IT TOOK THE ENTIRE SUMMER for Mama, Mom, and me to leave Paiute land. Moving is always like a puzzle in a puzzle. First, we packed our stuff, trying to fill every space in every box because there was no room to spare. Then we crammed our boxes into the back of our minivan, and when they didn’t all fit the first time, we removed them and tried again. The whole process felt kinda like a ritual, as if my family was trading our time and sweat for a blessing.

The drive to Texas took way longer than it should have, since we stopped at every silly roadside attraction that advertised itself with a billboard along the highway. Mom considered herself an Instagram celebrity — her words, not mine — and never missed a chance to share pictures of oddities and good food with the four-hundred people following her account. Most of her followers were past friends and acquaintances; with every move, the count expanded. It always seemed strange to me that she wanted to stay in contact with them. As for me? The moment I left a place, I treated its people like memories. Things of the past that gradually fade away until they might as well be faceless, nameless extras in the movie of my life.

I was asleep when we finally reached home. That last day, we’d been on the road since dawn, and the sugar-and-caffeine rush from my lunchtime soda wore off by mid-afternoon. One moment, we were driving between a pair of soy fields, and my eyes felt heavy and the scenery was so monotonous that I figured I’d prop a pillow against the warm glass window and take a thirty-minute nap. The next thing I knew, Mama was saying my name and waking me up with a gentle shake.

“We’re here,” she said.

It was dark, but I could hear a thousand insects sing, feel warmth envelop me, and smell faint traces of campfire smoke and mesquite trees in the sluggish air. I stepped outside; the front headlights were still on, and they lit up our house like a pair of spotlights. The building was made from adobe brick, yellowish-orange blocks from the earth.

“What do you think?” Mama asked.

I didn’t know what the rest of the town was like or whether our neighbors were nice. But I did know one thing: now that we were on Lipan land, I never wanted to leave.

“It’s the best,” I said.

It took us a week to completely unpack. One of the first things I did was look at paint swatches from the hardware store. I taped them on the bare white wall, these little squares of color.

I unpacked my clothes last; they were folded in two large boxes, and as I dug through my sweaters, shirts, dresses, and pants, I picked out a few candidates for my first-day-of-school outfit. I’d been thinking about that outfit all summer, wanting my first impression on Lipan to be a good one. Ultimately, I chose my favorite pair of jeans and a T-shirt screen-printed with the face of my third-favorite superhero, Silver Synapse. Both the pants and the shirt were loose enough to be comfortable and whole enough to comply with dress-code regulations (no holes, no bare shoulders, nothing above the knee, and no profanity). Plus, the T-shirt seemed like a good way to start conversations with other comic book readers. Part of me hoped that I’d meet a fellow Silver Synapse fan, and by part of me, I mean the really optimistic part. He starred in a niche webcomic created by two art students, which meant that Silver Synapse wasn’t Marvel-hero-level popular.

I couldn’t have anticipated the fallout of my clever wardrobe choice.

My mom drove me to Pleasant Springs High School on the first day of school; she was still looking for work in town. I appreciated the gesture. I’d never had a pleasant bus ride, and some were downright upsetting. As Mom turned onto the street outside the school, we joined a drop-off line that was so long, it snaked around the parking lot. As we inched forward, she lowered the radio to a whisper. Always a sure sign of a Significant Talk.

“Check your bag,” Mom said. “Did you leave anything behind?”

I laughed. “You mean since the last time I checked it? Before we left the driveway?”

“Just being cautious! You have my number. If you need …” She trailed off, distracted by a group of ten adults standing across the street from the high school property. They were lined up on the sidewalk, holding signs, the kind used at rallies or protests. I’d noticed the crowd earlier, but I’d assumed that they were overenthusiastic parents waving “GOOD LUCK!!!” or “Yay learning!” banners. However, as our car crept closer to the group, a man turned his sign toward us. It was decorated with a brown-skinned head, in profile, with a smear of blue paint under its eye and eagle feathers in its braided hair. Beneath the head, the slogan “BRING BACK OUR BRAVE” was emblazoned across the poster board in red paint.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Mom said. “What is all this?”

