Those Kids from Fawn Creek: Chapters 1–8

And now he was fascinated by a new mystery—this girl, standing at the head of the class in a white T-shirt and breezy pleated skirt.

The girl’s hair was long. Very long. Past her waist. And wavy. No, not wavy. Curly. Big. Disheveled, but somehow looking like it was supposed to be that way.

But he had moved to Fawn Creek when he was three years old, because his dad got a job at Gimmerton, and—like Greyson, Dorothy, and virtually everyone else—he had never traveled outside of south Louisiana since then.

Her eyes moved around the room, covertly assessing her classmates as she created her own metaphors and similes.

Her eyes moved around the room, covertly assessing her classmates as she created her own metaphors and similes.

Barnet and Lehigh Kingery are plants that don’t need water. Leave them alone and they’ll do their own thing, like my mother’s succulents.

Leave them alone and they’ll do their own thing, like my mother’s succulents. Hardy and content to be solitary.

But Orchid caught them all off guard. Mr. Agosto was the only one who wasn't completely perplexed.

When she knocked on the door, he waved her in and said, “Join us, join us!” like they were in the midst of a grand adventure and not enduring a language arts lesson.

When Orchid Mason walked into the classroom, Dorothy thought: She is the girl in the fairy tale who drifts through a meadow and finds a prince.
Or a spindle.

It would have been impossible for Mr. Agosto to continue droning on about metaphors and similes after Orchid’s arrival.

Orchid laughed. An airy laugh, not a mocking one.

Abby nodded discreetly toward Orchid, whose eyes were looking straight ahead.

A single notebook was on her desk and she had her hands folded on top of it like she was so prim and proper.

God, Abby could be so naive. Sometimes Janie didn’t know who was worse—Abby, who had the brain of an eight-year-old, or Janie’s bratty little sister Madeline, who was an actual eight-year-old.

“I don’t want a fifth person at our table,” Janie said, pressing her fingertip against the desk for emphasis.

The Crawfords—Janie and Abby’s family—owned the restaurant and grocery in town, and the Kingerys—Barn and Slowly’s family—had the bait and tackle shop.

“I can’t see her anymore,” Greyson said, craning his neck this way and that.

She felt like one of the side chairs with striped upholstery in the living room, something that her parents brought home one day but then didn’t pay much attention to.

"Really?" Mrs. Doucet said, a lilt of surprise in her voice.

Part of her role as dutiful daughter was to keep her opinions to herself.

Their faces were like stone—“faces like stone” was a simile, she noted to herself—and it was hard to determine what simmered underneath their exteriors, if anything.

Mrs. Roat told them to write from the point of view of an inanimate object. Dorothy wrote about a rocking chair who desperately wanted to be part of the human family who owned her.

Greyson had two places of refuge at home, besides his bedroom.

Her tail wagged wildly and she pattered her feet, trying really hard not to jump on him.

Zucchini settled down next to Greyson and laid her head in his lap. He felt the heft of her against him.

He visited every social media platform but couldn’t find a single profile that belonged to Orchid Mason.

Greyson spent an inordinate amount of time looking at images of Kate Middleton, especially when there was nothing else to do.

But instead of going into his bedroom, he opted for his other refuge: his mom’s sewing room.

His screen was tipped upward, protected from prying eyes.

She mostly adjusted hemlines and made custom pillowcases with inspirational quotes stitched on them.

The people of Fawn Creek, Louisiana, loved to be inspired by their housewares, and his mother was happy to oblige.

Very few people in town went to LSU—or any college, for that matter—and Baton Rouge was a couple of hours away, but Louisiana pride wasn’t limited by alma maters or geography.

They would gather in the living room, surrounded by nachos and pizza and hot wings, and watch the Tigers trounce their opponents.

People from Saintlodge drove forty-five minutes out of their way to get lunch there on Saturdays, which was exactly why Renni Dean sauntered in with her parents on this particular Saturday.

Janie was sort of working, which meant she was half-heartedly wiping down tables while inwardly complaining that neither of her parents was paying for her services and that her sister Madeline was not subjected to such servitude, never mind that Mee-Wee was only eight.

I get so bored in that big, drafty house.

Janie’s aunt was named Kimberly, but everyone called her Kiki, who knows why, and Janie was certain without being able to hear their conversation that Kiki was asking Renni’s father if there were any openings at the refinery in Saintlodge, since Mr. Dean was now a manager, which is why Renni had a “big, drafty house,” which she always mentioned, as if Janie didn’t know Renni’s house was now bigger than the Crawford house—whatever.

Janie hated when Renni used that tone. Describe her to me. Like Janie was her servant and was expected to follow commands. But maybe that wasn’t too far off, because Janie always obliged.

“Hm. Kinda like that red-haired girl in that Disney movie we watched in the theater room last year,” Janie said, both as a reference for Renni and as a way to remind her that the Crawfords had a spare room in their house that was just for watching movies.