“Suggestions,” Ms. Schweinbein repeated. “From you. The students. You get to participate in the decision-making process. I thought that would elicit something of a positive response.”
Shoulders in the class relaxed.
“Awesome,” whispered Vin.
“Yes, Vin,” the teacher said. “It is awesome.”
Doreen’s hand shot up even before she knew what she might say. Ms. Schweinbein glanced at her, and then Janessa raised her hand. She called on Janessa.
“How about justice?” Janessa asked.
Doreen liked that idea, but was still a little peeved the teacher ignored her. She kept her hand up.
Ms. Schweinbein called on Maurice next.
“Maybe grass? Or, like, landscaping in general?” Maurice said.
“Good,” the teacher said, writing GRASS ETC beneath JUSTICE on the chalkboard. She then called on Kisha. And then Henry. And then Megan.
YOGURT
VIDEO GAMES
TEETH
“How about you, Dougie? You always have good ideas,” Ms. Schweinbein said.
Dougie hadn’t even been raising his hand. Only Doreen had been raising her hand. The whole time. Now she dropped it. There was no point.
“Um, maybe, um…gum,” Dougie said. “And all the stuff that is called gum, and was once gum, and things that might one day be gum again.”
Ms. Schweinbein wrote THE JOURNEY OF GUM. “Very thought-provoking. Thank you, Dougie. I’ll consider your suggestions and tell you which I’ve selected tomorrow.”
Doreen’s hand shot back up. Ms. Schweinbein sighed as she sat at her desk.
“Class will be over in ten more minutes, Ms. Green,” she said. “You can go to the restroom then.”
“But I—” Doreen began.
“Everyone open your books to page one forty-two,” Ms. Schweinbein said, speaking over Doreen. “Review the questions there. They might just be on a quiz tomorrow.”
Doreen lowered her hand.
Squirrels, she thought. And computers. And dinosaurs living at the center of the earth. And fashion-forward Super Villains. That’s what I would have said.
As soon as the lunch bell rang, Doreen ran normal-human-speed to Ana Sofía’s locker. She signed, “My teacher hates me. Really. She really hates me.”
“Sorry,” signed Ana Sofía. “If she hates you, she’s wrong.”
Doreen paced now. A growly/angry kind of pacing, like a wild squirrel in a zoo cage.45 She paced till words built up so high in her she felt like she’d swallowed an Eiffel Tower of words, and the top was poking out, and she just had to speak. She stopped pacing so Ana Sofía could see her lips clearly.
“Ms. Schweinbein said a third of the grade is in-class participation, but then she doesn’t let me participate. You know what that is? It’s injustice, that’s what. It’s straight-up, friggin’ injustice.”
“It is,” Ana Sofía agreed. “That’s not fair. You’re trying your best, and she’s not even giving you a chance.”
Doreen stood up straighter. “Yeah! You’re right! And I fight injustice things all the time, so I should definitely get on this, pronto! Or someone should.” She signed, “Squirrel Girl.”
“I know this whole situation stinks, but Squirrel Girl can’t just go fight a teacher,” said Ana Sofía.
Doreen shrugged. She could if Ms. Schweinbein was a villain…which maybe she was….
“Speaking of participation,” said Ana Sofía, and she fiddled nervously with the cord on her backpack, “sometimes I don’t participate on purpose. I mean, after a few times of people making fun of your suggestions, and even laughing at you, it can get easier to just keep them to yourself.”
“That’s true,” said Doreen, though she had never reached the limit on that particular point.
“So…” said Ana Sofía, “I really don’t like it when people laugh at me. Or, you know, dismiss me with, like, a ‘never mind’ or whatever.”
Doreen nodded. Ana Sofía looked at her. There seemed to be something she wanted Doreen to say, but Doreen was stumped.
“Dude,” Doreen said in an I’m-all-in-agreement kind of way.
That didn’t quite seem to do it, though. Ana Sofía was still looking at her in that waiting/hopeful way. Doreen’s forehead started to prickle with sweat.
This was probably one of those really, really super-important moments in a friendship when she needed to say just the right thing. Doreen’s mind was blank. She swallowed.
“Yeah,” she said, her voice dry, “that’s really rude when people laugh at things we say when we’re just trying to be helpful and all, so we should join forces and just stop that stuff, right?”