“I have no idea.”

She started to lower the window. With a worried yelp, I patted her arm. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to scold them.”

“Mom, no! We’re in a drop-off line. I don’t want to be late.”

“I can scold them and drive at the same time, like a multitasker.”

“Can you just ignore … whatever that is? I don’t want to be involved in an argument before first period begins.”

She pursed her lips, as if locking up a slew of PG-13 curses, and obediently raised the window. “I wish you hadn’t seen that nonsense,” Mom said.

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

As a rolling stone, I’d attended schools so large and bustling they were like ant colonies and schools so small that all the students knew each other by name. Pleasant Springs was small but not cozy; there must have been a thousand students in seventh through twelfth grade. Despite the long drop-off line, I was ten minutes early. Rather than wander the halls or try to strike up a conversation with complete strangers in the hallway, I went straight to first period, introductory Spanish. Half the desks in the classroom were already occupied. After a moment’s hesitation, I sat next to a blond girl in the middle row because I liked her red-framed glasses. She smiled and bent her fingers in a little wave.

“I’m Grace,” I said, returning her smile. “What’s your name? I mean. ¿Cómo te llamas?”

“Me llamo Naomi.” Naomi gave me a quick once-over, and her smile immediately retracted into a concerned frown. “Are you with the protestors?” she asked, squinting at my T-shirt.

“Um. Wha …” I looked down, confused. Did somebody tape a sign on my chest? No. Silver Synapse smiled up at me. Sure, he was a Native character, but he looked nothing like the cartoon man on the protest signs. Like many superheroes, Silver Synapse wore a metallic gray mask over his eyes, and although his hair was braided, it had no feathers. How could Naomi mistake my T-shirt for “BRING BACK THE BRAVES” solidarity? “No!” I said. “Just. No. He’s a superhero. An Apache hero. Created by Native artists. I bought this shirt at Indigenous Comic Con. Really, I have no idea what’s happening across the street. What are they even protesting?”

“Wait. Are you Native American?” she asked, and now the once-over became a twice-over, this time lingering on my face.

“Lipan Apache of the Tcha shka-ózhäyê.”

“How much are you?” she asked.

“Blood quantum isn’t our thing,” I said. “My mother is Lipan, so I am too.” I didn’t mention that I had two mothers; Naomi seemed nice, but not all people were open about their prejudices. I’d lived long enough to be wary.

“Those protesters are assholes,” Naomi said.

“But what are they protesting?”

“The school mascot used to be an Indian brave,” she said. “It was changed five years ago, because obviously, but that upset a bunch of old graduates. Every time there’s an event, like a home game, somebody stands across the street with a sign. It makes you wonder how they have so much free time.”

“Are you talking about the mascot people?” a brunette stranger asked. “They’re embarrassing.” She slid into the desk behind Naomi and leaned forward to talk, her two braids swinging over the desktop like a couple of pendulums.

“Yes,” Naomi said. “This is Grace. She’s actually Native American.”

“I’m Hillary —” the girl started.

“Hey! Can you shut the fuck up?” asked a guy in plaid, interrupting Hillary’s introduction; he sat at the front of the class a couple desks away. “My dad was part of this school before you were born. He’s fighting for pride in traditions.”

“Your dad was out there?” Hillary asked. “Crying about a racist mascot?” Naomi just turned bright red; she seemed to be on the verge of tears.

“Are you serious?” the guy asked. “My great-grandmother was Cherokee. The brave isn’t racist. It’s an honor.”

“Uh. Jeremy. Didn’t you say your great-grandparents came here through Ellis Island?” Hillary asked. “I swear I remember that from our family tree project last year.”

“Keep my family tree out of your mouth.”

As the class slipped into a heated argument, I slouched in my seat, hiding my shirt and waiting for the first-period bell to ring. In the hallway, strangers gave me dirty looks. Even worse, one boy whooped and shoved his hand in front of my face, expecting a high five. I sidestepped him, ducked into the nearest bathroom, and turned my shirt inside out, concealing the tags under my hair; that put an end to the negative attention.

