Daisy Lane by Pamela Grandstaff

they hoped no one else yet knew about, and headed toward the FFA barn. There, some farm kids were tending to cows, sheep, and pigs that would compete and then be auctioned off in the Pine County Fair later that summer. They were dressed similarly to the holler kids, and were also listening to country music.
    “Hey, Grace,” one of the girls said.
    She was brushing a huge black cow’s shiny coat. It was the biggest cow Grace had ever seen, and the girl was standing on an overturned bucket in order to reach its back.
    “Hi, Dreama,” Grace said. “Cute cow.”
    “She’s a he,” Dreama said. “Herbert is an Angus bull.”
    “Is he mean?” Grace said, stepping backward.
    “Not to me,” Dreama said, as she lovingly smoothed his coat. “I bottle fed him from a calf, so he follows me around like a puppy.”
    “Won’t it be hard to give him up?” Grace said.
    “It’s what happens,” Dreama said with a shrug. “I just don’t think about that part.”
    “Have you seen Tommy?”
    “He stopped by earlier,” Dreama said. “He’s writing something for the school paper on Herbert. Did you check the journalism lab?”
    “No, but I will,” Grace said. “See ya.”
    Tommy was not in the journalism lab, where two girls were debating the merits of state colleges versus private colleges.
    “State is so much cheaper,” one said.
    “But the classes have like two hundred people in them,” the other said. “In a small school you get much more individual attention.”
    “I’d kind of like to disappear,” the first said. “I’m kind of tired of individual attention.”
    Grace stopped in the girls’ bathroom by the back door and was dismayed to see every stall taken. Underneath one stall door she could see the entwined legs of the lesbian couple who shared the locker on one side of Grace’s.
    “Lydia? Louise?” she said. “I’m sorry to interrupt but I really need to pee.”
    The door swung open to reveal them both texting, not making out as Grace had expected. Neither looked away from her phone as they left the stall and wandered out into the hallway.
    Sitting on the toilet, Grace could hear someone throwing up in the stall next door. It made her a little queasy to hear. As she washed her hands afterward, Stacy Rodefeffer left the stall from where the puking sounds had originated. She had long blonde hair, a giant apple-green handbag, and wore a pink velour sweat suit.
    “Sup?” she said in a bored voice.
    “Hey, Stacey,” Grace said. “Feeling alright?”
    “Just peachy,” Stacey said.
    She took a swig from a small bottle of mouth wash and then spit it in the sink.
    Stacey examined her face in the mirror, and then took out a lip pencil, a pot of lip color, and a brush, with which she reapplied her mouth makeup. Over in the corner, waiting on her, was Stacey’s best friend Aleesha. She was eating corn chips and texting.
    “Hi, Grace,” she said, without looking up.
    Grace left the school through a back door, and walked toward where the pumped up lifters were weight training outside of the gym.
    “Hi, Grace,” one of them said as she passed.
    “Hi Billy,” Grace said.
    Billy used to be a small skinny kid until the summer before a growth spurt caused him to shoot up to six feet tall. Now he was covered in big round muscles and could barely fit through the doors to the classrooms.
    Charlotte and the Beal sisters were sitting at a table on the quad. They quit talking as Grace passed, but gave her an up and down look that conveyed their contempt. As soon as she was a few yards past them one of them said, “Nice shoes,” and they all burst into peals of mean laughter. Grace’s face burned but she ignored them.
    Grace walked out toward the football field. Under the bleachers the emo and Goth kids were hanging out, listening to their gloomy music. A subset of these groups, the witchy-vampire-emo-Goths, had drawn a pentagram in the dirt and were casting spells. They were dressed all in black with