Chapter 58

SCHOOL DAZE

The next morning, I’m still feeling trashed. I skipped school to stay at the hospital with Brainzilla yesterday. But they’re releasing her today, and I can’t just avoid the world forever.

In homeroom, I feel like I’m walking a tightrope—one wrong step could send me plunging toward the hard ground. The school announcements do their fifteen minutes of blahblah, so I put my head down on my desk and close my eyes. The minute I do that, though, I hear the phone ringing in my mind—the same phone that kept ringing and ringing the night I tried to get in touch with Katie. And then something really scary happens.

I can’t find Laurence anywhere. I can’t remember his face. I can’t hear his voice—the phone in my brain is too loud.

And that’s the step—the step off the tightrope.

I start crying. Bawling, really. The class goes silent, and all the kids around me avert their eyes. I feel Flatso’s hand on my shoulder, and Zitsy murmurs, “Oh, Kooks, oh, Kooks.” But I can hardly hear him. All I hear is that goddamn phone.

I keep on crying when the bell rings, and for the first eight minutes of first period. I’m finally starting to pull it together, take shaky breaths and all that, and then—surprise, surprise, Ms. Alter shows up at the door and beckons me down the hall to Ms. Kellerman’s office.

When I walk in, she’s sitting in her chair. She’s got the same look on her face that supervillains always wear when they capture James Bond. It’s that moment when they feel like their plan is really coming together.

This isn’t really a look that you want on your psychologist.

“Hello, Margaret,” she says, gesturing for me to have a seat. “I’ve heard what occurred two days ago. I’m very sorry.”

“Okay,” I say, because I can’t bear to say thank you.

“I have been informed that you have not been handling the situation well.” Ms. Kellerman starts rooting through her pencil cup, as if she’s talking to the pens, maybe hoping to get their advice. “I fear this represents a real crisis in your case.”

“I wouldn’t call it a crisis.”

She selects a pen, then looks up at me—finally meeting my eye. “Then what would you call it?”

“Appropriate sadness?”

“Do you think that crying in homeroom is appropriate?”

“Not really.”

“And skipping school yesterday—was that appropriate? The hospital in Tuality informs me that you spent the night in the waiting room. That you refused to go home. Is that appropriate?”

A hot, angry tear leaks from my right eye. This is enough to convince Ms. Kellerman that I’m going over the edge. “Margaret, you need to accept the fact that you are mentally ill. You’ve already been hospitalized once, and I think you should consider that option once more.” She starts signing some paperwork, which sends a creepy feeling all over me. “I’m writing out a recommendation—”

“What?” The word bursts from my mouth like a scream.

“Margaret, I’m concerned that you might be a danger to yoursel—”

Danger! Danger? I grab her pencil cup and dump the writing implements on the floor. Then I stomp on them.

It feels really good to hear those pens and pencils crunch under the soles of my Uggs.

Ms. Kellerman is totally speechless, and I’m not going to lie: I feel really good for wiping that supervillain grin off her face. In fact, I feel better than I have in three days.

“Wow, Ms. Kellerman,” I say, “I think you’ve cured me. Thanks.”

And then—before she can think of anything to say or even stand up to stop me—I walk right out the door.