Morning passed quickly; most of the lessons were easy, introductory fare, and a combination of day-one adrenaline and a restful summer kept me alert until lunch. My usual tactic for first-day lunches involved locating a familiar face and inserting myself into their group, but as I surveyed the cafeteria, I noticed a solitary girl sitting near the back wall. She was shoveling casserole into her mouth with one hand and holding open a book with the other. Her bearing was magnetic, ’cause I could empathize with a girl who ate and read at the same time. As I approached, I saw that the cover of her book was emblazoned with a serious-looking woman radiating green fire. “MAGIC IN CUBICLE NINE,” the title read. “A CORPORATE PARANORMAL MYSTERY!” The girl, who wore a black hoodie and slate-gray jeans, glanced up when I sat across from her.

“Can I sit here?” I asked. Please don’t say no. Please don’t say no. Please …

She lifted a hand to cover her mouth and, her voice muffled by a half-chewed bite of noodles, said, “No worries. Go ahead.”

I unclasped my tin lunch box and removed a sandwich, a bag of barbecue-flavored chips, and damp baby carrots. My lunch buddy lowered her book and watched me take a bite of turkey and cheese on rye.

“I never know how it’s supposed to go,” she said. “Sorry. Just thought you should be aware.”

“How what’s supposed to go?”

“Talking,” she said. “What do people usually talk about? Sorry again. I can never think of anything.”

“Don’t apologize,” I said. “Thanks for letting me sit here.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

I shrugged. “It happens. Oh! Guess what. I brought something to read too.” I rummaged through my backpack, which was already becoming disordered with loose leaves of paper and stray mechanical pencils. Despite all my good intentions to stay organized with color-coded notebooks and binders for each class, I knew that the system would fail within the first week. It always did. I found my paperback novel at the bottom of my bag, crushed beneath a geometry textbook that had been previously used by a student who’d highlighted half the text, as if the book was theirs; at least I had an indication of the important stuff.

When I sat up, my lunch buddy was buried in her urban fantasy again. She must have been at an exciting part. I didn’t want to interrupt with more small talk; instead, I cracked open Post-Postapocalypse, a thriller set in the rebound of the end of the world. About five minutes later, my lunch buddy asked, “Is it good? Post-a-postapocalypse?”

“So far, yes. Fair warning: There’s a lot of references to death. A man just fell into a swimming pool full of zombie heads. They ate him. Sort of. You can’t eat without a body. Er. They chewed him to death.”

“I don’t mind horror,” she said. “It’s okay.” After a pause long enough that I thought she’d returned to her own book, she added, “My name is Quinn.”

From that point, the day only improved. In fact, when I stepped outside after the dismissal bell, the sky was blue, the air was warm, and the protestors had vanished. Apparently, they did have a life. Before long, my mama pulled up in her old van.

“Why is your shirt inside out?” she asked.

I threw my bag in the back seat and sat up front. “People kept getting the wrong idea. That’s all.”

Mama is no good at separating her emotions from her facial expressions, so her confusion expressed itself in a nearly comical eyebrow maneuver. To her credit, she didn’t press me for more information. I figured I’d explain over supper, when I was less annoyed by the situation, by how I couldn’t wear anything remotely Native without half the school mistaking it for mascot gear.

“When we get home,” she said, “I want to show you where the garden will grow.”

“You’ve already started?” I asked. She’d always wanted a garden. Not the frilly kind stocked with ornamental flowers and mass-produced vegetables from store-bought paper seed packets. A Lipan garden, an ecosystem of the edible and medicinal plants that had thrived on the land since the first people arrived.

“Just the planning stages. I want to get started before you’re too busy with homework.”

“I’ll always have time to weed for you, Mama.”

She laughed. “Leave the weeding to me. It’s good exercise. You’re a young woman now. You should learn how to grow food the right way. In a way that doesn’t cause harm.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Xásteyo,” she corrected me. Although the federally championed genocide of my people had a terrible impact on our language, that expression of gratitude survived our darkest hour.