Ana Sofía shrugged and walked away.
Oh no! Had she failed? Had she not said just the right thing? And did that mean that Ana Sofía might not want to be her BHFF anymore? Sometimes keeping friends felt like putting together a nuclear warhead, and if you breathed wrong or hammered too hard or touched the wrong wires together, it would just explode on you in a huge and deadly and unfixable way. And after, when you were looking at the black crater at your feet, you still weren’t sure if it exploded because of the breathing or the hammering or the wiring, so you didn’t know what not to do next time.
Doreen didn’t want to wait for next time.
She ran after Ana Sofía, who had joined the Squirrel Scouts at their long cafeteria table. She wanted to say something to Ana Sofía, even if it wasn’t exactly the right thing, but Heidi was talking.
“…and it was ah-mazing to fight robots again, right? Even weird little dog robots?”
“Weird robot dogs!” said Jackson. He lifted up his hand as if waiting for a high five. When no one immediately obliged, even though she was nowhere near him, Doreen rushed forward, hand out and ready to save the day! Or at least the moment! Or just the high five! But with her tail tucked in, her balance was always off, and she bumped into the table, knocked against Bianca, who said “Ow!”, and Dennis, who said “Watch it!”, and tumbled onto the floor.
When she stood up, everyone was staring at her.
“Oopsie whoopsie!” she said, imitating Penny, an adorably clumsy kid on the TV show Penny for Your Thoughts, but no one seemed to get she was trying to make a joke. Not a smile was cracked. She glanced at Ana Sofía to see if her trip and failed joke had made her rethink their best-friendship, but she couldn’t catch her eye.
“I just think we need to make it clear to Squirrel Girl,” said Heidi, “that we want to be in on that kind of action more.”
“Or,” said Doreen, “we could text her when there’s a problem and then let her take care of it since she wouldn’t want any of us to get hurt!”
“What are you even talking about, Doreen?” said Janessa. “We never get hurt.”
“Well, you almost did,” said Doreen. “With Dog-Lord, I mean.”
“You weren’t even there, Doreen,” Lanessa said. “You didn’t show up.”
Doreen shrugged. “That’s what I heard, is all….”
The conversation continued, but for perhaps the first time in her life, Doreen had indeed reached the point where participation hurt too much. Way easier to sit in silence, eat her three leftover nutloaf sandwiches, and replay in her mind every stupid thing she’d ever said.
Doreen had sooo much homework it wasn’t even funny. An hour of online math, three chapters of history textbook, and an essay for Ms. Schweinbein’s class called “Why Animals Are Better than People.” She hadn’t remembered that suggestion coming from a student, and even though Doreen was completely open to exploring the topic, she honestly didn’t know why she bothered to try. She was destined for a C-, the only grade Ms. Schweinbein ever gave her.
Doreen had homework all right, but Squirrel Girl was out on patrol in Listless Pines.46
“Tip, I swear, she just straight-up hates Doreen-me,” said Squirrel Girl, as she leaped from one roof to another.
“CHKKT!” said Tippy-Toe.
Squirrel Girl snorted. “Ouch, that
sounds painful. Thanks, but you don’t need to do that.”
Tippy-Toe sneezed in a way that meant she was ready at a moment’s notice to exact severe squirrelly vengeance on this teacher, but in the meantime would respect her friend’s desire for a peaceful resolution.
“I mean, if we find evidence that Ms. Schweinbein is a super-powerful villain plotting to rain terror on Shady Oaks, and only a girl and her squirrel can stop her, then the squirrel gloves are off, obvs.”
Squirrel Girl leaped from a housetop to the windowsill of a two-story building and then climbed to the roof. A commercial center of Listless Pines lay before her. Frankly, it looked a lot like Shady Oaks. Streets, houses, businesses. A canal of gray water slithered alongside a street. She sniffed, but the air was no more stinky or pleasant than Shady Oaks. And yet the Squirrel Scouts insisted this area was enemy territory. She wondered what she was missing.
“Ana Sofía said to keep an eye out around Listless Pines,” said Squirrel Girl. “Online someone was threatening a second attack in this area. I don’t know what we’re looking for exactly, but I suspect—”
Several people came running out of a nearby Shop-N-Pop, a chain grocery store where you could get your groceries and make custom bottles of soda, with flavors like Honey Kiwi, Blue Grapefruit Delirium, and When Frankincense Met Myrrh. Also, the people were screaming.
