“I can do without the sass,” Mother says. “I know very well why we’ve been training.”
She picks up a glass of water from the counter with her bandaged hand, and I see her make the slightest wince.
“Is your antibiotic not working?” I ask. “I can go to the store and buy some Neosporin.” I need it for my knee as much as she does.
“The antibiotic is fine. Don’t change the subject, Honey.” She stares past me to Birdie. “You didn’t feel the need to use an air shaft in this situation, did you?”
Birdie shakes her head. “I was on the field for PE.”
“I used the air shaft,” Blue offers, ever at my defense. “I slipped out of my classroom as soon as everyone started to panic and went up through a vent in the bathroom.”
Mother looks down her nose at me, as if to say Blue had the right idea and I messed up.
“My teacher had already locked the door,” I explain. “What would you have had me do, leave them to their own fates?”
Mother is silent, thinking.
She knows I’m right. She knows I’m right. She knows I’m right. I try to will her into believing this.
“It’s always better to be safe than sorry,” she finally concedes. “Which is why I told your principal, who for some reason knew our family creed, that you had a habit of taking things literally and perhaps too far. That as the oldest you’ve always felt a larger sense of responsibility to your sisters. I assured him it wouldn’t happen again.”
“It won’t,” I say. “Unless it does.”
Mother’s disappointed scowl softens. “The world is largely unpredictable, but I had to say something to dissuade him from further questions.”
The good thing is there’s no mention of Birdie’s EDC, so Daniel must have kept his mouth shut. Whitlock probably told Principal Weaver our creed in my defense. I’m grateful we’re off the hook with Principal Weaver, but I’m still concerned about the fishbowl I’ll be in at school. Speculated upon like some circus freak. The Girl with the Juniper Branch Tattoo. We all have one, actually. I’m not being funny. Mother wanted us to have a distinguishing mark in case we got lost, abducted, or worse. They’re dainty, a single sprig on the back of our left arms above the elbow, black ink with three berries positioned in descending order. The one on my arm has the highest berry inked in, Birdie’s is the middle berry, and Blue’s the lowest. I remember Birdie arguing that she had a mole under her left breast and that was her distinguishing mark. But once I had mine, she wanted one, too.
“Are you gonna tell Dieter?” I ask.
“I haven’t yet,” she says. “Is there anything else I should know?”
Loads. But I shake my head. It would be so much easier to pass the buck to the Burrow Boys, tell Mother they were up to something for Dieter Ackerman, but I can’t. Not until we know more.
I don’t have to say another word because the TV switches over to local news, and the royal blue banner at the bottom of the screen spills their version of our story.
SHOTS FIRED AT LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL CALLED AN ELABORATE PRANK.
The flat voice grabs the rest of my family’s attention, and we all move closer to the TV without speaking, watching the deadpan news anchor publicize what happened at school earlier. Publicize being the operative word.
In local news, what sounded like gunfire this afternoon at Elkwood High School brought authorities racing to the scene in anticipation of what might have been the twenty-fourth school shooting across the nation this year.
Students recall hearing the sound of gunshots before the school’s principal issued a mandatory lockdown on what’s now being called an elaborate, but dangerous, prank. The student responsible has been identified and could be charged with explosives and fireworks offenses, as well as reckless conduct, as Elkwood Police continue to investigate the incident. According to the school’s website, an automated phone call was sent to parents, assuring them all students were safe and able to return to classes as scheduled tomorrow.
They pan the crowd of students outside the school. My sisters and I are huddled in the shot, plain as daylight.
“Why is that camera pointed at you, Honey?”
Not exactly pointed. I shrug and Mother’s scowl returns. This isn’t good.
Birdie is sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring at the screen like she’s hypnotized long after they’ve moved on to a different story. “What happens when someone is charged with explosives and fireworks offenses? Would they go to jail?”
She twists to look at Mother, gnawing her middle fingernail again.
“Not if they’re a minor,” Mother says. “Why do you ask? Do you know the student they’re talking about?”
I’m primed to kick my sister in her seated bottom. Thankfully, she shakes her head in denial. Mother doesn’t know about her and Daniel being a couple, only that they’re friends. It’s best to keep it that way. The bigger problem we have is if we’re watching this air on mainstream media, so is everybody else on the compound.
The CB radio used for compound-wide communication crackles to life in our kitchen with Dieter Ackerman’s sharp voice. Piercing the room like the edge of a dull blade being sharpened against a whetstone. None of us has the energy to feign surprise.
“Juniper 4321, this is Ackerman1. Special mandatory meeting called at eighteen-hundred hours in the central training area. Confirm. Over.”
Mother gives us a reproachful scowl before walking to the radio in the foyer. “This is Juniper 4321. Confirming receipt of transmission for special mandatory meeting. Over.” She turns the radio off and faces us. “Are you sure there isn’t anything I need to know?”
I shrug and shake my head before glancing left and right at my sisters, who are, in varying degrees, giving Mother the same nonverbal answer.
“Do I have time to feed the animals?” Blue asks, acting like everything is fine and normal.
Mother checks her field watch. “You should all do it. The other chores will have to wait until tomorrow. Blue, you take care of the chickens, Birdie, the goats. Honey can pull vegetables from the garden for dinner. I’ll check our rain barrels before going down there to see what’s going on. You have an hour.”
“I need dry socks,” I tell my sisters. “You want me to get you some?”
They nod and I head for the stairs to our bedroom, ignoring the nagging sensation arising in my mind for why my mother always goes down there early or alone.
What I really need is a minute alone to get some bandages and process everything that’s happened. I pull three pairs of thick socks from the dresser and change into a heavy sweatshirt. I grab one for Blue, too, because her lips were starting to match her hair in the rain. My knee is throbbing out of sync with my heart like it has a separate sympathetic nervous system. I’m glad Mother didn’t spot the jagged tear in my jeans. I leave my pants in a heap on the floor and grab the hydrogen peroxide and first aid kit from the hallway linen closet. The door is slightly askew. Birdie is usually the one to fix things like loose screws on outlet covers or a burned-out lightbulb. Mostly because her patience gets worn by small stuff faster than mine or Blue’s.
I douse the two-inch gash over the tub to save cleanup time. Pink, blood-tinged water runs down the drain before the H2O2 bubbles up white and foamy. I pat it dry and put a couple of butterfly stitches across it to keep it from bleeding. If that doesn’t work, I’ll glue it shut later. I change into a fresh pair of pants and slip my feet inside the wool hiking socks, covering my damp, shriveled toes, instantly feeling better. I head downstairs, but at the last minute turn and go into our bedroom for the interchangeable screwdriver we keep in the pencil jar. It only takes a minute to fix the crooked door, but it satisfies my itch to have something go right today.