“Go on,” she says. Her voice is encouraging but a little bit hard, too. The voice of someone who wants an answer, preferably this morning. I take another swig of water.

  “I like playing around with words,” I say. “That’s all it is.” I look up at her. She nods vaguely, but if the answer is worth twenty marks on this test, I just got three. “You know, like anagrams and games like that?”

  “Like ‘astronomer’ and ‘moon starer,’ for example?” she says.

  My brain scans the words she just said and I can hardly believe it: they have exactly the same letters, no more, no less. “I never heard that one,” I say.

  “Playing word games is good for the brain,” she says, “and from your school record it seems you have a pretty good brain.”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  She only frowns and glances down at her desk top. “But when you start calling people ‘Spider-girl’ and ‘Beavertail’ and ‘Praying Mantis,’ that’s a whole other thing.”

  “I never called anyone those names.”

  “That’s not what I hear.”

  I shrug and shake my head. “I told Dierdre Prosser she had a spider in her name, and Vera Best she had a beaver in her name, and Samantha Grimsby-Paine she had a praying mantis in her name. That’s all. I didn’t call them that. I swear.”

  Dr. Farrokh raises a slender black eyebrow. “Then what’s this?” she says. She picks up a Post-it Note from her desk and shows it to me.

  The Preying Mantis eats guys whole!

  I read it and fall back in my seat. “That’s … that’s …”

  “That’s what, Anthony?”

  “Well, it’s spelled wrong for one thing. I told Samantha that yesterday.”

  “Is that all you’ve got to say?”

  “No. Technically, it’s only sort of true. The female mantis doesn’t always eat her mate. I mean she does need a lot of protein for making babies, but sometimes she just eats his head. The male is way smaller and —”

  “Anthony, I am losing patience here.”

  “It’s just plain nasty,” I say. “Is that what you want me to say? Because I agree. Nasty. A hundred percent. Whoever put this on Samantha’s locker is a total creep.”

  “I didn’t say it was on her locker,” says Dr. Farrokh.

  “That’s where the other note was stuck. I just assumed …”

  “Hmm,” she says. “What about this?”

  The Beaver sure has a big tail!!!

  I shake my head. “That is totally sick.”

  “‘Sick,’ how?”

  “I don’t mean ‘sick’ as in ‘cool.’ I mean in the real sense of the word. Someone with muck for brains is doing this.”

  Dr. Farrokh leans back in her big chair, pulls at one gold earring. I can tell she’s running out of patience.

  “I didn’t do this, Dr. Farrokh.”

  “Oh, you did,” she says.

  I freeze at the coldness in her voice. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re the one who put this out there, correct? The one who came up with these ‘amusing’ little word games.”

  She says “amusing” the way you might say “barf-making.”

  I shake my head. I wish I was a cockroach instead of an ant. Cockroaches are fast. You swat at them and never get them and then they’re back in the woodwork, safe. It takes me time to think. And from the look on the principal’s face, my time is running out. I’ve got to say something. Anything.

  “I didn’t write those notes, ma’am. I think they’re pretty horrible.”

  Dr. Farrokh leans on her desk and nods again, kind of dismissively. “But the trouble is, you see, you didn’t just come up with these creative ‘discoveries.’ You had to go one step further and brag to your friends about it.”

  “Whoa! That is so not —”

  “Enough. Did you or did you not tell people these nicknames?”

  I shake my head. “I told one person,” I say, holding up a finger. “I told Vera about her name and I told Samantha about hers and I told Dierdre.”

  Dr. Farrokh’s frown deepens. She glances at her elegant gold wristwatch. “Anthony, I don’t have time for this.”

  “It’s just that I didn’t do it. Somebody else did. And I’m —”

  “Stop!” Dr. Farrokh slashes the air with both hands. It’s a gesture that means “safe” in baseball, but that’s not what it means now. “I’ve heard quite enough for one day. I’m willing to concede that you may not have actually written these disgraceful notes. That said, Mr. Lawson, you broadcast these so-called ‘creature names,’ and their usage has brought distress to several people. Can you at least accept that this was thoughtless and cruel?”

