It’s just what happens. I text Mel to sign me in on the clipboard in the school office—Molton has an automated system that calls your parents if you’re missing from homeroom, but the secretaries cross-check it against the list in the office, so your parents won’t get a call if your name is there. It matters more that it’s on the clipboard than who put it there. She texts back: y? I respond: mental health day Then, to placate her: making list of covers for scud After my parents leave for work like they’re supposed to, I ride my bike to Common Grounds and order an overly complicated coffee and two kinds of muffins, all of which I consume very slowly while watching Cranky Andy and Martha bicker about how much to charge for the new T-shirts they’re selling. Then I ride to the Elbow Room and, sitting on the couch where I saw Chase at the séance, flip slowly through a huge book that contains full-color diagrams of the human body, trying to imagine the lines that would be drawn on people as if they were pigs about to be butchered.
