Camille McPhee Fell Under the Bus by Kristen Tracy

don’t think anybody’s father would really stab them,” I said. “I think that’s what makes this a legend.”
    But then Jory shot up his hand and said, “Sedna’s father should have been arrested.”
    Then Ms. Golden smiled at us and closed the book and told everybody to take a deep breath. We did.
    “Let’s all come to the table and do some active reflecting,” she said.
    I got out of my beanbag chair and sat at the small art table where we did our “active reflecting.” Ms. Golden handed us two sheets of paper. Each one had the outline of a head on it. The inside of the head was blank.
    “One head is Sedna’s. And the other head is her father’s. I want you to think about how they must’ve been feeling during the storm. Using pictures, go ahead and put their thoughts inside their heads. You have some time to get started. Bring them with you on Wednesday.”
    I took my two blank heads and started drawing life jackets inside both of them right away. Because I thought that’s what a person would think about when they were going to drown. I pushed so hard on my orange crayon that it started to crumble. That’s when I looked over at Polly. She was drawing something complicated. In Sedna’s head, she was drawing a man. And in Sedna’s father’s head, she was drawing a girl. I guessPolly thought that during the storm they would’ve been thinking about each other. That made sense. But I decided not to copy her and stick with my life jackets. Because my idea made sense too.
    After gifted reading, we went back to Mr. Hawk’s room and studied science. I ate two pieces of thin-sliced ham while Mr. Hawk talked about hazardous waste. And how gasoline should never get spilled onto the ground. And he talked about the difference between an open dump and a sanitary landfill. I didn’t know that a sanitary landfill meant that the garbage got crushed and layered and covered with a coat of dirt.
    Mr. Hawk said it was a better way to throw things away than to toss them in open dumps, because open dumps had problems with insects and rodents and were fire hazards. Also, the wind could blow the trash around, and that’s not ideal. After hearing this, I decided not to eat a third piece of ham. And for PE, Mr. Hawk said that it was okay if I stayed in the classroom, and this thrilled me very much. Because I got to watch the hermit crab. His name was Herman. And he didn’t do much. But that was okay. Waiting for Herman to do something was sort of fun too.
    After class, I packed up my things and headed out to the bus. But I only made it halfway. I saw my dad’s black Mazda pickup parked in the school’s parking lot. He beeped his horn at me and waved his arm out thewindow. I was both happy and worried. What if he’d been home and seen the house? What if he was so mad that he wanted to turn me into a double agent and plot revenge against my mother? What if I had to choose between my parents? What if?
    But my dad was smiling wide. Even from so far away, I could see his teeth sparkle behind the bug-splattered windshield. He looked happy. Clearly, he hadn’t entered our Majestic Eggplant house yet.
    When I crawled into the pickup, he squeezed my knee and asked me if I wanted to go get pizza. I smiled. Ever since my mother started teaching aerobics, pizza was a banned food item in our house. So were Twinkies, nachos, whole milk, licorice, French fries, French toast, fried chicken, red meat, Pop-Tarts, white bread, white rice, doughnuts, ice cream, all gummy products, potato chips, cheese puffs, enchiladas, and egg yolks. When she made us scrambled eggs for breakfast, she only used egg whites. They looked like a pile of flat cotton sprinkled with little black pepper flakes. But when I closed my eyes and chewed them, they tasted quite a bit like eggs.
    My dad had been in Seattle for a whole week. And I had missed him a lot. The longest he’d ever been gone was two weeks. My mom and dad had an agreement that he could never be