I shook my head no.
“See that table?” The girl pointed across the room at a table with a pretty tablecloth that was purple. “There are doughnuts over there, if you still want one.”
The girl she was with laughed and said, “You know this kid?” And the girl in the green glasses said, “Yeah, I interviewed her yesterday.” Then they kissed, but I did not want to kiss Delancey so I didn’t.
I ran through the dancing people with Delancey until we got to the table, and there were no doughnuts, but there were doughnut holes, which are not the same. But they still taste good so I took the whole box. Delancey took a bunch of cookies with pink frosting and then we crawled underneath the table so the tablecloth hid us like my cousin Casey and I do on Thanksgiving.
“Beige?” somebody yelled, and when I peeked under the tablecloth I saw Mommy’s shiny black shoes, but I didn’t want her to find me so I did not come out.
“Have you seen my daughter?” I heard her say, but I still did not come out. I ate a doughnut hole with white sugar all over it and the sugar went on my dress and I laughed and Delancey laughed too. Mommy would be mad about the sugar but right now she couldn’t see me so I didn’t care. She would also be mad that I was with Delancey because she was first runner-up and I was second runner-up so she was the enemy and also you’re not here to make friends, Beige.
But I stayed under the table and held Delancey’s hand and ate more doughnuts and didn’t answer Mommy yet, because the girl with the green glasses said I could be friends with whoever I wanted.
As Callie tells Vanessa during their first conversation, the idea that taxidermists enjoy killing animals for sport is a common misconception. Though commercial taxidermists do prepare trophies for hunters, many scientific taxidermists are naturalists, have degrees in zoology, and are employed by natural history museums to create dioramas that educate the public. In order to properly mount an animal, it’s important to understand exactly how it looks, behaves, and moves while it’s alive, so these taxidermists spend long periods of time studying living animals of the appropriate species before taking on a project. All the animals that end up in dioramas these days are acquired in an ethical way; for example, a museum might essentially “call dibs” on a snow leopard in a zoo while it’s still alive, then hand it over to a taxidermist once it dies of natural causes to be incorporated into a display about snow leopard conservation.
The mouse on our cover, lovingly dubbed Maggie Wormtail MouseRat, was taxidermied for us by Brooklyn-based illustrator Grace Robinson. No mice were harmed for the express purpose of this cover; Grace ordered her frozen from a pet shop, where she was intended to become snake food. Instead, her image has been immortalized by Scholastic, and she is now living a long and happy afterlife on my bookshelf.
—Alison Cherry
Like the conventions that inspired it, this book would not have been possible without a huge team of people helping it along, every step of the way. A huge thank-you to our families and friends, who’ve been listening to us talk about taxidermy, percussion, and fanfiction for longer than has probably been comfortable. And thank you in particular …
To our fellow writers in the woods—Claire Legrand, Jenna Scherer, Lissa Harris, Mackenzi Van Engelenhoven, Melissa Sarno, and Jen Malone—for listening to our early drafts, acting out scenes with us, and giving us the feedback we needed to keep going.
To our lovely posse of beta readers—Sarah Enni, Meghan Deans, Nina Lourie, and Kayla Olson—for your gentle, kind, and incredibly helpful notes; and to Kathy Dawson, for your fantastic feedback along the way.
To Sam Escobar, for lending us a necessary perspective on some of the language choices.
To taxidermist extraordinaire Allis Markham, for sharing your insider knowledge with us and for being generally awesome.
To Grace Robinson, the creator of Maggie Wormtail MouseRat, who graces the cover of this book. We are in awe.
To our book fairy godmother, Amanda Maciel, for giving us the collective “oh, this is how it should go” moment that inspired us to finish our half-drafted and long-abandoned manuscript, and for being our spy on the inside. (Say it with us now: Hercules MULLIGAN!)
To our amazing agents—Brenda Bowen, Holly Root, and Sarah Davies—for your boundless enthusiasm for this book, for always being there for us when we need you, and for being three of the most badass ladies we know.
To our publisher, David Levithan; our designer, Maeve Norton; our production editor, Melissa Schirmer; our copyeditor, Beka Wallin; and the whole Scholastic team, for making this an incredible experience for us. We are sorry you had to deal with having a taxidermy mouse in your office. But not that sorry.
To our amazing editor, Matt Ringler, for your passion and warmth, for your fabulous ideas, and for generally being an excellent human. You are the big brother we’ve always wanted.
And, last but not least, to our readers. Thank you for reading, you wonderful weirdos.
Author photo by Ellen Wright
Alison Cherry (Callie) is the author of the young adult novels Red, For Real, and Look Both Ways and the middle grade novels The Classy Crooks Club and Willows vs. Wolverines. Aside from a long-standing morbid fascination, she has no personal experience with taxidermy. She lives in Brooklyn with her two (live) cats.
Lindsay Ribar (Vanessa) is the author of The Art of Wishing, The Fourth Wish, and the Andre Norton Award–nominated Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies. She lives in Manhattan, works in the publishing industry, and spends far too much time reading fanfiction on her phone. Ask her about her Harry Potter tattoo.
Michelle Schusterman (Phoebe) is the author of the middle grade fantasy novel Olive and the Backstage Ghost and the upcoming Spell & Spindle, as well as the I Heart Band! and The Kat Sinclair Files series. She’s also the co-author of the Secrets of Topsea series, writing as M. Shelley Coats. Michelle lives in Queens with her husband and bandmate, their chocolate lab (who is more of a vocalist), and an exhibition hall’s worth of percussion instruments.
Copyright © 2018 by Alison Cherry, Lindsay Ribar, Michelle Schusterman
All rights reserved. Published by Point, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, POINT, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
First edition, April 2018
Cover design by Maeve Norton
Cover photos ©: photoshoot: Michael Frost; mouse taxidermy: Grace Robinson; lanyard: Realstockvector/Shutterstock; cymbal: 3drenderings/Shutterstock; pins: mayakova/Shutterstock
e-ISBN 978-1-338-15173-2
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
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The Pros of Cons Page 27
