The End of the Wild

Chapter 2

I throw my backpack—Toivo's old marine rucksack—under my desk and dive into my chair. The classroom clock says it's 7:59.

Alkomso, who sits behind me, kicks my chair. "You were nearly late again," she whispers. Alkomso Isak has been my best friend since third grade.

"I had to get my brothers to their classrooms," I say. "Anyway, I beat Mr. Flores, and that's all that matters."

"How's your STEM project going?" she says.

"Don't even ask." Just then, the bell rings. Mr. Flores, our science teacher, slides into the classroom.

"Juuuuust under the wire," he says. He's only about twenty-five years old, but he's already wrinkly around the eyes. Mr. Flores's face is pale, like the underside of a mushroom. He's wearing jeans and flip-flops and an old T-shirt with a big picture of Dolly Parton on it. He's holding a big cardboard box. "Are we ready to study some bird specimens today?"

Some kids groan, and some kids hoot and holler.

Mr. Flores opens the box and begins pulling out stuffed birds—a pheasant that looks about to take flight and a mallard sitting on a nest.

"Ew," says Margot Peterson. "Those are disgusting. I am not touching those."

"No worries, Margot," says Mr. Flores. "You don't have to touch them if you don't want to."

Mr. Flores usually makes science fun. Lots of times, he takes our class outside to study spiderwebs, compare rock compositions, identify clouds, observe tadpoles, and classify leaves. In the classroom, he sets up tons of experiments and plays videos about climate change and animal testing and the origin of the earth.

Mark-Richard Haala, who is in serious need of a new pair of sneakers because his smell like raisins, raises his hand. "Mr. Flores? I have a major problem with my STEM project."

The Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math fair is in a couple of weeks, and I don't even have a topic yet. Just the mention of it sets my stomach on the spin cycle.

"Why can't we just call it a science fair, like people used to?" asks Alkomso. "Why do we have to call it STEM now?"

Mr. Flores shrugs, then pulls out a glass case with what looks like a pink pigeon inside and places it delicately on the top of his desk. "What's your problem, Mark-Richard?" he asks.

"I have to change my topic. All the plants for my project already died."

"All of them?" asks Mr. Flores. He sits on top of his desk, lifts a white owl out of the box, and sets it on his lap.

"Yeah," says Mark-Richard. "Now my hypothesis is ruined."

Mr. Flores straightens some of the feathers on the owl. "Sorry about your plants. But just because your data doesn't support your hypothesis doesn't mean that your project wasn't successful."

Mark-Richard slumps in his seat. His long bangs hang over his eyes. "Yeah, but even my control plants in the good soil are, like, all droopy and hanging down. And the ones I planted in sand are brown and crunchy."

Margot scoffs. "Duh, Marky," she says. "That's because your parents smoke in the house all the time. And you probably forgot to water them."

Margot's friends giggle with her.

I spin around and look at Alkomso, who looks at me like Can you believe her?

Mark-Richard straightens up and scowls at Margot. "I did water them. But they got these little tiny bugs all over them." He wipes his nose with the back of his sleeve. "The bugs made webby things on the leaves, and they all turned brown."

Mr. Flores lights up. "Now, see? That's fascinating. Your project was a success even if it didn't produce the result you intended." He sets the owl next to the glass box and pulls out a small plastic bag of bones.

"It was?"

"Of course," says Mr. Flores. "What effect do aphids, or whatever kind of bugs they are, have on plants?"

"Death," says Mark-Richard. The whole class laughs.

Mr. Flores chuckles, too. "Yes. They kill them. But how? And why did the variable plants become infested faster?"

Mark-Richard flips his hair out of his eyes. "I don't know."

"True learning comes from being open to wrong answers," says Mr. Flores.

Margot sniffs. "Well, I'm going to make sure my conclusion matches my hypothesis. I want to get that purple ribbon."

Mr. Flores shakes his head. "Margot, Margot, Margot. There's more to life than ribbons."