And I, born in the twenty-first century, agreed, “Xásteyo.”

Group mentality is a strange thing. The Pleasant Springs mascot had been a ram for five years without much fuss — that’s what Quinn informed me, anyway. But the year I came to town, the situation blew up. I couldn’t help but feel like a spark in a tinderbox. Now, it may seem arrogant for a new kid with zero clout to take credit for any kind of climate-changing spark, but I observed a compelling pattern; arguments spawned around me. Arguments about the Indian brave, like the one between Hillary and Jeremy on my first day.

It was during one such argument that I learned about the first in-school protest. I was sorting the clutter in my locker when a high-pitched voice across the hall exclaimed, “You’ll get suspended!”

“They’ll have to suspend us all,” a deeper voice said.

“So? You think Mrs. Reiland won’t try?”

“Let her. My parents are lawyers.”

“Taylor got penalized for exposing too much shoulder.”

“That was against the dress code. This is a matter of free speech.”

Somehow, I knew exactly what the pair were talking about.

It happened at the first Friday pep rally in the gymnasium, a cavernous room with bleachers along each of its long walls. Students were separated by grade; ninth and twelfth graders sat against one wall. Eleventh and tenth graders sat against the other. The seventh and eighth graders weren’t invited. From my vantage point, I noticed a dozen cartoon braves glaring from the shirts and jackets of fifteen seniors. When the school mascot cartwheeled across the gymnasium, the Indian brave–wearing seniors stood in unison, their expressions a mixture of pride, amusement, and defiance.

For a moment, the room was mostly silent. Beside me, Quinn giggled in the way that people giggle at jump scares in horror movies.

Then, the tinder went ka-boom. A roar of seven-hundred voices, a cacophony of cheers and angry shouts, reverberated in the great domed chamber. The ram mascot shook his finger in the direction of the upperclassmen, as if scolding naughty children. Below me and to the right, Naomi of the red glasses gave the protesters the finger, bless her.

Rising above the noise, our principal’s magnified voice said, “You lot. Sit down.”

One of the seniors saluted her, but none sat down.

“Count of three,” Principal Reiland said. “One. Two …”

“Or what?” one of them shouted at her, but he had no microphone, so she probably didn’t hear the taunt.

“Three. Okay. All fifteen of you. Disciplinary room, now.” The seniors took the long way down the bleachers, weaving through students instead of using the closest stairs. They flaunted the biggest grins, and a couple clasped their hands and shook them above their heads, like Olympic medalists celebrating a win.

Although they passed right in front of me, none of the protestors turned my way. If they had, I doubt they would have seen me.

“I hate people like that!” Quinn said. She practically shouted into my ear, but I could barely hear her voice.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“What?”

“I said, yeah! Me too!”

“Some people have real problems!”

“What was that?” I asked.

“Real problems! The world is going to shit. Literally what is the point? It’s just a mascot.”

“Just a what?”

“Just a mascot! Who cares?”

“You’re talking about the seniors, right?”

The fifteen seniors who were waving goodbye and winking as they crossed the gymnasium, followed by a pissed-looking principal in a red-and-black pantsuit, the school colors.

“Everyone,” Quinn said.

The roar had settled into a simmer of friendly conversation. Still, I had to ask, “What … did you say?”

“I said this is a bad look for everyone. It’s a petty-ass town with no real fucking problems.” She extracted a book from her jacket; technically, we weren’t supposed to bring anything but ourselves to pep rallies, but Quinn was always prepared to read, even if it meant sewing an extra pocket into her liner.

I was glad she brought reading material. I didn’t feel like talking to her anymore.

The best part about pep rallies was their end, because that’s when everyone got to go home. That day, both my mothers were in the car. I had to take the back seat, which made me feel like a fancy person with two chauffeurs.

“We need to stop at the hardware store,” Mama said. “The paint is ready.”

“We also need caulk,” Mom reminded her.

“And a slushie,” I said. “From a drive-thru so I don’t have to get out of the car and deal with people.”

“I can get it for you,” Mom volunteered. “People don’t bother me.”