“Chetti-kit?” said Tippy-Toe.
“Yeah,” said Squirrel Girl, “whatever they’re running from is probably what we’re looking for. Hey, will you round up some squirrel friends and I’ll go inside and check it out?”
She jumped off the building and landed on the roof of a parked car. Which suddenly wasn’t parked anymore.
“Sorry!” said Squirrel Girl, leaping off the car as it screeched out of the parking lot, nearly colliding with another car that was leaving in an equally screechy manner.
Squirrel Girl dodged screeching cars and fleeing customers till by the time she got inside the grocery store, nobody was there but one man in a Shop-N-Pop apron, holding a phone to his ear.
“I don’t know what it is!” he whispered into the phone. “Some kind of animal girl with a tail!”
“Squirrel,” said Squirrel Girl. “It’s a squirrel tail.”
“What? Oh, not you.” He pointed into the store with a shaky hand.
At first she didn’t see anything, except that the store was a mess. Shopping carts abandoned mid-trip, food items scattered all over the floor. Then a flicker. A shadow in Aisle 8: Pet Supplies.
“What is it?” Squirrel Girl whispered.
“She calls herself Mistress Meow.” He gulped. “The county police say they can’t be here for twenty to thirty minutes. Since the Dog-Lord thing resolved without their attention, they’ve downgraded hybrid human-animal apparitions from ‘urgent’ to ‘check-out-able.’”
Squirrel Girl took out her phone.
SQUIRREL GIRL
Can you tell thor to tell shield to send their animal control peeps to the shopnpop for a cat monster thing?
ANA SOFÍA
I guess this is a normal text that I get in my life now
ANA SOFÍA
Should I alert the squirrel scouts too?
SQUIRREL GIRL
I guess?
Squirrel Girl hesitated before clicking Send. At first the Squirrel Scouts were a win-win: a group of friends for Doreen, a group of supporters for Squirrel Girl. But were they friends really? Doreen wasn’t 100 percent clear on that point. And Squirrel Girl wasn’t 100 percent clear on what they wanted from her. In fact, just thinking about them made her feel hyped up, nervous, angry, proud, and sick to her stomach. That particular emotion combo was becoming more and more familiar.
From the depths of the store came a low-throated growl. The employee took a step closer to Squirrel Girl.
“Why don’t you wait outside?” she said. “Could be dangerous.”
The guy shook his head. “I was promoted to store manager yesterday. And I took a sacred Shop-N-Pop oath to look after this store. I am its captain, and a captain goes down with the ship!”
A thump, a sound of breaking glass, and a soft hiss.
He gulped. He looked at Squirrel Girl with pleading eyes, his forehead sparkly with sweat.
“What’s your name, Mr. Store Manager?”
“Herb,” he said.
“Great name,” she said. “A-plus, for real. Never met a Herb before and I always wanted to.47 So, have you tried talking to her? I find that reasoned dialogue can solve, like, eighty-two percent of interpersonal conflicts.”
“No?” he said, as if afraid she’d get mad at him.
Squirrel Girl sighed. He was, like, thirty years old. She was fourteen, for nuts’ sake. People were way too willing to just trust anybody with authority, in her experience, whether that person got their authority from a uniform or from super powers.48
“Don’t worry, Herb,” she said. “I’m really good at this stuff.”
Squirrel Girl stalked down Aisle 8, hopping over spilled dog food, tiny brown nuggets still rolling as if recently disturbed.
“Hello?” said Squirrel Girl.
A flicker. Something moving above. Squirrel Girl leaped on top of the shelving. Nothing. Nothing except for packs of dry angel-hair pasta, crackling beneath her boots. She landed in Aisle 7: Pasta, Pasta Sauce, Pickles.
And there, at the end of the aisle, lying atop the dairy case, was a…a…um…woman? Or cat? Or both? She had gray fur over her arms and legs, which were visible beneath her short-sleeved blouse and cut-off jeans shorts. Her head fur was longer, rising up in a kind of fauxhawk and tumbling down her back. Her face was mostly human, with pinkish pale skin and a thin nose, though her cheeks had long whiskers.