  Thoughtless and cruel.

  I stare at Dr. Farrokh. Whatever time there was for discussion is over. I wish I were Rafael Barba from Law & Order and could suddenly pull some document from a file and slap it down on her desk — proof positive that it wasn’t me, that I wasn’t guilty, that I was in another city when the crime took place. I wish I was in another city right now. Maybe another planet.

  “Anthony?”

  Am I guilty? Did I “broadcast” these creature names? What does that even mean? There may have been other kids around but it’s not like I got on the intercom and told the whole school.

  “Anthony, I asked you a question, yes or no?”

  I stare at her. How do you answer a yes-or-no question when neither option applies? You can’t. And I have no words left anyway. All my words have dried up. I know lots and lots of words — I love words! — but they’ve all gone. I get up and start to leave.

  “Excuse me, young man, you have not been dismissed!”

  I turn to her and swallow hard. “Yes, I have,” I say. And leave.

  * * *

  I go home. It’s nine in the morning but I was probably going to get kicked out of school anyway. Good. What’s the point of school? I’m so angry. I’m so hurt. And at the same time, I feel so guilty for what I did. I do get it, Dr. Farrokh: I obviously did something. It’s just that it isn’t what I’m being charged with. Someone else took what I did and did something worse.

  Cruel. I hate cruel. Thoughtless and cruel.

  Am I?

  Maybe if I didn’t like someone and told them they had something nasty in their name, it would be cruel, but that wasn’t what I did. Well, maybe in one case — but I didn’t spread it around. And I sure didn’t make notes and put them up for other people to see.

  I’ve never felt so many emotions at the same time, whirling around inside me like a tornado, hurling cars and roofs and garbage cans and recliner chairs and little dogs around inside my head until I’m exhausted and I sit down on my bed, empty.

  And what do I end up with? Stupid, that’s what.

  Stupid and embarrassed. Embarrassed that someone — anyone — thinks I’m a bad person. Embarrassed to have hurt someone’s feelings. Especially someone I admire, like Samantha. Mostly I’m sad. Deep-down-in-my-bones sad. I’m just the little twit who plays around with words and thinks he’s a big deal, like he discovered the source of the Nile or how to split the atom.

  * * *

  Moth texts me at lunch.

  Dude?

  I’m in jail. Bring me Miss Vickie’s.

  Harvest Cheddar, right?

  Sí.

  You got it, mi amigo.

  He comes over after school. He already knows what happened, or at least some of it. A lot of people think I was kicked out of school. I couldn’t care less. But that’s not true. I do care and I hate caring.

  “I don’t like her,” says Moth.

  “Who? Samantha?” He nods. “Do you think she did this?”

  He nods again. “She thinks she’s this crusader for justice but she’s una bravucona. That’s all. A bully.”

  I want to agree with him but I can’t. “She didn’t tell on me,” I say. “At least, I don’t think so.”

  “Then who?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say. The last thing I want to do right now is accuse someone without any proof.

  “You’re a good person,” he says, patting me on the shoulder. “You suck at Monster Hunter but you’re a good person.”

  “Thanks,” I say, even though I feel like I don’t deserve it.

  “Hey,” he says, “don’t forget who you are. You are the mighty Ant, able to carry burdens one hundred times your body weight.” We bump fists. I don’t tell him that right now I can barely lift my own leg. I don’t want to go anywhere. Ever.

  —

  * * *

  “Is this someone you know?” says Mom. She’s watching the six-o’clock news in the kitchen while she makes dinner. There’s some kind of march on Parliament Hill. Teenagers mostly, but children, too, carrying signs and chanting. But in the foreground, there’s Samantha! She’s holding a sign that reads, “ACT NOW OR SWIM LATER.” The local station is interviewing her.

