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“Can we please not?” she retorted, rolling her eyes.

“Listen, I can think of at least half a dozen things I’d rather do than give you a hard time about something that is clearly already upsetting you, but⁠—”

“Like what?” she interrupted.

“Root canal comes to mind,” I said, counting on my fingers. “Stepping on a LEGO brick. Twisting my ankle in the middle of a hike. Or having a boil lanced.”

“Ew. What even is that?”

“It’s as gross as it sounds. And painful. But as I was saying, we have to talk about it. Your teacher is freaking out, and the school is threatening to make you come back to finish out the year in person.”

“Good!” she cried. “That’s what I want to do anyway!” Scowling, she crossed her arms and avoided looking at me by glaring at her coverlet.

I expected her to flinch when I reached out, but she didn’t shake off my hand when I touched her foot. “Is that really true?” I asked gently. “I know it was when you got here, but do you still feel that way?”

She opened her mouth and snapped it shut before her knee-jerk reply could escape, shrugging instead. “I dunno.”

“It was easier before you made friends? And before Rory?” I suggested. Her eyes filled with tears that she blinked back furiously. “Maybe it made you realize that your dad wasn’t so wrong about your friends back home?”

Her answering scowl wasn’t a no, and I took it as a win.

“So why sabotage it?”

“I don’t know,” she said, and for once it sounded like the truth rather than a throwaway response to something she didn’t want to answer.

Closing my eyes, I tried to put myself in her shoes for a moment. The answer came to me so quickly I wanted to slap myself.

“Let me guess,” I said. “At first, you weren’t doing the work because you were angry at your dad, and you wanted to punish him?”

“Maybe,” she muttered, looking a little sheepish. Without looking my way, she stretched her hand to pet Pipsqueak, who’d jumped on the bed to investigate what we were doing.

“And then things got a little better, but by then, you were so behind in the work that you didn’t know how to catch up, and you were too embarrassed to tell anyone what you’d done so you didn’t say anything?”

Viv nodded silently. Her head was still turned away from me, but I saw the shimmer of tears in her eyes.

Squeezing her foot, I sighed. “Well, that’s unfortunate because it might have been easier to salvage earlier, but maybe your school will be reasonable, and we can work something out.”

“My school? Reasonable? As if.” She snorted, startling the little cat, who jumped off the bed with a disdainful sniff and stalked out of the room, flicking her tail back and forth.

“Hey! You never know. People can surprise you,” I said. “You keep surprising me. In a good way,” I added when she frowned suspiciously.

“I do?” she asked, her eyes wide with surprise.

“Oh, yeah. You’re way more mature than I expected. And you have a lot of gumption.”

“What’s that?” she asked hesitantly, like she wasn’t sure if I’d insulted or complimented her.

“It’s like initiative mixed with courage.”

“Oh.”

“That whole thing with the Instagram account wasn’t handled the best way possible, but it was a great idea. Second, you’re a great big sister. You have a lot of compassion for your brother, even when he’s being challenging.”

She frowned. “It’s not his fault. He’s just a little kid with a lot of energy.”

“I know!” I cried. “That’s exactly what I mean. You’re so patient with him even when he’s bouncing off the walls.”

A bright flash lit up the sky outside her window, bathing the room in an eerie glow for an instant before a massive BOOM shook the whole building.