The next day is all vigilance and agitation. I keep Ruby close and wait for the end of the world as I know it. And I do not feel fine.

Waiting: super fun!

Everyone loves waiting!

It’s better than menstrual cramps!

It sucks so much because waiting does not fall within my locus of control. Nope. Not at all. And I’m so scared about my fate, and Ruby’s future, that my stomach hurts and I can barely see straight. There’s nothing to do but try to distract myself and…wait.

Friday night, when Stenn dropped me off, we stayed in the car a good while, steaming up the windows. His kindness after I told him the stuff about Captain Possum, and the deer, and Ruby, totally softened me for a while. And, oh, the epic goodness that is kissing Stenn: the bite on my arm, the drama with my parentals, everything that happened earlier, it all dissolved into sparkly tingles when Stenn and I got going, doing what we do best. Doing everything but it. Finally, all rumpled and sweaty, I snuck back in the house—my parents, God bless them, were snoring like bears on roofies—and I slipped onto the forbidden computer. In privacy mode, I searched for dog bite treatment.

1. Wash out with soap and water. Which turns out to be a little procedure that hurts so bad I see stars.

2. Apply antibiotic cream and dry bandage. Check.

3. Watch for signs of infection, including weeping pus. Yummy, weeping pus! Om nom.

4. Be sure your tetanus shot is up to date. Um. Does “pretty sure” count?

5. For the love of all things good and holy, keep it hidden from your parents. That one’s mine. Actually number 5 was really, Report the incident to the proper authorities, as the dog may need to be reported and/or quarantined. Sure thing. Report this, mofo.

Saturday morning, Mom and I took Ruby to the vet to see about her tail. I wanted Rubes to be as healthy and strong as possible for whatever grim future awaited us. (When Mom asked how Ruby got hurt, I told her I’d grabbed her tail and heard a crack. End of story. Details = the kiss of death when lying to parents. Be safe, people: keep it vague.) The vet said Ruby’s sprained tail would heal on its own.

And, back home, Ruby does seem fine except for her pitiful absence of tail wags. No more feral Ruby, just fifty pounds of furry sweetness. But all weekend, her limp tail—and my throbbing arm—are like flashing neon arrows pointing to West Hill and Loblolly Road, lighting it up like the Vegas strip.

I try to read Crime and Punishment—oh irony, you naughty vixen!—for English, but my thoughts keep following the imaginary neon signs up the hill to the deer and Captain Possum. Is it normal to butcher a deer that died in an accident? Aren’t you supposed to go hunting, wait in a tree stand while drinking beers, kill a deer, and then butcher it?

But perhaps I’m not the most qualified judge of human normalcy.

And Ruby. How could I be so stupid? Why did I have to sneak out? I probably could have figured out a less risky way to hang with Stenn and get my social on. The soccer party was so not worth the trouble. And it is trouble. Certainly enough for my parents to feel justified in—

No. I refuse to think about it. Well, I refuse to not try to not think about it. Because there’s nothing I can do about it now. Captain P knows my first name. He knows I was there when the deer crashed into the gym. He’s worked at the school so he might know my father. It’s within the realm of possibility that Dr. Jones or some other rat fink would say something about the superintendent’s daughter witnessing the deer accident. So it all comes down to whether Captain Possum decides to raise a ruckus about what happened at his place. Which I have zilch control over.

Locus of control? More like locus of disaster.

Argh! So much for concentrating on homework.

Outside, the day is Unseasonably Warm: temperature in the low 60s, sunny, with those puffy white Simpsons-theme-song clouds in the sky. Boyfriend-sweater weather. Might as well go outside and help Dad, who’s raking the backyard.

My parents don’t believe in allowance or any kind of wages-for-chores. Their stance is old school Russian communist: Jeremy and I will do our chores—and be happy about it, damn it!—because we are a part of this family. We shall work for ze common good, comrade. Not for monetary compensation.

Which is so lame, especially when I have to beg them for money every time I want something.

But the yard needs raking, and I need the butt-kissing points, Grounded Troubled Daughter that I am. Plus I must admit that the fresh air feels good. I grab a rake from the garage while Ruby sits wanly on the back porch, poor thing. West Hill seems to loom over us, the yard, the entire house.

“Hey, kiddo,” Dad says, a little too happy that I’ve volunteered for this drudgery.

“Hi.” I turn my back to West Hill and rake, watching grass appear beneath the leaves as I work. After a long time, I say, “Hey, Dad. Can I ask you something?”

“Anything except to get rid of these ass-kicking boots, kiddo.” Dad lifts his jeans to flash his boots.

“By the way, I meant to tell you. Midnight Cowboy called from the year 1969. He wants his boots back.”

“Blasphemy!” Dad says. “Don’t listen, boots. Now, what do you want to ask me?”

