with pictures of horses (her new obsession, though riding lessons were out of the question) and a lacrosse poster that read: I PLAY LIKE A GIRL. TRY TO KEEP UP! The furniture included a comfortable chair for reading, and well-stocked bookshelves. Mini blinds covered the windows. All in all, Mag’s room was neat and ordered—unlike their lives.
“Want to talk about it?” Nina asked.
Maggie flipped over onto her back before pulling herself upright. “What’s there to talk about? You won’t listen anyway.”
“You’ve been calling for me since I got home.”
“Well, I thought it over and I realized there’s no point. I’m stuck here … with him.” She pointed at her wall, in the direction of downstairs.
“Can’t you give him a chance?”
Maggie shook her head in a defiant no. “When Dad comes back, I won’t have to.”
“He’s not coming back,” Nina said, sensing her composure begin to fracture.
“You didn’t see Simon’s eyes tonight, Mom. His anger. It was really, really scary.”
Nina gave a roll of her eyes that would have made Connor proud, thinking he was right to call Maggie overly dramatic. This was and had been her unending pattern: make big bold claims about everything falling apart and how it was all her mom’s fault. But this was the first time Maggie had talked about being afraid of Simon. Clearly she was trying a different tactic to get a rise out of her mother.
Nina was mulling over how to respond when Simon came marching into the room holding a gun.
CHAPTER 7
I admit I panicked when I saw the barrel of the rifle. My first thought was, This is it—I’m dead. I’ve seen horror movies and true crime shows. I’m going to be tomorrow’s news today; a dead body in a room stained with blood-splattered walls. But then my eyes went to work, and I realized the gun in Simon’s hands was not going to be used to shoot my mom, my dog, or me. It was an antique gun, a musket to be exact, and was part of Mr. Fitch’s well-known hobby of reenacting the Revolutionary War.
Every year, Mr. Fitch gives a big presentation on it to the entire school. Seventh- and eighth-grade classrooms gather at different times in the auditorium to see his one-man play. He dresses up first as a Redcoat and then a Patriot to show both sides of the conflict—you know, give us kids a complete picture of what was happening back then.
Even though I didn’t pay much attention to last year’s performance, a lot of kids really liked it. And our principal said it helped bring history to life, which is what Mr. Fitch, our “beloved” social studies teacher, got paid to do. Onstage, he paraded that musket around (yeah, school shooting concerns and all) like a good soldier. He spoke in this lame English accent and complained about not having enough food and ammunition to do some big battle or something.
Each year, around this time, Mr. Fitch leads a field trip for his classes to Strawbery Banke, an outdoor history museum that features a bunch of restored buildings from colonial New England. He goes dressed in costume and carries that musket with him like he is guarding the place from invaders. Only the kids who go on the Strawbery Banke field trip get to handle Mr. Fitch’s musket, which cost over two thousand dollars from an antique gun dealer. They’re allowed to load it with powder, even try out the bayonet on a tree—all under his careful supervision, of course. So once I figured out what the gun in his hands was, I knew he hadn’t brought it into my room to kill me.
He’d brought it as a peace offering.
“I’ve come to lay down my weapon,” Simon said, amusing only himself. He made a big show of putting his ancient musket on my bed, which annoyed Daisy, who up and left. My mother was looking at him like, What the heck are you doing? She didn’t know the history of that musket, the cool factor it held for some kids—but not me.
“Look, Maggie, I’m sorry about what happened. Your mother and I had a little misunderstanding. Can you forgive me? I was headed downstairs to oil the musket, get it ready for the field trip, and thought maybe you’d like to help. Connor is working on that robot with me; I was hoping this could be our thing.”
Oh joy, oh joy, I was thinking. Nothing in the world would make me happier than oiling a