One | determination

Her hands sticky on the wheel, Mae takes another curve way too fast as the clock on the dashboard ticks down one more minute she doesn’t have.

Now orange cones, everywhere. Road Work Ahead. Really? Today, of all days?

“Be here by seven-thirty sharp,” Mrs. Rooney had warned. “No delays. Anyone who’s late will simply miss the trip.” 

Which could actually be okay, depending on how you look at it. All those Foxmoor faces, just waiting to stare at her like she’s a nutcase. She wouldn’t mind missing that. They probably think she’s so screwed up she can’t do the one thing everyone looks forward to all year, Mrs. Rooney’s famous Wilderness Trip. 

Mrs. Rooney puts all she’s got into teaching them about nature, but her trip sounds more like a week with a bunch of girls who think “wilderness” is what happens when the gardener doesn’t show up. And eight girls from Junior Bio stuffed into one tent, how does that work.

But actually skip the trip? Not a chance. It’s her best way to show them there’s more to her than they saw on that one horrible day. If she doesn’t grab it, it’s all over for her at Foxmoor, for good. Anyway, what can they pull off in a little campsite, where everyone’s together the entire time? Mrs. Rooney will have them all hiking every day, and studying the Latin names for plants in the evenings. Then she’ll probably quiz them each morning on all they learned the day before.

“Turn green, damn it,” she commands a traffic light. “If I have to run after the bus as it leaves, everybody on it will laugh their heads off.”

Her chest tightens as she winds through a detour, then almost runs a stop sign. “I know this can’t be fun, Mom. It must feel like a racecar ride.”

Mom grips her armrest so hard, she could break a knuckle. “It is a bit hair-raising. But I wouldn’t have missed seeing you off. Still, I wonder …” She’s using her “I’m Just Concerned” voice. “You’ve had to deal with so much at Foxmoor, shouldn’t we have tried to find a different school? You certainly wanted to, on that day.…”

“The day of my freak-out-of-the-century, you mean. I was done with Foxmoor.” Mae sighs. “Still am, really.”

It’s all a blur … her final presentation on Leonardo, for European History. Within what should have been an easy half-hour, her weeks of research on his masterpieces, all of it wrecked by Foxmoor’s snake-in-lip-gloss, Jessica. She and her crew, Chloe and Olivia, with their own unique brand of torment, pushed every button Mae had managed to keep un-pushed for years. Things didn’t turn out well—“freak-out” is putting it mildly.

And now she’s supposed to live that down? Good luck with that. 

Mae shakes her head. “I couldn’t have gotten into another school that quick. But no law says I have to go to any school. When you’re sixteen, you can take the GED and test out.” 

Her Mom winces at that—no surprise. “That sounds too much like dropping out, at least Dad and I think so. Besides, you always say Ms. Strand’s art classes are the best thing ever.” 

“She definitely knows painting. She gives me all the studio space I need, too, for my projects. But some of the girls at school are another story.” One she doesn’t need more of. Girls like Jessica and her bitches, who once posted a pile of filth about Mae and some scuzzy guy they totally made up, then kept tweaking it and reposting for days. 

Somehow, Mae got through that hell.But their next bomb broke what was left of her. She ended up sprawled face-down under the bleachers, with no clue how she got there. Or how Ms. Strand found her. Or when the Psych Emergency Team took her away.…