“Just making sure—you think Rubes’ tail will be fine?”

“Sure, kiddo. She’s a scrapper. Sprained tail’s nothing compared to the broken leg and ribs we found her with, and she recovered from all those injuries very quickly.”

Fair point. Poor, hurt, snapping-at-everything stray—before we got her fixed up and re-trusting and she morphed into my awesome Ruby.

“You worried about her?” He pats Ruby’s head. She’s now lying on the leaves.

I nod. Her, and a whole lot of other stuff.

We work a while. I have to move Ruby as we rake.

“Hey, Dad?”

“Yup.”

“I was just wondering. How come you don’t go hunting with your buddies? Or take Jeremy hunting?”

Dad stops raking, starts again. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I mean, you’re sort of outdoorsy—”

“Sort of outdoorsy? I was an Eagle Scout, kiddo! I’ve been taking Jeremy through the ranks—”

“Dad. Chill.”

“You’re freaking me out here. That’s it. We’re going on more family camping trips. We’ll canoe down the Mississippi—”

“Stop! You’re incredibly outdoorsy, all right? You’re Super Outdoorsy Man.”

“That’s better,” he says. “That’s true.”

“But my point is that you’re the only incredibly outdoorsy grown-up I know of, in this town at least, who doesn’t hunt every weekend.”

“You trying to get rid of me?”

“Dad.”

He nods toward a pile of leaves. “Let’s make one really big pile.”

I’m about to say, “What a novel idea,” but instead I say, “Okay.” Look at me, not being snarky. “But I’m serious. Why don’t you hunt?”

Dad flips his rake to pull off the leaves stabbed by its tines. “Well, Jeremy has zero interest in it, for starters. So, that’s one. Two, I don’t feel good about guns, whether it’s rifles or handguns. There are too many guns in the world.” He flicks the leaves onto the pile. “Also, it’s pretty boring, waiting all day, doing nothing. And cold.” He shrugs. “Now that I think about it, one of the best things about being an adult as opposed to being a kid, is that you get a lot more say about who you spend your time with, and how you spend it. I’d rather be with your mom and your brother and you, my darling daughter.”

I push a leaf into the pile with the tip of my shoe. “Did you ever hunt, when you were a kid?”

Dad nods. “I went with your grandpa a few times.”

“Did you ever kill a deer? Have to, like, skin it and gut it and stuff?”

Dad’s eyebrows go up, like he’s finally figured out why I’m asking. “Are you thinking about the deer you saw at school?”

I nod and study my hands. Blisters are beginning to swell on my palms. Stupid chores.

“Well. Then you know how strange it is to be up really close to a big animal.”

I nod. “Yeah.”

He sighs. “I shot an elk once. Pop—your grandpa—made me field dress it. And made me eat some of the raw meat.”

“Was that a hunter initiation thing?”

“Yeah.” He rests both hands on the hilt of his rake. “Once was enough. After that, I always missed on purpose. And I swore if I ever had kids, I’d never force them into hunting.”

“Ugh. Thank you.”

The wind moves a few leaves from the top of the pile back onto the lawn. Dad says, “Thank you, for actually talking—I worry about you when you don’t. You sure you’re okay?”

“Except for being grounded and having my phone taken away? Yeah, I’m great.”

“You reap what you sow, kiddo,” Dad says. “No more cutting classes or it’ll be worse. Now I have a question for you. How are you doing, really? What’s new? What’s happening? How’s life?”

“That’s one, two, three, four questions.”

Dad smiles. “Well, we’ve got lots more leaves. Lots of time for conversation.”

“It’s a trap!” I say, but my Ackbar reference is lost on him.

By three o’clock, my hands are bubbling with blisters and an enormous pile of leaves rises up in the middle of the backyard. Ruby and I collapse onto the pile, deflating it, to nap in the sun.

Dad gives our nap his almighty blessing. Apparently I’ve worked hard enough to earn the Sleep Of The Righteous. But he is a sneaky bastard: his giggles wake me up. I blink, shading my eyes with my hand to block out the late afternoon sun.

Dad is sticking his phone in my face, clicking the camera button for an extreme close-up. “Gotcha!” He does the twist in his cowboy boots and shouts, “Like lightning!” He runs back into the house.

Later, I grab his phone to look at the picture. In it, I am asleep, soaking in sunlight, surrounded in leaves, resting my head on Ruby. You can’t see that my arm is bandaged underneath Stenn’s sweater. And even though I’m relaxed, dozing with Rubes, it’s like something in my face has changed: you can see that my soul is overfilled with the knowledge that things have changed, irrevocably, SJD.

Things happen with no warning.

Bam! And your life is different.

Five minutes, and your best friend is dead.

