SCHOOL WILL BE CLOSED FOR THE REST OF THE DAY.” A cheer rises from the crowd. “PLEASE MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE PARKING LOT. YOUR PARENTS WILL BE NOTIFIED AND BUSES WILL BE ARRIVING SHORTLY FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DO NOT DRIVE TO SCHOOL. IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION ABOUT THE PERPETRATORS OF THIS INCIDENT —”

In a turn of events that can only be described as absurd, Principal Nordling is interrupted by a chorus of bleating. Turning around to face it, I see several goats trying to cross the street between the school and the track, where everyone who hasn’t already busted has gathered. More goats begin to appear at the exit doors of the school, looking pleadingly at us through the glass. I meet their gaze and understand how they feel down to their bleeding marrow. They can’t get out by themselves.

“Save the goats!” I scream, hurtling into the street to rescue the lost goats from the impending fleet of arriving buses.

“Save the goats!” Rowie squeals with equal fervor, dashing into the street behind me. The poor animals have Crisco all over their hooves. I hope it’s not, like, the guts of anyone’s cousin or anything.

“Here, you’re cool. Crunch on some munchies over here,” I soothe my new cloven-hooved homie, leading him over to the grass. “Keep an eye on him,” I tell Tess and Marcy. Rowie’s already back up at the school, springing the other goats from the building and steering them toward us. I run back to help her herd them across the street; there are two, four counting the ones we’ve already guided to safety. Rowie and I both have this animal instinct. I think it’s a Hindu thing for her; I’m pretty much just a dirty hippie. Two of the goats are covered in red liquid that appears at first to be the carnage of a senseless goat slaughter but upon closer inspection reveals itself as either fake blood or red Kool-Aid.

“These guys are a mess,” says Tess, stripping lengths of lace from her dress to tie around the goats’ necks as makeshift leashes. One of the goats has already started nibbling at his lead, and another bites a chunk out of her tattered hemline. Still holding the ax and her iPhone,⁴⁵ Tess looks like some sort of nightmare shepherdess from a pastoral landscape gone horribly awry.

45. TheConTessa: WTF is going on #holyhillholocaust

“Did you know goats are actually very smart?” Rowie asks as she nuzzles noses with one of the girl goats and pulls her phone from her back pocket.⁴⁶ “Much smarter than sheep.”

46. WowieWudwa @Marcedemeanor @TheConTessa: what kind of sick fuck drags farm animals into this? #holyhillholocaust

“Poor little guys,” I say, stroking their heads. They baa in pleasure. “Where do you think they came from?”

“I don’t know, but I can tell you they’re not leaving with me,” Marcy kicks back.

“Let’s just walk them up to the north lot to calm them down some.” Rowie follows Marcy as she walks toward her car.

“What do you mean, calm them down? They look fine to me.” Marcy nods at the quartet of goats, who seem happily affixed to Tess’s decomposing Lizzie Borden dress.

“Dude. They’re freaking out.” Rowie strokes a pair of ears as we walk.

“They’re straight chilling! You’re the one who’s bugging.” Marcy unhooks her keys from her belt loop.

“We can’t put them in the car like this.” I watch the Kool-Aid drip from the goats’ bellies.

“Oh hell no. No goats in the James,” Marcy says. “The goat stroll ends here.”

“But we can’t just leave them here. That’s just like giving them up for goat meat.” Rowie looks distraught.

“I’m not making myself party to goat slaughter unless there’s a spit-roast involved,” I say. Rowie looks at me, stricken. “I mean, um, say no to roadkill.”

“Look the eff out!” Tess throws her body against all of us as a KIND-11 van wheels narrowly by us; it seems to have entered with some urgency through the parking-lot exit.

“Hey, local media! Wrong way!” Marcy yells, waving her arms. “Over here!”

The van screeches to a stop, and a stringy-haired guy in sunglasses — Rooster Crowther — pokes his head out the driver’s side window, grinning. “Where’s the fire?”

“More like the apocalypse,” Tess calls back. A woman in a fuchsia power suit appears on the other side of the van and gives us a harried smile.

“Do you girls go to school here?” We nod.

“That’s my little sister,” Rooster says, pointing at Marcy.

“Precious. Then could one of you be a doll and clue us in as to what exactly the story I’m here to report is?” Her tone turns slightly snotty.

“Whoa, angry,” Marcy mutters.

“Shut up and let’s get 4H on TV,” I hiss at her.