  “That’s why it’s called FridaysForFuture,” she’s saying. She smiles defiantly. Behind her I read the other signs. It’s all about climate change and saving the planet.

  Then the picture changes to kids marching in the UK, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Sweden. The camera zooms in on a pack of people in Stockholm. In the center there’s a girl holding a sign in Swedish. She’s sixteen but looks quite little, like me. Her name is Greta. Greta Thunberg. She’s the one who started this whole thing. I’ve never heard a thing about it.

  “It’s sometimes annoying,” says Greta, “when people say, ‘Oh, you children, you young people are the hope. You will save the world.’ I think it would be helpful if you could help just a little.”

  “Right on, Greta!” I say. “Wow!”

  Then the camera returns to the talking head in the newsroom, who is smiling as if what she said was cute. Then he gets serious again. There’s another scandal: some government official has been caught accepting bribes.

  “Some kids will use any excuse to get out of school,” says my mother, giving me the stink eye. Thanks, Mom.

  I head back to my room and look up Greta Thunberg and FridaysForFuture. All over the world, kids are going on strike every Friday to march for the sake of the Earth and the climate. The prime minister of England says they’re wasting lesson time. And what does Greta tweet back? “That may well be the case. But then again, political leaders have wasted 30 yrs of inaction. And that is slightly worse.”

  “Woo-hoo!” I shout to my empty room. I love the way she says “slightly worse.” Because you just have to say, no wait — it’s WAY worse.

  “Who are you talking to?” Mom shouts upstairs.

  “No one,” I shout back down.

  “It’s dinner,” she says.

  But I just keep reading. She calls me again. But I’m hooked on what I’m finding. By the time I finally do go downstairs, kind of dazed, she and Dad are watching TV in the living room, something with lots of squealing tires and gunshots. My dinner awaits me on the counter, ready to nuke: mashed potatoes, beans and a sweaty porkchop. I stare at it, my mind on fire.

  * * *

  I miss Friday but my mom talks to Principal Farrokh and I’m allowed to come back Monday as long as I don’t do any more name-calling. Mom and Dad are shocked by my behavior. I start to explain, but only kind of half-heartedly. They aren’t listening anyway.

  I’m grounded for the weekend. Do a lot more reading about climate change and get angrier and angrier. Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree that global warming is a reality and yet there are all these people who deny, deny, deny. I’m not sure who’s worse — the ones who pretend it isn’t happening or the ones who believe in it and still don’t do anything. All I can say is that climate change is definitely happening in my bedroom. I’m getting very, very hot under the collar.

  * * *

  Monday, first thing, I go looking for Samantha, wandering the halls until I find her locker. I know it’s hers because she’s there. Her locker door has a picture of a polar bear sitting in an ice cream cone. The polar bear is melting.

  “What do you want?” she says, looking at me as if maybe I’m carrying a concealed weapon.

  “I saw you on TV,” I say.

  “So? Do you want an autograph?”

  I shake my head. “I was pretty impressed.”

  She doesn’t speak right away, as if she’s expecting a trick. Then she seems to reach some kind of conclusion. She turns and reaches into her locker. She pulls out a clipboard and hands it to me, shoves a pen in my hand.

  “Okay, if you were so impressed, why not sign this petition?”

  I take the clipboard and read what it says. It’s a letter to the school board asking them to make Earth Day — April 22nd — a day to celebrate and encourage global awareness. There’s going to be a big rally in the capital and Samantha wants the school to lay on buses so students can join the protest. She’s only got about five names.

  “You’d think everybody would want to get a day off school,” I say, adding my name, address and phone number to the petition.

  “It’s not about skipping school,” she says, her voice peevish. “It’s about doing something. Making a diff —”

  “I know, I know!” I slam the pen down on her clipboard. “I was grounded all weekend — you can guess why — and do you want to know what I did?”

