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The professional worm diggers, the ones who made their whole living year round on it, had already gone. They counted faster than we did. And maybe they didn’t want to hear about dead languages versus vocational arts either.
    Bailey was overachieving like usual. She already had three years of Spanish. She didn’t
need
Latin. Not like she needed welding, because her truck was about to fall apart. It was probably two sticks of gum and some duct tape away from collapsing into parts.
    One more language on her transcript would look good. And she was gonna twist her schedule until she got it. I already knew the ending, so it was hard to get excited about the journey.
    After a while, she noticed I was only offering her
uh huh
s and
yep
s. Her plastic sorting tray thumped against mine. My pile of worms was smaller than hers. Probably because I’d been counting instead of talking.
    “Are you listening?”
    I had to shake my head. “Not really. Sorry.”
    Shifting her tray again, she started pulling the shorties to one side. We got paid less for those. She made a leap I hadn’t. “I know you hate letting Seth go out with Dad. Somebody has to, though.”
    “I’m well aware.”
    “Quit being so damned old,” she said.
    “I’m not,” I sniped back. “I’ve got a lot on my mind. I can’t imagine
why.
”
    This time, Bailey cracked her tray against mine on purpose. “You’re allowed to be depressed. You’re not allowed to feel sorry for yourself.”
    “And why not?”
    Bailey had a fire going inside. Probably tindered when she was on time to talk to Ms. Park and I wasn’t. She’d had a couple of days to feed it. While she was good enough not to play silent-treatment games on me, I sometimes wondered if I wouldn’t have liked that better.
    “Because you shut everybody out and make it worse. On purpose. Things won’t get magically better because you punish yourself.”
    “Who said it would?”
    Starting to clap a hand to her face, Bailey stopped at the last minute. She wasn’t mad enough to rub worm all over her cheek. “You act like it, and you know it.”
    “So you say.”
    “So I know,” she retorted.
    Picking up my Styrofoam cup, I dumped the rest of my worms in it. Back stiff and jaw tight, I didn’t look away. I wasn’t afraid of Bailey. I knew her secrets, and she knew mine. Arguing with her was as safe as it got. In the morning, she’d still love me. Even if she was mad. Carrying my collection to the register, I turned back to her. And because I didn’t have anything to say that was true, I flipped her off instead.
    With a sneer, she put her head down to finish counting.
     
    Mom worked second shift at police dispatch, and Dad fished from dawn ’til dusk. That meant whoever got home first made dinner.
    It used to be Levi, and it was too bad it wasn’t anymore. He could find three random things in the pantry and make a meal. I could follow instructions on a box, more or less.
    Low tide came twice a day most days. I’d already earned a couple hundred at the noon low. I could hit the next at midnight, but Seth’s flannel shirts, one I’d stolen from his bedroom, beckoned. It smelled like him. It felt like him wrapping his arms around me, my only constant.
    Once I had it on, it was decided. I was done worm digging.
    I jogged downstairs to find something easy to make. Bacon and eggs would be plenty for me. But Seth and Dad would be starving when they came in, so I pulled a box of pancake mix from the pantry, butting it against the grease jar as I went back for jam and syrup. The phone rang before I managed to crack one egg.
    “Don’t worry,” Mom said when I answered.
    Tension laced me tight. Leaning against the counter, I turned the burners off one by one, pretty sure that whatever I wasn’t supposed to worry about meant I wouldn’t be home long enough to need hot pans. Somehow, I sounded calm when I asked, “What’s going on?”
    She cleared her throat, then I heard her talking to someone