“Meow,” she said.49
“You must be Mistress Meow. I’m Squirrel Girl. I see we both prefer gendered, animal-centric monikers. We probably have lots of other stuff in common. Like a fondness for tails, and small furry creatures, and interesting smells, and…justice?” she added hopefully.
“Meow,” said Mistress Meow.
Then she reached out a lazy paw and swatted a display of Heavenly Gravy, knocking it flat over. The glass bottles shattered against the concrete floor.
“Geez, dude! That’s not cool!” said Squirrel Girl. Splatters of gravy had splashed over her tail.50 She shook it, and some drops of gravy landed on Mistress Meow.
“Come, now,” Mistress Meow said in a slow, low voice, “don’t be like that. You’re making a mess.”
“I’m making a mess?”
“Yes, just look at that gravy everywhere! First you came up to me so rudely, startling me, and making me knock it over—”
“I…I…” Squirrel Girl took a deep breath and tried again with the Steps to Conflict Resolution by establishing some common ground. “So, you’re a cat-person human, huh? That must be interesting. And challenging! I know for me it’s not always easy to fit into the human world or the squirrel world, let alone both! Maybe you feel the same?”51
Mistress Meow stood up slowly and, balancing on the edge of the dairy case, began to pace its length. “Yes, I can see why humans would be suspicious of you. And squirrels…well, you know how they are….”
“Huh,” said Squirrel Girl, not quite sure if she was being insulted. Or if squirrels were being insulted. Or both.
“I hate to be direct,” said Mistress Meow, “but your conversation is dull and is getting in the way of my shopping.”52
She leaped onto the display case of Aisle 6: Rice, Soup, Ethnic Food. The end display of microwavable goulash crashed to the floor.
“Wait!” said Squirrel Girl, hurrying after her. “I haven’t had a chance to Listen First, Talk Second! Or Agree upon Common Goals! Also, FYI, a life of crime doesn’t pay!”
Mistress Meow had leaped to Aisle 4: Paper Products, and was ripping open packages of toilet paper with her claws.
“Stop that! You’re making a huge mess. Have some animal girl pride, will you?”53
“Fine, whatever,” said Mistress Meow. She sauntered down Aisle 4. Her tail swished back and forth, knocking off boxes of aluminum wrap and sandwich bags.
“Hey!” said Squirrel Girl. “Mistress Meow! You can’t just come into a grocery store and make a mess like this.”
The lady cat just kept walking, seemingly unaware that her tail was leaving a trail of destruction. Squirrel Girl followed her to the soda station at the back of the store. Rows of syrups in huge tanks dazzled with a rainbow of colors, labeled with flavors like Vanilla Explosion, Berry Jamboree, and Licorice Dreams. The occasional bubble rose up, emitting a low, slow gulp.
“Mistress Meow? Um, excuse me? Did you hear what I said?”
Mistress Meow looked lazily over her shoulder and blinked her green eyes.
“You’re still here? Wow, I wish I had sooo few responsibilities that I could waste hours just following people around grocery stores. How nice that must be.”
“Actually, I have a ton of—” Squirrel Girl was about to say homework, but she didn’t have homework—that was Doreen! And best to keep that part of her life secret. “—um, a ton of respect. For cats. They’re so…furry. And tailed. And just because sometimes they climb up trees and then can’t get down again doesn’t mean I would ever make fun of them.”54
Mistress Meow sharpened her claws on a wall of the soda station, cutting right through to the tanks of soda stored behind it. Plain soda shot out in white fizzy streams.
“Look what you made me do! All your blabbering is so distracting.”
“I’m sorry,” Squirrel Girl said automatically. “Wait…what are you even talking about? I didn’t make you do anything, but I’m going to. I don’t like getting all Super-Hero-demanding, but you need to leave this store right now!”
Mistress Meow blinked. She put out a paw, holding it behind a twenty-five-gallon tank of Egg Salad Syrup.
“Don’t—” Squirrel Girl started. “Ew, gross, egg salad–flavored soda syrup? But still, don’t. Don’t you do it. I mean it, Mistress Meow!”
Mistress Meow held her gaze. Her paw twitched. The syrup tipped over, gushing yellow-green liquid all over the floor.