The day Jamie died, after my parents picked me up from school, I went upstairs and stripped naked and stepped under the hot shower and stayed in there for a long time. I scrubbed until my skin was angry red, and then wrapped myself in a towel to walk, slow as a snail, back to my room, where I stood and stared at the clothes I’d taken off.

The weave of cloth in that shirt, the buttons, the jeans, the shoelaces…when I’d gotten dressed that morning, it had been a normal day.

I stood there looking at the jeans and shirt and sweater rumpled on the floor, and something rose up in me. My stomach filled with acid, my face burned, my hands turned cold. I threw myself on the floor and attacked my shirt, sweater, jeans, bra, underwear, socks. I grabbed scissors from my desk and cut and ripped and screamed and tore until I was panting, sweating.

My mom came to check on me, but I snapped and snarled and chased her away.

And then, like nothing happened, I gathered everything up and stuffed it all into the back of my closet.

The shredded pile is still there, in my closet, and it will stay there. I can’t throw it out. It is too significant. The fibers are filled with meaning. Not as much as my necklace, but still—some things you can never get rid of.

At eleven o’clock on Sunday morning, I drag myself out of bed, let Ruby out, and go back upstairs to shower, re-dress the bite on my arm, and get ready for lunch at the Bluebird Diner. I don’t need my forehead band-aid anymore, so at least there’s that.

My mom relaxes her breakfast rule on the weekends. Church is optional—Jeremy won that fight for the sibling coalition long ago, God/gods/The Force bless him—but lunch is mandatory. Every Sunday, noon, Bluebird Diner. Usually, we arrive from the four directions: mom from the church kingdom, Dad from the trail-jog kingdom, Jeremy from the Ninja netherlands, and me and Ruby on foot from the land of the lame. The waitress holds the big round corner booth for us. Someone even made a sign: Reserved—Jones family. Yes, we’re rock stars.

The cool thing is they let Ruby stay in the manager’s office, where they feed her table scraps while we eat. I’m sure it violates all sorts of health codes, but it can’t be any worse than the rumored mouse poop and kitchen roaches.

Our waitress brings our drinks—always the same, she never bothers to ask—and I search my pockets for quarters. (Playing the antique Pac-Man game with Jeremy is the sole remnant of voluntary sibling bonding. Better to play Pac-Man with your peculiar little sister than sit at the table with your even less cool parentals.) I’m a pocket pack-rat; my jean pockets are bad enough, but my coat pockets are worse. I pull out a couple of lip balms, hair elastics, candy wrappers, nickels and quarters, crusty tissues, and a lone red mitten. Um…only one mitten. I set it on the table and stare. Where is the other one? I search my other pockets, and then all around the booth, and then the restaurant, and then the sidewalk. Later I’ll have to sneak a call to Stenn to ask if it’s in his car. But I’m almost positive it isn’t.

Cold dread marches up my back, over my shoulders, into my scalp. Because I know. I know where it is.

Captain Possum’s place.

I ripped it off in the garage, when I was grabbing Ruby’s collar to drag her away.

Think. Think. Have I worn my mittens since the tree farm? At the party, I’d held my bare hands out to the fire, and then to the heating vents in the car. And then I’d put them on Stenn. By the time I’d snuck in the back door—horny and flustered—my parents were in bed and Jeremy wasn’t around. I’d gone straight to the bathroom, to clean and cover the bite on my arm.

No, my mitten isn’t at home, isn’t at the party, almost certainly isn’t in Stenn’s car. It’s on Captain Possum’s garage floor.

I get this picture of him stepping into his garage, inspecting the mess we left, the chunk of flesh missing from the deer, the upset bucket of blood. And my little red mitten.

Maybe it’s in the rows of trees. Maybe he won’t find it.

Please let it be somewhere in the trees. Please let a snowstorm come and bury that sucker under five feet of ice!

I try to concentrate on Pac-Man with Jeremy. Distract myself. He beats me by five screens, because my brain isn’t working.

Think. Think!

What about sneaking back into Captain Possum’s garage to retrieve my mitten? No—I would have to go at night, and Stenn has to go back to Mercer, so he can’t drive me.

The mitten doesn’t have my name on it, so that’s good. But what if Captain Possum did see me and figures out it’s mine? He’ll bust me for trespassing. There’s evidence. My parents would have concrete proof that I snuck out.

Goodbye, driving. Goodbye, Stenn. And Ruby?

I follow Jeremy back to the booth, and slide in after him. My whole body is stiff. I pick at the edges of my paper napkin.

“Earth to Sarah, come in, Sarah!” Jeremy waves his hand in front of my face. “She’s waiting for your order, dork.”

The waitress’s pencil is poised over her order pad. My parents are looking at me like You’re Acting Strange, Even For You.

“Unh. Veggie burger and fries, please,” I manage to squeak. And someone to help me out of the mess I’ve gotten into.