Standing helplessly, waiting for people to notice what I’d done, I realized that my isolation was about to turn into something much, much uglier. I had been a pariah. Now I’d be prey. I’d have a better chance of survival with that snake than with my classmates after this.

That’s when I saw Annie. Birdlike. Pale. Silent. Her sunken eyeballs were like marbles, staring unblinking from the far side of the cluster of students. I didn’t notice then that she was just as separate from them as I was. I only saw that she was inches taller than the crowd and practically incandescent. Later, I learned how phobic she was of snakes, how she’d been close to throwing up, trying not to stare at its glistening body or hear the shlip, shlip of its flicking tongue. But in that moment, her paleness made her look like a ghost, or maybe an angel.

An angel who was staring at my crotch.

I shuddered, feeling the paralysis breaking and a rush of tears flooding my eyes. But before I could even start crying, she was in front of me, pushing me hard, driving me backward, whispering, Go-go-go-go-go!

I turned, stumbled along with no choice—she was skinny but surprisingly strong—and even if I did have a choice, I didn’t have any ideas of my own. Bewildered, I let her shove me all the way to the women’s bathroom and into a stall.

“Stay here!” she hissed, her pink lips quivering, sky-blue eyes wide and fierce. Then she was gone.

I slid the metal lock shut with a quivering index finger and waited. Forever. I stood shivering in the overly air-conditioned ladies’ room, afraid to sit on the toilet, afraid to move, afraid that Annie had left me there to die, afraid she was about to throw open the door and bring my classmates through one by one to laugh at the pants-pissing freak show.

Someone came in and I tensed every muscle, bracing for whatever was about to be done to me. Orthopedic shoes and enormous ankles appeared in the stall next to mine. Not her. I listened to the stranger pee and sigh, flush, use the sink, and leave.

Maybe Annie wasn’t coming back. Maybe she’d found her friends and forgotten about me. She had lots of them. Everyone liked Annie Bernier, or at least they were nice to her, which from what I could tell, was the same thing. She never smiled, but she wasn’t like the pouting popular girls. Not viciously pretty or loud-talking or hair-twirling—and yet everyone treated her like royalty.

I didn’t know then about Lena. I didn’t know that they weren’t her friends any more than they were my friends, that we were both being ostracized, just in different ways.

The door swung opened again, and Annie’s pale-pink Chucks appeared on the mottled tile just beyond my stall.

I held my breath.

“Put these on,” she whispered, even though we were alone.

A pair of black sweatpants appeared on the floor, and she slid them under with her foot. I snatched them greedily. I didn’t even ask or care where she’d found them. They were too big, but not so big they’d fall down unless someone gave them a yank.

I opened the door. Annie stood in front of me, spindly arms crossed, examining the fit.

No place to look. I stared at the wall, cheeks burning as the mortification returned, mixed with the overpowering relief of being rescued.

She held out her hand and waited. What did she want, a high five? Money?

“Your pants,” she whispered finally.

I stared at the piss-soaked khakis on the ground. I didn’t ask what she was going to do with them when I handed them over, and I didn’t argue when she stuffed them into the garbage can. I just followed her out of the restroom.

We rejoined the group together, as if nothing else needed to be said. And when she inexplicably saved the seat beside her on the bus back, I was too shocked to ask why.

She didn’t tell a soul. I didn’t know why then, and I only sort of know why now.

Lying in bed that night, I felt the change. Something had happened to me. I’d pivoted, and while one foot was still firmly planted in misery, the other was somewhere else. And the view from my new stance was not entirely desolate.

I’d been saved.

Only then did I realize I’d forgotten to say thank you.

Chapter 5

Annie

They all forget to say thank you. Every single kid who walks through the door manages to remember we have an unlimited sample policy, though. Sometimes a mom will squeeze out some gratitude with a nudge or a What do you say? after I’ve handed over twenty or so mini spoonfuls of custard, but in general, the adults don’t do much better.

And in general, I just smile and keep scooping.

But right now the smile is slipping. The arches of my feet ache, and my arm is burning, and I’m still several hours away from the end of my shift.

Reed warned me when I clocked in this morning that it would be nuts. “Swim camp starts today,” he said.

I continued wrapping the apron straps around my waist, double-knotting them in the front. “Okay.”