“Are you effing serious?” Rowie blurts out.

“Hi, I’m Esme Rockett, I’m a junior here at Holyhill,” I introduce myself, sticking out a hand to the reporter.

“Brenda Banacynzki.” She grasps my hand briefly between fiddles with her lapel mike. “Are you afraid of cameras?” the reporter asks.

“Not particularly,” I reply. The goat covered in red refuse next to me bleats. Brenda and Rooster regard it, exchange glances, and shrug.

“Ready when you are, Bren,” Rooster says, hoisting the camera up to his shoulder.

“Kid, you’re our first interview on the scene. Do you think you can tell us what happened?” she asks me, dashing a final mist of powder on her nose.

“Uh, I’ll do my best,” I say, reaffirmed in my gladness that I didn’t wear my costume to school today.

“Darlene’s going to be even pisseder than that time Ada got arrested.” Tess frantically smooths her hair, leaving a red streak in the front.

“Smile!” Brenda Banacynzki says.

“Great, Ez, you’re on in five-four-three-two —” Rooster points a finger at the reporter.

“Good evening, I’m Brenda Banacynzki, reporting live from Holyhill High School, where unknown attackers struck today, disrupting classes and terrifying students. I’m speaking to Esme Rockett, a junior at Holyhill. Esme, can you tell us what happened?” She thrusts a microphone in my face.

“It’s hard to sum up,” I say into the microphone. “Basically some kids covered the floors and banisters in soap and Crisco and inexplicably set a whole bunch of goats loose in the building, and the fire alarm has been going off every fifteen minutes.”

Brenda Banacynzki looks slightly taken aback, but recovers. “What’s the mood at Holyhill today, Esme?”

It’s my moment. “Well, Brenda, I think a lot of Holyhill students are sick of the administrative hypocrisy that allows nonsense like this to go on while prohibiting activities that are actually conducive to academic dialogue.”

“Can you tell us more about that?” Brenda asks, a smile permafrozen on her face.

“I’d be happy to,” I say, snatching my chance amid her confusion. “Holyhill calls itself one of the safest communities in America, but the truth is it’s only safe to be rich, white, and straight here. The Holyhill administration announced earlier this year that it would not permit any hip-hop music, or really anything associated with hip-hop culture, to exist on campus. I think that policy highlights the need for a safe space at our school, a space where music and lifestyles that some consider controversial or alternative can be discussed freely, without needless threats and disruptions like what happened today. That’s why my friends and I”— I glance over at Rowie and the girls, who are gaping at me with dumbfounded mouths —“that’s why my friends and I are petitioning the administration to add a hip-hop gay-straight alliance to the list of recognized student groups.”

I can’t believe Brenda Banacynzki is going along with this, but she totally takes the bait. “Are you saying that what happened today was a Holyhill hate crime?”

Marcy steps in and grabs the mike. “Uh, hi. Marcy Crowther, captain of the Holyhill Fighting Loons drumline. No, I don’t think the incident today was a targeted attack. But students here do need a safe space, and we’d like that space to be one where students can feel free to examine the culture around us, including hip-hop and sexuality. We’ve spoken with administrators, but our application for school recognition has been denied.”

“What do you call your group, and why do you think your application was rejected?”

“Hip-Hop for Heteros and Homos is a name that playfully describes our purpose of sexual and musical inquiry,” I say. “But to discuss hip-hop, we’d need to be able to listen to it, and school policy currently prohibits that, so the administration has told us that we can’t meet on school grounds.” Rowie and Tess edge in next to us.

“Are you implying that the Holyhill administration is unable to maintain order at school or unwilling to protect the rights of all of its students, regardless of personal beliefs or sexual orientation?”

Tess’s shoulder interrupts my thought as she lunges to grab the mike from Marcy. “Hi there. Tess Grinnell. I wouldn’t go that far, Brenda. I think it’s more that Holyhill has been a little slow to acknowledge the presence of students who are interested in this kind of frank discussion. And especially as a thinking Christian, I think that should change.”

“Last question, girls — who’s your four-legged friend?”

“I’m Rohini Rudra,” Rowie says passionately, “and this is one of the goats that was brought into the school and brutally endangered today. Whoever was responsible for this incident set this poor animal free in a cafeteria that was covered in, as far as I can tell, soap and Crisco, and then pelted him and others with water balloons filled with fake blood or Kool-Aid or something. When the administration can’t prevent cruel antics like this, I don’t understand why they think they can violate our First Amendment rights by censoring the music we can listen to on campus.”