“Thanks.” As we pulled out of the high school parking lot, I noticed a crowd of parents and students congregating around the brick-and-bronze “PLEASANT SPRINGS: WELCOME” sign. Something was going down. “I wish there were drive-thru schools.”

The next Monday morning, the sidewalk picketers were back, and their numbers had grown. I recognized some of the seniors who’d made a scene at the pep rally and the ten “Bring Back the Braves” forty-to-fifty-something-year-olds from the first day of school. But there were also other students, people I’d passed in the hallway, people who took classes with me. And there were more adults — parents, perhaps? Some sat in lawn chairs, as if settled in for the long haul.

I did my best to ignore them on the way into school and sat beside Naomi in Spanish class. “¿Cómo estás?” she asked.

“Así así.”

“¡Lo siento, amiga!”

“Gracias.”

“So, I’m in debate….”

“¡En español, por favor!”

“Um. Yo … voy …”

“I’m only joking,” I assured her. “What’s up?”

She laughed. “You sounded just like Señor Favian. It was instinct. Anyway. Debate. Right. So you know the counterprotest after school on Tuesday?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Huh! Nobody mentioned it? Seriously?”

“I’m not well-connected. One drawback to being new.”

“Yeah, but considering the subject …” She shrugged, as if dismayed. “Well, a bunch of us are showing support for the ram tomorrow. It’s a whole thing. I think the city news will show up.”

“Good,” I said. “I was starting to feel outnumbered.”

“Oh my god. No. Most people are on your side.” She bit her lower lip. “I was wondering. Can you say something?”

“Huh?”

“I mean … can you speak at the rally tomorrow? Just for ten minutes. This whole incident affects you the most.”

“You want my input.”

“Yes!”

“Naomi.” I spread my arms. “Can I hug you?”

She beamed. “Sure!”

I leaned over and gave her a one-armed squeeze, all the while wondering how I could possibly do my people justice with ten minutes of words. How could I succinctly voice our past, our present, and our future? Communicate every fiber of my being to strangers? How could I make them understand?

That’s what I asked my mama that evening as we sat side by side on a new couch from the thrift store. Mom was dozing on her recliner, her mouth parted slightly in sleep. A late-night talk-show host babbled on the television, his voice an amusing form of white noise.

Mama had been beading my new eagle feather hair drop for the Nde Daa Pow Wow — according to the council, I was a strong candidate for STIDA Pow Wow princess next year, so she wanted my regalia to be perfect. At my question, she put her work aside, careful not to jostle the feather. Mama always handled our sacred feathers like they were newborns, as if she was afraid they’d fall apart and leave us with nothing again. There was a time when we, as state-recognized Natives, couldn’t use the feathers in our ceremonies; it was against federal law. And by “a time,” I mean as recently as 2014.

“I have no time to prepare either,” I said, holding up my geometry textbook. “Two exercises due tomorrow. Plus, I need to read a chapter of world history and finish outlining my essay for English. Basically, I’m going to embarrass myself in front of everyone. Really wish Naomi could have clued me in before the weekend.”

“If the speech is stressing you out,” she said, “don’t do it. Focus on homework. You’re more important than a rally.”

“Am I, though?” I asked.

Mama took my hand, and I was comforted by the warmth of my mother’s palm, darker and more calloused than mine. Over my fourteen years alive, my hands had sprouted like a five-branched tree, elongating and shedding baby fat. But her hands? They’d been a constant in my life. How often did I watch them sew patches over the holes in my jeans? Pick me up when I fell down? Rock my cradle? Give me gifts and food? When Mama told me stories, her hands flitted through the air like they were part of her voice. I knew them better than I knew my own.

Now her hand squeezed mine firmly, as if saying, “I am here. I am always here to support you.”

“Never question your importance,” she said. “Never. You want resistance? Be proud of our people and love yourself. That is the most powerful way to fight the evil of colonialism.”

“I’m always proud to be Lipan, Mama.”

“Then why did you turn your shirt inside out on the first day of school?” she asked.

