Blue calls shotgun before we slide into the ancient station wagon Mother argues is vintage. It’s the only car we’ve ever had. I’m glad Birdie is sitting in the back today. Lately, when I’ve gotten mad at her for not being considerate of anyone’s time but her own, I’ve let my mouth say things I don’t mean before my brain catches up. I hate myself when that happens, because any day could be the one that changes everything. Today is as good a day as any.
A musky smell wafts over to me when I start the engine. The vanilla, tree-shaped air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror isn’t covering the stench of goat fur rising off Blue’s clothes.
“Did you lay down with the goats when you milked them this morning?”
She shrugs one shoulder. “If I don’t, who will?”
“They’re not pets, Blue. Especially the buck. Someday we may have to eat them.”
“Goat jerky for everyone,” Birdie chirps from the back.
I flick hawkish eyes to the rearview. It would be a last resort, but she’s not helping.
“They’re pets to me,” Blue says. “I’d rather die than eat them.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Well, if Mother would let us have a dog, maybe I wouldn’t need to play with the goats as much.”
“You have Achilles. He’s better than any dog.”
“I still want one. Golden with a black muzzle. I’d name him Banjo.”
Mother claims she’s allergic to cats and dogs. She can’t be near the rabbits, either, even though we breed them for meat. But Achilles is a peregrine falcon. Birdie found him in the woods while she and Mother were hunting, his foot all tangled up in fishing line one of the Burrow Boys left near the lake. She brought him home, even though he was scared and bit Birdie’s hand so deep she needed five stitches. Blue offered to take over his care while her stitches healed, and once Blue and Achilles bonded it was bye-bye Birdie.
He has one lame claw, but that doesn’t stop him from doing anything. He just favors his left talons. Everyone else in our coalition is cautious of Achilles, just because of the one time he scared Tashi Garcia’s little brother Tito so bad he peed his pants. If you ask me, Tito had it coming. That’s what he gets for trying to take the pheasant Achy caught himself for dinner. Believe me, there are days after training where I’m hungry enough to make any boy dumb enough to try and take my supper pee his pants too. Fair is fair.
The best thing about Achilles, though, is he’ll do the killing Blue won’t. That and the little leather hood he wears. You have to see it to believe it. The goats are cool, and the does are ridiculously cute, but my sister really does have the most kick-ass pet in The Nest. Maybe the state.
It’s too late to have her change, so I toss her the hand sanitizer we keep in the wagon’s ashtray. “Open your window and air yourself out.”
I look at Birdie one more time and see her rummaging through her EDC. I hope she’s making sure she has everything she needs because there’s no way I’m turning around.
I charge down the dirt road to the main, kicking up dust like the riffraff everybody at school imagines we are. In a couple of miles we pass Tashi Garcia’s house, followed by Camilla Clarke’s, then Annalise Ackerman’s, and all the other Nest households. We turn left, away from the road that leads to The Burrow. I spy Birdie staring longingly in hopes of seeing Daniel Dobbs. The lovestruck subordinate dressed in thrift store fatigues from the local AMVETS that’s become my sister’s soul focus. That’s not a misnomer.
At school we’ll go our separate ways, to classes in different parts of the building, passing each other in the hallways here and there. But I know where my sisters are at all times. I know every exit, entrance, and access point to the school. And so do they. Sometimes, one or more Nesters or Burrowers pull out ahead or behind us and we’ll drive to school like a caravan of outcasts. Ripe for being ostracized by people who think the brands of makeup or clothing they wear are their biggest obstacle to survival. For them, they probably are. Surviving high school is as far and wide into the future as they can think. Not that it matters. Today is a good mirror day.
We can handle them. My sisters and I can handle anything.
EDC
EVERY DAY CARRY
THE CHEMISTRY EXPERIMENT in Mr. Whitlock’s class today is simple. Fill three balloons. One with hydrogen, one with oxygen, and one with seventy-five percent hydrogen and twenty-five percent oxygen, to see which will cause the biggest explosion when lit with an extra-long torch.
I already know the answer. We have hydrogen and oxygen tanks stored at home for bunker air quality and fuel cells. I have an A in this class, but it’ll still be fun to end the experiment with a bang.
Mother would be so pleased.
Our teacher always has us work with a lab partner, and this time Mr. Whitlock stuck me with Shawna Mooney, effervescent president and founder of Elkwood High School’s Baking Club. I do a threat assessment of her in fifteen seconds.
THREAT ASSESSMENT:
SHAWNA APRIL MOONEY|5’6” WEAK TO AVERAGE BUILD|OPEN SOCIAL GROUP|TRUSTING
MOST LIKELY TO: cry in nurse’s office over unworthy boy who didn’t like her cupcakes.
LEAST LIKELY TO: hit that popularity status she’s striving for with the same said cupcakes.
9/10 WOULD IMPEDE GROUP SURVIVAL IN EMERGENCY SITUATION.
CASUALTY POTENTIAL: high
“Can you light them?” Shawna asks. “The only thing I’ve ever torched is crème brûlée. This seems more like your thing.”
My thing.
I guess Shawna’s made an assessment of her own.
“Sure. I do like to blow things up, shoot them, nail them to a tree trunk with an arrow, then field dress them for dinner over an open fire. Maybe I can bring you some goat’s milk from our mini farm. You can show me how to make crème brûlée from fresh goat’s cream, and I can teach you how to stop acting like lighting a balloon on fire with a three-foot-long torch is an assault on your feminine sensibilities.”
“Geez, Honey, you could try being as sweet as your name once in a while.”
Shawna pulls her copper-red hair to the front on both sides, like having it close is a comfort to her.
Hair pulled up and away from an open flame in a chem lab is what’s a comfort to me.
“Shawna, did you know bees make honey for survival? They store it in their honey bellies for the winter. When we try to steal it from them, they see us as marauders and sting us. People discovered honey was sweet and disrupted the social order of bees for personal gain, using smoke like a drug to calm them down. There’s nothing sweet about that.”
Shawna’s jaw drops, just enough to make it clear she’s out of comebacks.
“‘If I be waspish, best beware my sting,’” I whisper softly.
A random snicker makes me turn my head to see who was listening. Rémy Lamar. Of course. He’s working at the lab table behind us, clearly eating up this exchange. He smirks when our eyes meet and the misplaced dimple in his brown upper cheek throws me off my game for a second.
Ignore the obvious threat.
Disengage.
I roll my eyes at him right as Mr. Whitlock shows up to light the torch I’m holding like a javelin.