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I can't help it. A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy, I get that; it's a beautiful theory. But a cat's different. It just is.) Take some living creature and hack it up, all in the name of science. Pull its guts out to find out how they feel in your hands. Find out why they died. Find out what was good and what was off.
    "Aura." Wickman's voice is tinged with the kind of annoyance that makes my stomach fist. My brain spins as I try to pick an expression that will convince Wickman that I am really, truly in love with my wonderful lab partner, that I do not think she is the worst thing ever to put on a pair of blue cowboy boots, and that he should, in fact, give us both ten million extra credit points for getting along so well.
    But when I look up, I realize it's not about Angela at all. Wickman's waving a green hall pass. "Your lucky day, Ms. Ambrose."
    Confused, I slide out of my desk and grab the pass, which isn't just some Please send Aura down to the main office but a get-out-of-jail-free card. Family Emergency, the flowery, antique-looking script of one of the attendance secretaries proclaims.
    I race through the empty hallways and burst out the front door, where the Tempo is idling.
    I can smell it as soon as I open the passenger's side door-the fear. And I can hear Mom breathing-hard panting, like she's been jogging for an hour. "Get in the car," she says, through gritted teeth.
    I climb in, my heart on panic. "What's wrong?" I ask. "Why aren't you working up a lesson for your afternoon class? What's the emergency?"
    "You have to get out of there," she informs me, like she knows a masked gunman is on his way to Crestview.
    "Where-school?" I stammer, even as Mom's putting the building in her rearview.
    "You have to get away," she says. "Get home. But not on this street. I can fix it. But we have to go back. Scenic Avenue. Scenic. View. Back. I'll show you. I'll fix it."
    I can see the wet spots on the steering wheel. Sweat from her hands as she turns off one of the main thoroughfares and winds through a quiet neighborhood with comfortable houses on huge tree-loaded lots.
    When I look through the windshield, a red, plain-Jane, two-door pickup is at the opposite end of the street, heading toward us. Mom's breathing even harder, and sweat is breaking out across her face like a bad case of acne.
    "Get away. Get away. Get away," she insists, waving her hand wildly at the driver of the pickup. "Get over!"
    "It's okay, Mom," I say.
    "He's in our lane!" she screams.
    "He's not-" I say. "He's not even touching the line, Mom."
    "He is! Oh, God!" she screams, blaring the horn. "And here we are getting smaller!" she shrieks.
    "Smaller?"
    "I'm shrinking!" she squeals.
    It just doesn't make any sense. She's still Grace Ambrose, five feet nine inches tall-legs like a supermodel, Dad used to say. Long, lean legs.
    "Look how small I'm getting," she shouts as the truck rolls closer.
    I look down the street, at the shiny chrome grill heading straight for us, and I realize, as the hot chills light my spine on fire, that Mom's got it all backwards. She's not getting smaller, the truck's getting bigger because he's getting closer.
    I want to tell her Mom, its just like drawing class. Don't you remember that word you put up there on the board last weekend? "Perspective" remember that? Close up is big, far away is small, right? He's closer now, Mom, that's all, that's all.
    "Get away!" she cries out, and veers for absolutely no reason.
    My terrorized scream fills the car, along with the squealing of brakes and the crunching of a mailbox into about a billion toothpicks. The Tempo finally slides to a stop in a ditch.
    Behind us, the pickup squeals, too, then turns around.
    "You all right?" the driver shouts, jumping from the cab. He's the kind of guy you see in ads for politicians who swear they're down-home folks. He's wearing work boots and a ball cap with a mesh back. Has a white circle on the back pocket of his Wranglers where his daily can of