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just for starters. What were my folks thinking? It was going to be a disaster.
    “We don’t live on Peabody Mountain anymore,” Daddy was saying. “This school is just eight miles away, not thirty-eight on a bad road.”
    “You’ll make friends. You won’t be so lonely. And there’s more to learn than we can teach you now,” Mama said.
    “I already know plenty and I’m not lonely.” It didn’t seem like she heard me. “I’m not lonely,” I said louder.
    “There are all kinds of things to do at school. They even have a swimming pool.”
    “I hate to swim!” That was a flat-out lie. Mama reached out to smooth my hair, but I yanked myself away. “All you care about is your new job at the Arts Center! If Grammy were here, she’d put a stop to this. Grammy always taught me good.”
    “Taught you
well
,” Mama corrected gently, but I ignored her. I whipped around to look at Daddy beseechingly.
    “Your grammy always did a real fine job,” Daddy said. “But she thinks the same as us. We talked about it some before she left.”
    “You did not,” I yelled. But Mama and Daddy looked at me so kindly, I knew they had.
    “We shouldn’t have put this off,” Daddy said to Mama. And Mama said, “No,” looking sorrowful and shaking her head.
    “Stop talking about me like I’m not here! You’re just afraid of that lady, Anne Oliver. You’re afraid she’s going to cause trouble for you.”
    Mama sighed. “I’m not afraid of Anne Oliver, chicklet. But I have to admit she got me thinking even harder than I was before. Sometimes it’s hard to hear the truth, hardest coming from someone you don’t like. The fact is that your daddy and I decided when we moved up here that you should go to school this fall. We talked it over with Grammy. She thought the change would be good. She was worried you were spending all your time just with old folks. We all decided that this would be best.”
    “
No!
That’s wrong. Everything was
fine
the way it was.”
    Mama went on like I hadn’t spoken. “But then I—well, I put it off. I thought, one more year— I knew how I was going to miss having you around home all the time. But that was wrong of me.”
    “No it wasn’t! It was right. You were right. I should stay home.”
    Mama reached out to smooth my hair again. “We really do think it’s a good idea for you to go to school now that we don’t live so far from town. For one thing, your daddy and I just don’t have the time we should to devote to your studies with all this work on the farm.”
    “We can all stay up later!”
    Mama’s smile said that wasn’t going to happen. “And besides that, you’re old enough now that going to school is important. It’d be good to have friends your own age. There’s nothing else like it. Don’t you miss the Perkins kids?”
    “No!” I didn’t either.
    “Wouldn’t you like to have a girlfriend, a best friend?”
    “No.” I’d make sure not to mention the imaginary sister I’d invent on my jaunts around the woods.
    “And there’s so much to learn—”
    “I don’t care about learning.”
    “Oh, you do so.”
    I scowled with my whole entire self.
    “I went to that school, you know. I had a pretty good time there. If you go to the library, you could find my pictures in theold yearbooks. Wouldn’t you like to see your mama when she was young and funny looking?”
    The thought of going to the same school as Mama did tickle my interest some, but I wasn’t going to show it. “I won’t learn anything in school, and you can’t make me.”
    Mama gave me a look over the tops of her spectacles. “Well, I’m sorry if you don’t like the idea, but I’m afraid that’s the way it’s going to be. We’ve already decided.”
    I felt so betrayed that I started crying, which made me madder than ever.

SCHOOL
    It all happened fast. Mama and Daddy took me to the school office on Friday and got everything set up. Before I knew it I was enrolled, and the principal