"Whatever, Mr. Flores," Margot says. "You're not the one judging the fair. My mom says that the projects that win every year are the ones with really nice-looking poster boards." Margot's mom is on the school board. "And the winner gets two hundred and fifty dollars."

"Two hundred and fifty dollars!" I shout. I clap my hand over my mouth. I don't usually say anything, much less blurt it out to the whole class.

I can feel the eyes of all my classmates on me. I scooch down lower in my chair.

"Yes," Margot says, and drums her fingers on her desk. "I need to win that money."

How could Margot say that? Her parents are probably the wealthiest people in Colter. I'm the one who needs to win that money. Maybe I could pay the propane bill so we wouldn't have to chop so much wood from the grove to heat our house.

Alkomso twists around in her seat to look at Margot. "As if you even need the money, Margot. You can just ask your dad for whatever you want."

Mark-Richard wipes his nose with his sleeve again. "If I won two hundred and fifty dollars, I'd buy my brother and me new bikes."

Margot takes a lip gloss out of her pocket. "For your information, Alkomso, I do need the money." She smears the pink gloss over her bottom lip. "For a new phone." She slides an iPhone off to the corner of her desk. "This one's a piece of junk."

"I'll take that piece of junk," says Mark-Richard.

"All right," says Mr. Flores. "Settle down. And, Margot, put the phone away. No phones in class."

The sound of Mr. Flores's voice is drowned out as a big truck rumbles past, rattling the windows of the classroom. Mr. Flores looks out and grimaces.

"What is it?" Alkomso asks.

Mr. Flores stares and doesn't answer. Some of us stand up to see what Mr. Flores is looking at. Soon a semitruck with a bed full of long white pipes whizzes by. I can just make out the word KLOCHE'S on the door.

"Hey," I say. "I saw a bulldozer with that same name on it this morning."

Mr. Flores's head snaps around. "Where?"

"On the side of the gravel road, near Millner's woods."

Mr. Flores groans, then sighs. "We'd better start our lesson. Everyone, back in your seats."

Alkomso and I look at each other and shrug. Mr. Flores starts talking about hollow bird bones and pectoral muscles and feathers with vanes and barbs and bird flight. But every time the windows rattle, he loses his place in his demonstration. Finally, he tells us to open our textbooks and read to ourselves.

"Mr. Flores," I say, "is there something wrong?"

His cheeks blossom into two red dots, and his eyes squint. If Mr. Flores has an angry face, this is what it looks like. "I'm pretty sure there is," he says.

"With the woods?" I ask.

"Well…" he begins. He rubs his chin and blinks a couple of times, as if wondering if he should continue.

"Are the woods in trouble? I practically live in those woods," I say. I think about all the food I find for my family there.

"You and lots of animals," he says. "Millner's woods is an important ecosystem." He rubs his chin again and mumbles something.

"What?" I ask.

He clears his throat. "Wherever Kloche's goes, disaster follows."

I'm too stunned to respond. Kids murmur to each other. Someone says, "What do you mean?"

Mr. Flores tells us to get back to work. He sits behind his desk and opens up his laptop. He clacks his fingers against the keys and peers at the screen.

Mark-Richard and I scoot our desks next to Alkomso's. She flips her textbook to the chapter on bird flight. "What's up with Mr. Flores?" she whispers.

"It's those trucks," says Mark-Richard. "And that company. Whatever they're about, Mr. Flores doesn't like it."

"Maybe the Three Misfit-keteers could keep it down?" Margot says.

The class giggles. One of Margot's friends slaps her desk and repeats, "Three Misfit-keteers! "

"Shut up, Margot," says Alkomso. "You're just jealous that Fern is prettier than you even though you paint your whole entire face with blush and eye shadow."

Margot's thinly plucked eyebrows squish together.

My cheeks burn red. "Alkomso!" I hiss. "Don't say that."

"Well, it's true," she says. "Margot thinks she's all that, and I'm sick of it."

"Hey!" Mr. Flores shouts. "Knock it off and put your noses back in your books."

Margot scratches out words in big letters on her notebook. When she's done, she shows us. Fern's clothes are hideous, it says. And at least I don't have gray hair.