I pulled away from her. “That had nothing to do with pride. It was exhaustion! There was a superhero on my shirt, and people kept mistaking him for a mascot. And I get it, okay? They thought he was a racist mascot ’cause mascots are how the dominant narrative wants to portray us. Obviously, that’s messed up, which is why I’m doing this rally. But sometimes, I can’t deal with everyone else’s ignorance and bullshit ’cause I have my own life to worry about. Like on the first day of school, when I’m trying to learn a million new faces and lessons and how to walk from one end of the building to the other in five minutes with twenty pounds of books on my back and really don’t want to start screaming in the middle of a busy hallway because complete strangers keep giving me nasty looks. I do love myself, Mama, which is why I turned my shirt inside out. Aren’t I allowed to rest sometimes?”

Silence stretched between us, like punctuation at the end of my question.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said. “I’m so sorry. Of course you are, Grace.”

She pulled me into a hug.

“And I’m sorry I used the word bullshit, Mama,” I said.

“Oh, don’t apologize for that.” She laughed. “You’re just being truthful.”

One day later, at 3:15 p.m., I stood on Lipan Apache land. My land. That day, I wore my mother’s seed bead necklaces and the eagle feather hair drop she’d finished that night in lieu of sleep. The brown feather was accented with soft, fluffy down near its base and fastened to a leather-backed beaded circle that depicted a sun against a clear blue sky.

The ram rally, mostly students and teachers, filled the public park one block away from Pleasant Springs High. The Bring-Back-the-Braves-Something-Something-Free-Speech crowd also made an appearance, because of course they did. I ignored them during my beeline to the gazebo in the center of the park, where Naomi of the red glasses stood with a microphone in one hand and a sign declaring “RESPECT!” in the other.

“I’m ready, Naomi,” I said. “Give me that microphone before my palms get too sweaty.”

“I can’t wait to hear you speak!” she said. “We just have to wait a liiiiittle longer.”

“What for?” My mothers had promised me ice cream after the event, so I was eager to say my piece and flounce.

“Jeremy is your opposition. He said he’d be here —”

“Hold on,” I said. “Opposition? You mean like a debate?”

Naomi blinked, her brown eyes wide behind the lenses she wore. “Yes. Didn’t I mention that?”

“No! You’re the one on the debate team. Not me!”

“It’s not a debate debate,” she said, her voice soft and ickly-sickly sweet. The kind of voice that should only be used to placate a fussy toddler. “Just. We’re giving both sides a chance to be heard, you know? If you aren’t comfortable, that’s totally okay! I can take your place.”

“And I can take that microphone.” I plucked it from Naomi’s hand and flipped the microphone switch from “off” to “on.” The crackle that sputtered from the speakers silenced the crowd and drew their attention to the gazebo.

“Hóóyíí, Shizhách’i’íí ashíí Shitsiłki’ii!” I boomed. “My name is Grace. Like my mama, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and great-great-grandmothers, I am Lipan Apache. To my Native siblings, mínì’ níáá dààgó̱ó̱t́í!”

I paused to look every Bring-Back-the-Braves protester in the eye.

“My humanity,” I continued, “is not up for debate. Xásteyo.”

With that, I descended the gazebo steps, taking the cordless microphone with me. The voices of the crowd were nothing but white noise. I’d said my piece. My mothers were waiting near the edge of the crowd, their expressions a mixture of concern and pride; both were extremely familiar to me.

“Well said,” Mom said. She wore a wreath of flowers in her hair, white clover blooms tied together by their long green stems.

“Perfect!” Mama agreed. As she leaned in for a hug, I noticed that she wore a flower necklace; the petals tickled my chin. The two must have woven the jewelry in the park while I was busy with Naomi.

I plucked a flower from the clover patch beside my feet and, after a moment of consideration, tucked it behind my ear. You’ll find clovers all over the place, from the East Coast to the West Coast (and beyond the sea), but the southern ones are unique. They’re tough and unusually magnificent. Gotta be both to thrive on Lipan land. “Well,” I said. “Ready to go home now?”

After ice cream, that’s exactly what we did.