Sheriff Bell nods and scoots his chair back, putting his broad khaki-colored sheriff hat back on.

“I trust y’all will be keeping an eye on Callie here until I have more information.”

“Of course,” says Mama as Keith shakes the sheriff’s hand. “The girl is so grounded, she’s halfway to the center of the earth.”

Keith walks the sheriff out to the front of the house, where his police truck is parked. The door shuts behind them, vacuuming out all the air in the house.

Mama turns to me.

I can feel her getting ready to unleash.

“What were you thinking?” she asks, her eyes dry now and her voice low and angry. In this moment, nothing about her red lips is sweet and familiar.

“I didn’t start it,” I tell her honestly. “And it really was just supposed to be TP and eggs. Just a dumb prank.”

Mama shakes her head furiously. “That is the exact reason why you should not have gone! These things always get out of hand. Christ, baby. You should’ve told someone. Stopped it somehow. I’m raising you girls to be leaders, not followers.”

“We didn’t mean to do any real damage. I swear.”

“Callie, it does not matter what you meant to do. Only what you did do. You’ve worked so hard for the dance team to make it this far, and now it’s all over for you. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

It’s all over for you. Her words ring in my ears. My hands begin to tremble, and I can feel every muscle in my body tense as it tries to suppress tears.

The front door creaks as Keith lets himself back inside, pulling me back into the moment.

“Does that mean anything to me, Mama?” I’m shouting now. My eyes begin to burn as I blink away tears. I use the heels of my hands to wipe them away. “This means everything to me! And yeah, I wish it hadn’t happened, but if you think I’m ’bout to cower ’round here with my tail between my legs like some kind of poorly trained puppy—well, then you don’t know what the hell kind of daughter you raised.”

She crosses her arms over her chest with Keith standing a few steps behind her. “No phone. No Bryce. I will take you to school, and you will leave with me when I’m done with work. I will call Sam, Melissa, and Mrs. Driskil to let them know you will not be at practice.”

I knew it was coming. I knew that when the woman said I’d be grounded, she meant it. And still every word hits me like a perfectly placed punch, but one specific thing stings the most. “I can’t just miss practice,” I tell her.

“Oh, can’t you?” She rests her fists firmly on her hips. “You did this. You had every chance of making it to Nationals. I would have loved nothing more than to see my daughter follow in my footsteps. You could’ve been a legacy.”

Where’s my tearful mother now? Suddenly this has nothing to do with me.

“I don’t know who you think you are,” she continues, “but in this house we do not commit crimes and expect things to go back to normal. There will be consequences, and one of yours is that you are grounded from the dance team until further notice. I will always be a Shamrock, but above all, I am a mother.” She holds a finger up to stop me from responding. “And I will arrange for you to apologize to the vice principal, the principal, and later on, the school board. We will apologize to the owner of the gym as well. That is your punishment. For now. Until we hear more from Sheriff Bell. And for the record,” she adds, “I know exactly what kind of daughter I raised, and whoever you are right now is not it.”

I push past the both of them to stomp up the stairs. All the tears I’d tried to hold back are falling freely now. Mascara burns my eyes and runs down my cheeks.

Mama follows me, stopping at the bottom step. “Phone,” she says.

I turn on the landing and throw the dumb thing down the stairs.

Millie

Seven

Me, my mom, Inga, and Uncle Vernon all sit around my mother’s breakfast bar on Saturday morning with the twins in their carriers on the counter. The moment one of them stops crying, the other starts, like they’re tagging each other in and out of the ring.

My mother coos at a sobbing Luka. “He does that howl you would do when you were a baby, Vernon. Just crocodile tears. It’s a wonder you never fried your vocal cords.”

“Ah,” Inga says, “so this is his fault. I was a good baby, you know. Slept and ate. Slept and ate. I was a dream. But no, they had to inherit their father’s temperament.”

“Okay,” I say. “Y’all eat and I’ll entertain the twins.”

Neither Inga nor Vernon argues at that. The two of them pick sparingly at my mother’s oatmeal and topping selection while I make ridiculous faces at Nikolai and Luka as I bounce their carriers back and forth.

The gym has been closed to the public since Wednesday, when I showed up to find the place a complete wreck. Since then I’ve felt inexplicably anxious. It’s not that I feel unsafe, but I feel . . . out of sorts.

“Have they figured out what they’re doing with the girl Millie caught on camera?” my mom asks.

“We have,” says Vernon, using that voice he so often uses with my mother. It’s that you-won’t-like-this-but-you-can’t-change-it voice.

“We!” exclaims Inga. “More like he! I had no part in this decision.” Both Nikolai and Luka sob in unison. Inga circles around to them, relieving me of my brief duties. “I know, babies. Your father is a spineless do-gooder.”

“Thanks,” says Vernon. “I’m sure they’ll respect me for life now.”

“Do something respectable,” she says. “Earn respect. Simple.”

He sighs. “I offered to let the girl work off the damages at the gym.”

“What!” My voice surprises even me. I clear my throat. “I’m sorry, but did you just say that Callie Reyes would be working at the gym?”

Mom turns away from her waffle maker. “Oh, Vernon, you don’t even need help at the gym. It’s not like she’ll be saving you any money.”

He shrugs. “The girl didn’t act alone, okay? I spent a lot of years getting into trouble. Maybe if someone would’ve given me a shot like this, I would’ve gotten to the finish line a little sooner.”

Mom and Inga shake their heads. I do, too.

Positive thoughts. Think positive thoughts.

But this is going to be—

Positive thoughts, I remind myself. Positive thoughts.

Nope. Hard as I try, I just can’t imagine a world where the next few months working with Callie aren’t miserable. Maybe Callie isn’t the biggest bully in school, but she’s not what I would call nice either.

It will only be as bad as you allow it to be, a small voice inside me says.

But the voice is too small to affect my growing sense of doom.

Callie

Eight

I didn’t realize how chaotic my world was until this weekend. Keith locked my cell phone away in the safe where he keeps his hunting rifles. I thought that was tragic, but then my mom locked me out of all the computers in the house, changed the Wi-Fi password, and added parental controls so that all I can watch is the History Channel. Somehow that last thing was what pissed me off the most. And that was only Friday.

I spent all evening Friday pacing my room like a prison yard. I knew my necklace gave me away, but it’s just a simple C necklace. Someone must have tipped off the sheriff. It was Melissa. That was something I had absolutely no doubt about.

By Saturday afternoon, I’m wondering what the rest of the team knows and how they’ve reacted. Surely more of them will come forward once they know I got caught. I mean, if everyone just owns up, they can’t disband the whole team. Sam wouldn’t let that happen. I wish I could just get a text out to her. At the very least I would tell her not to trust Melissa.

That afternoon my mother hands down my official punishment. She knocks on my door, not waiting for me to tell her to come in.

I sit on my bed with my Algebra Two homework spread out around me.

Mama only takes two steps in past the doorway.

“I’ve spoken with Sheriff Bell and Vice Principal Benavidez. The owner has graciously decided to hold off on pressing charges, so long as you work off the cost of the damage by helping out at the gym after school and sometimes on the weekends.”