“That means right after three it’ll get crazy.”

“How crazy?” I stood watching him peel the brown wrapper from the coins, waiting to see if he’d say more, and noticing his paint-speckled hands. For a moment I thought he was an artist and felt almost giddy. I even opened my mouth to say something stupid, but then I remembered he’d mentioned painting his grandma’s house.

“Really crazy,” he said, and let the curl of paper fall into the trash. The nickels clattered as he dumped them into the register.

“Got it. Really crazy.”

And right when I thought he was going to say more than a couple of words to me, he left to go turn the OPEN sign around and sweep the porch.

A week of working side by side, and he still isn’t looking me in the eye.

He was right about the crazy. Since 3:07 we’ve had a steady stream of overtired, undersupervised middle schoolers who reek of chlorine. The one in front of me now—a tubby little freckle-face with bloodshot eyes—looks unnaturally swollen, like he’s swallowed a gallon of pool water.

I hold out his mint chip double scoop, and he stares at me like my head is on fire. He won’t even take the cone, but I keep my hand outstretched, smiling.

“I said waffle cone!” he whines.

He didn’t.

His lip quivers, and I wonder for the thirtieth time today why I’m here and not answering the phone at my dad’s office, or even better, organizing the tubes of acrylic paint on display at Myrna’s Country Craft.

Why did Lena choose this job? Wouldn’t she have rather worked for Dad too? But she and Dad argued a lot. That much I do remember. So maybe she didn’t want to make his coffee and take his messages and buy his socks. Their arguing—that was why the police spent so long calling her a runaway.

Maybe she liked how custard makes people happy.

The lips stops quivering, and the kid glares.

Okay, makes some people happy.

I exhale, grip the lip of the countertop with my free hand, and hold the smile. Soup is pretty chill, but the one thing he rants about is customer service, and I’m not losing my job over this little turd. Freckle-face sticks his lip out a little farther and sniffs. I blink, waiting with my arm out. If I stand here long enough, maybe he’ll take it or at least ask me to make him a waffle cone. Maybe even say please.

I don’t hear Reed come up behind me, but suddenly he’s got one hand on my shoulder, the other prying the cone from my grip. I let him take it. His hand slides down over my shoulder blade and stays there for a second before he dumps the sugar cone into the trash and begins scooping more mint chip into a waffle cone.

“Sorry,” I mumble, feeling scolded. “I was sort of in a daze there.”

“It’s okay,” Reed says.

Freckle-face gives me a smug smile.

I turn to Reed, my back still burning where his hand was. I start to explain that it wasn’t my fault, that I didn’t actually screw up the order, but stop myself. It doesn’t matter. We both know the customer is always right even when the customer is a lying, chlorine-marinated brat, and I’m not so sure Reed wouldn’t rat on me if he thought I was being rude to the customers.

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” I repeat and wipe my hands on my apron even though they’re not wet.

Reed gives his glasses a nudge upward. “You get used to it. The kids, I mean. The noise.”

I nod. I doubt it. My house is quieter than death, and I hate it, but it’s a madhouse in here. Right now I just want to be alone in my room, listening to bluegrass and painting sea anemones.

“Where are the tickets?” an elderly woman barks, tapping the old-fashioned ticket dispenser. It’s a glossy red box with rounded corners and slots like a vintage toaster. Soup calls it the Relic.

“It’s broken, ma’am,” Reed says. “The line is there.” He points to the end of the snaking procession of people.

The Relic busted an hour ago, right as the hordes descended from swim camp. The three of us—Reed, Flora, and I—have been shouting “Next in line” instead, trying to keep shoving matches from breaking out.

I glance over at Flora. She’s older than my mom and looks like an aging showgirl, but I like her. I like how she teases Reed. Her hair is a metallic burgundy, the exact same shade as her lips, and she’s wearing gold hoops the size of CDs that stretch her holes in her lobes into half-inch slits. It’s hard not to stare at them.

Flora winks at me and chews her gum, unfazed by the chaos. According to Soup she’s a lifer: scooping at Mr. T’s for decades and perfectly happy to keep at it until she dies. Or retires, I guess. She told me last shift that she goes straight from Mr. T’s to the Lucky Lil’s slot machines every night, so I’m guessing her retirement plans involve some luck.