Chapter 1, Episode 1

Emily Kennedy could see the argument coming.

She lay with her long legs draped over a pile of cushions on the living room sofa. Her brother, Rory, had just walked in holding a necktie. It could only mean one thing.

"Going to your brainwashing session?" Emily asked, stroking the gray-and-black ears of her cat, Toby.

"Very funny. Someone has to undo the seventy years of havoc wreaked by liberals in this country," said Rory, who, two years older than Emily, was a sophomore at Moonville High. Emily would be going to Moonville next year, assuming she survived the eighth grade at Moonville Middle.

"And what will you do for the second hour?" asked Emily.

"That's the trouble with liberals, they can't even tell when something's broken," said Rory, adjusting his tie in front of a mirror in the foyer.

Toby purred his disapproval. He had been a stray before Emily adopted him.

"I'm sure Toby would disagree. He's the smartest boy I know." Emily considered the males in her life: Rory was unbearable, their father was preoccupied with his business and seldom had much to say except to give orders and make speeches about politics, and then there was Dirk at school, who she kind of liked, along with about forty-eight other girls. Dirk was nice to her sometimes, unless Cindy Madison walked by, in which case Dirk forgot Emily like yesterday's lunch and followed Cindy like she was handing out dog biscuits. Of course, Emily was bright enough to see the differences between her and Cindy Madison: Cindy was rich and blonde, and had a college girl's body even in the eighth grade; Emily's family earned just enough to pay the bills, she had an unruly mop of dark hair, and her body only seemed to be developing in the hips. She didn't think it was that bad, but Rory often joked that Emily needed her own wide-load warning flag.

Rory always had to redo his necktie several times before he got it right. He was going to a meeting of the Young Conservatives Club; she couldn't imagine why they wore ties in September in Kentucky.

"What is tonight's discussion, how to make the rich richer, or the poor poorer?" said Emily.

"We don't have to discuss that, it will happen according to the laws of the marketplace, unless liberals interfere in the name of not hurting anyone's feelings," said Rory.

"I see, some people were born to be disenfranchised by society, kind of like being born into slavery. Right?" said Emily.

Rory sighed. "Life wasn't meant to be fair. Nature is a harsh master."

"I can't believe you buy into that crap," said Emily, her voice rising. She wanted to learn to argue in a calm voice, but the shrillness always crept in.

"Some people can't take reality," said Rory nonchalantly. It was a tone of voice Emily recognized, designed to arouse her anger while he remained outwardly passive and indifferent. He was so good at being calm and insulting.

Her voice rose another notch. "The only reality your crowd cares about is making money." Now she was shouting. "It's only about money."

Their mother's voice emerged from the back room, the guest room that doubled as a sewing space. "Emily, go start dinner. Rory, you have homework tonight."

"This is homework. I'm studying for the future," he declared.

"Some future. We'll all be dead for lack of affordable health care," said Emily. She had learned that line from their father; he loved to argue about politics.

Then Toby raised his head and stared at something. Emily followed the cat's line of vision, from her lap, through the kitchen, through the new Plexiglas door that led from the kitchen to the stoop, and into the yard. At first she could detect nothing out of the ordinary: the lawn that needed mowing, some early maple and dogwood leaves that had fallen; it all had the familiar look of approaching fall. It reminded Emily of football games at Moonville High, and cold weather, and Thanksgiving. This year the Ohio relatives--her mother's sister's family--would be driving down to Kentucky, instead of Emily's family driving to Ohio. There would be lots of arguments about sex, politics and religion, their favorite family dinner topics. It was going to be a noisy affair.

But Toby continued to stare, and Emily felt his body grow tense, like he was preparing to spring. She looked again through the door and saw a leaf move. There was no wind on that particular afternoon, one of those hot days that surprise you late in September. A tiny mouse crawled out from beneath the leaf. Emily stopped petting Toby so as not to disturb his concentration. She admired his ability to focus; he wasn’t bothered about school, or friends, or big brothers, or parents. His entire body was focused at that moment on the mouse in the yard. Emily saw it move among the grass. As light as air, Toby bounded off Emily's lap and darted through the cat opening in the kitchen door.

Emily watched him pause at the top of the stoop. The hunt was on. She felt a thrill. Then Toby leapt after the mouse as it scampered toward the far end of the yard, out of Emily's line of vision. She smiled. Toby was off on an adventure. She realized at that moment that she was jealous of Toby: she wanted her own adventure. Something exciting and new and different. She wanted a change in her life.