Mark-Richard sniffles and wipes his nose. "Don't listen to her," he whispers to me.

"Guys," I whisper, "let's just read this chapter."

But Alkomso can't hold back. "Margot," she says, loud enough for the entire class to hear, "your hair is going to fall out from all that poison you put in it."

"At least everyone knows I have hair," says Margot. "At least I'm not covering mine up all the time."

Alkomso straightens her hijab. Her cheeks puff up like she's about to let Margot have it.

Mr. Flores stands up and shouts, "That's it! Consider this your official warning for a quiz tomorrow on the bird-flight chapter."

The bell rings. Everyone stands up and gathers their things.

"Thanks a lot, Alkomso," says Margot. "You got us all in trouble."

"Whatever, Margot," Alkomso says.

As I walk past Mr. Flores, I say, "Sorry about that."

He sighs. "It's all right." I look past his shoulder to his computer screen, which is opened to a page that says Kloche's Hydraulic Fracturing: Powering Tomorrow's Future. A map at the bottom of the screen shows Colter, with a big red dot a few miles away from my house and a smaller red dot near Millner's woods.

"Hey," I say. "What's that red dot?"

"Fracking site," he says. "How can I help you, Fern?"

I stare at the computer screen. "Um—you see—I, uh—" I stammer.

Mr. Flores smiles. "Let me guess. You haven't started your STEM project."

I smile, too, even though I'm embarrassed. "I'm just not sure what to do it on."

He nods. "Think about what really interests you, Fern. Think about your passions. Think about what you care about."

"Can't you just give me some ideas?" I ask.

"I could," he says.

I sigh in relief.

"But I'm not going to." He leans forward. "Fern, you live and breathe science every day. I know where you live. Science is all around you in the soil, the trees, the weather, the animals, the way you heat your home, the way you put food on the table." He sits back in his chair. "Rise to the occasion," he says. "I know you can."

Deep down, I know he's right. But that doesn't put me any closer to an idea. "Thanks." I turn and begin to head to my next class when another truck rumbles past and shakes the window glass.

"Mr. Flores," I say. "What exactly is fracking?"

"Drilling."

"Like, for oil?" I ask.

"Sort of," he says. "Natural gas. Miles and miles and miles beneath the surface."

"The smaller dot on the map," I say. "That's near where I live."

"Yeah," he says. "Looks like that's where the wastewater pond is going to go," he says.

"What's a waste—"

The bell rings. "You're late," he says. "You'd better get to your next class, Fern."

"Yeah, but—" I start.

I take one last glance at the screen. It looks like someone smashed a bloody wood tick right over my woods.

Chapter 3

After the last bell, I collect my little brothers, Mikko and Alexi, from their classrooms, and Alkomso and Mark-Richard do the same. We walk through Colter and on home together. On the outskirts of Colter is where Alkomso and her family live in an apartment. Mark-Richard and his brother, Gary, live in a trailer out near us. They're close enough that sometimes we can even hear their parents arguing and throwing stuff.

"What are you doing for your STEM project?" Mark-Richard asks Alkomso and me.

"Don't even mention it," I say. "I haven't started."

"Me, either," says Alkomso. "But that prize sure sounds sweet. What would you buy with two hundred and fifty dollars? Do you think they give it to you in cash? I've never even seen a hundred-dollar bill in real life."

"Bikes, for sure," says Mark-Richard. "And a whole bunch of corn dogs."

What's weird right now is that I can't think of what I'd spend two hundred and fifty dollars on. Even though all the things I don't have bother me all the time, I've gotten used to being bothered in that way.

Alkomso grips the sleeve of my coat, Toivo's old wool shirt. "Maybe you could get yourself a new jacket?"

"Yeah," I say. "Maybe a new coat."

"I'd take my whole family out for cheese pizza." As we approach her apartment building, Alkomso's little brothers nearly dash out into the street before she grabs each of them and pulls them back onto the sidewalk.

"No!" she says. "Don't you ever cross the street without me."