Brenda Banacynzki nods with fake TV-reporter compassion. “That’s quite the paradox. Well, girls, we’re out of time. Reporting live from Holyhill, joined by girls and goats, I’m Brenda Banacynzki, KIND-11 News.”

“And, we’re out,” Rooster says, lowering the camera.

We all begin to laugh and scream, still in the zone, pumping Brenda Banacynzki’s hand. Pops is going to flip out when he sees this.

“You girls are good talkers,” Rooster says, palming me his business card. “If the administration tries any other bullshit, give us a call and we’ll do a follow-up story.”

“Rooster, did you actually just give me your business card?” I mock-sucker-punch him in the ribs. “It was cool of you to show up, though.”

Rooster smiles wanly. “Keep your head up, Ezbones. There’s life after high school.”

“Thanks, man,” I say, pocketing the card. “Really. Thanks.”⁴⁷ We give a last wave as they retreat back to the van.

47. SiN, later: Someday I will be Rooster’s age, and I have to remember to tell some other lost, angry teenager that high school isn’t the end of the world.

“You are un-fucking-real,” Rowie says, shoving me. I feel like her hand makes a permanent impression on my shoulder, like I’ll take off my shirt tonight and see her handprint. “You have absolutely no shame.”

“Dude, Holyhill is fuuuucked,” Marcy sings, doing a little jig. “There’s no way they can reject our application after that rant. Not to mention the fact that we were, like, right.”

“What are we going to do with Faithe?” Tess asks.

“Who’s Faith?”

“This is Faithe, with an e.” Tess pats one of the goats’ heads. “And these are Prudence, Penitence, and Chastity.”

“What does that make you? Promiscuity?” Marcy teases her.

“Mais non.” Tessie grins.

Mrs. D. appears. “Was that KIND-11 News I just saw driving away?”

“Mrs. D., it was so cool!” Marcy explodes. “We totally stuck it to the man.”

Mrs. D. does that grin-suppressing thing she always does in the presence of irreverence, like she knows she’s supposed to disapprove but can’t quite. “Then it’s probably best that I know absolutely nothing about what just happened. Can I take the farm animals off your hands? You girls should get out of here before this gets any worse. Do you have a ride?”

“Yeah, Marcy’s car is over there,” Rowie says. “What are you going to do with the goats?”

“We’re pretty sure they came from a petting zoo in Waconia. My husband’s coming with a truck for the trip.” Mrs. D. sighs. “And we never even got to ‘The Raven.’ I’ve taught through twenty-seven Halloweens and lived to tell, but this one dwarfs them all.”

“Well, thanks for volunteering to take them,” I say, handing over the lace leash. “And hey, Johanna, you were really smart in class today. I was impressed. Sorry if anyone was a jerk to you.”

Johanna beams. “Thanks. I like your shoes.”

I look down at my Timbs. “Thanks! Hey, Mrs. D., is Johanna named after the Bob Dylan song?”

Now it’s Mrs. DiCostanza’s turn to beam. “I had no idea anyone your age still listened to Dylan. Yes. She is.”

“My mom was named Johanna after the song too,” I tell her, a little surprised that I’m telling her. “If I ever have a daughter, I’m naming her Ramona.”

“Like Ramona Quimby, Age 8?” Johanna pipes up excitedly.

“Dude, totally,” I tell her. “Beverly Cleary is the shit. I mean, uh — yeah.”

“We’re gonna take her home and wash her mouth out with soap,” Marcy says.

“Have a nice Halloween, you girls.” Mrs. D. chuckles, shaking her head, and she and Johanna take two goats each, receding.

“We can go to my house,” Rowie says. “My mom’s been asking about you guys anyway.”

“Okay, but can we run by the SA first? I need a Diet Coke and there’s never anything chemical to sip on at Dr. R.’s house,” Tess says, jumping into the front seat. “Shotgun!”

“Sold,” Marcy says. “Oh, we missed lunch — that’s why I’m starvacious. Call Priya and tell her to put, like, twenty-five samosas in the oven.”

“Okay, bossy,” Rowie mutters, dialing her phone. “Mom. You’re not going to believe why, but we’re on our way over.”

“Let’s get the eff out of here,” I say, rolling down the backseat window and gazing back at the empty, sudsy building. “Figure out how to really drop some bombs on this place.”