  “Not really.”

  “Good, then I’ll tell you. I read all about Greta Thunberg and FridaysForFuture. That’s what I did. And then I read a whole lot more on climate change.”

  For a moment she seems to really see me, but she quickly reverts to surly. “Well, good for you. Do you want a medal?”

  I shake my head. “No,” I say. “I felt stupid not knowing about it. I mean, I knew but I didn’t know enough. And when I don’t know about something, I look it up. I may be stupid but I’m not as stupid as you think.”

  “Knowing isn’t doing,” she says.

  “It’s a start,” I say.

  She frowns and shrugs. Then she takes out the books she needs for the morning, piles them on her clipboard and closes her locker. She looks down at me — she can’t help it, I’m so short.

  “For the record, I never said you were stupid.”

  “No, just kind of a waste of time,” I say.

  “I didn’t say that, either.”

  “I know, but you think it.”

  She shakes her head. “I think you do waste your time, yes. I don’t think you are a waste of time.”

  “You think the world needs saving. Good. I agree. And I want to do something about it.” She glares at me. “I’m not kidding. I’m not just saying it.”

  “Did the principal put you up to this?”

  I shake my head but now I’m as peeved as she is and too angry, all over again, to say anything. I walk away.

  “Anthony!” she says. I turn. She gestures me to come closer. “You’re only mad because someone wrote those stupid notes and you got blamed for it. You’re mad because someone blabbed on you to Farrokh. You just don’t want to accept any blame at all.”

  “That’s not —”

  “Let me finish,” she says. “I don’t know if you’ve figured it out yet but FridaysForFuture is all about accountability. Politicians talk, talk, talk and do nothing. Ever. Half the time the words aren’t even theirs. They’ve got fancy speech writers who use words to smother the truth.”

  “I know, but —”

  “Which is why I get pissed off when I run into someone who’s really, really good at words but who doesn’t seem to care one thing about what those words are saying — what they’re doing.”

  Her eyebrows rise like they’re asking me a question: Are you that kind of person?

  It’s a challenge. One I can’t answer. I’m struck speechless.

  * * *

  I pass her in the hall later, and the question is still there. I keep walking. At lunch, I avoid her and her eyes. I thought I was done being angry and embarrassed and hurt. And sad. I’m not done. Not nearly.

  Which is why I get pissed off when I run into someone who’s really, really good at words but who doesn’t seem to care one thing about what those words are saying — what they’re doing.

  Is that me? I don’t know, but suddenly I don’t trust myself to speak. Don’t trust words anymore. I’ll stop talking. Nobody will ever be able to accuse me of being thoughtless and cruel. Nobody will ever accuse me of putting rocks in anybody’s hand. I’ll become invisible. An ant meandering from one place to another, not carrying a thing.

  * * *

  The next morning, she’s at my locker. Samantha. She’s leaning against it, holding her clipboard to her chest. I wonder if there’s a way that the sentence, “Could you please move so that I could get to my locker?” could be taken as cruel and thoughtless?

  Luckily, I don’t have to speak; she moves aside. But as I start turning my combination, she holds the petition out for me to see. She’s got pages and pages — fifty names in all. I give her two thumbs up and open my locker door. Then she points at one name. Dierdre Prosser. I look at the way Dierdre printed her name with the e’s kind of open like c’s; just like the e in “preying mantis” in the note that was on Samantha’s locker and the e in “beaver” in the notes on Dr. Farrokh’s desk.

  “Whoa,” I say. I want to be angry, but how can I be when Samantha went to the trouble of proving it wasn’t me?!

  “Did you think I went to the principal?” she asks outright.

  “No,” I say. “I’d kind of guessed it was her.”

  “Because that isn’t the way I roll,” she says. “If I have something to say to someone, I say it. I don’t go blabbing to the authorities. You get it?” I nod. “I don’t have much patience with the authorities,” she says.