All The Cool Kids Have Ant Farms
an excerpt

The lowly caterpillar: So much potential and future packed into something seen as abominable, horrible, disgusting. And destructive, let’s not forget destructive. All caterpillars do is eat and poo, eat and poo. There is nothing else to its life, sadly. But by living this way, it can grow fast and furious. Granted, its enemies are many: Birds make constant trips from the garden to nest, feasting on the little buggers, or regurgitating the squirmy wormies into the gaping gullets of their monstrous and ravenous chicks. And the parasitic wasps: They lay eggs inside the caterpillar, and the maggots grow up living off the hard work of the cat until they have no more use for them, killing their host just as they pupate into their next hideous stage of life.

I’m Gabby. Well, actually, I’m Gabrielle Monique Beckett, but that name fits me as well as those miniskirts and low-cut shirts my Mom buys me. I’m more of a nutty crunchy type. Think Steve Irwin as a twelve year old girl. Yep, that’s me. I like science, nature, anything that does not involve the latest fashion trends, or Hannah Montana look-alikes. I mean really, what’s going to last longer – the endless and wonderful chain of life and land, or lime-green hair extensions? I’m putting all my money on Nature, thank you very much. Not that living this way doesn’t have its drawbacks – it does – but science is the only thing that makes sense to me. It’s comfortable and understandable. There’s even a test for it. But Middle School Life? What kind of test is there for that, other than going up to the high school and finding out you did it all wrong anyway?
So the way I figure it, I only have six more years of suffering through my white collar education in Oxbury, Connecticut before I can get out of here, and find my real home somewhere in the African bush, or maybe the Amazon, or the tundra of northern Canada. Somewhere, anywhere they don’t judge you on the clothes you where or the style of your hair.

So let me tell you about today.

“Gabby! You’re going to be late for school!” This was my Mom. I was a little busy feeding my fish, one of the few animals I can have, with my sister’s allergies. She’s a whole lot older than me, but we’ve been sharing the same room since forever, and she’s supposed to be in college now. Her name is Jenny, and the bane of my existence. But that has nothing to do with why Mom was yelling at me. It was my fish.
I have a tank of cichlids, which are African territorial fish and keeping them happy and healthy was my main concern this morning, not the bus schedule. Besides, the school is only a half mile up the street. I walk it just as often as take the bus, no biggie. I still don’t get why she has to go postal every time I’m not down there on her schedule. But as I feed them, they fight over the floating scraps giving the hairy eyeball to me as well as to each other. I grab my book bag and make it down the stairs in four hops. The towel I had wrapped around my head flew off and I nearly took a header trying to avoid it.
“Honey, now look at you!” Mom had her chubby hands perched on her hips, a sweater clutched in one fist. “How are you supposed to go to school with your head all wet? Aren’t you even going to dry it?”
I gave her a look, but I don’t think it meant anything. “Water won’t kill me, Mom. Electricity might, but I think a wet head is perfectly fine.” I grabbed a piece of cold toast from the table. For effect, I ran both my hands through my stringy brown hair, sending a splintery shower in a ring. I combed it out with my fingers, and Mom sighed one of her What am I going to do with this child? sighs.
“At least wear this sweater. It’s freezing out there.”
“It’s pink, Mom. I don’t do pink.” I stuck out my tongue in mock regurgitation. Another sigh.
“I bought it for you yesterday. A lot of the girls are wearing these, now. Just give it a chance. For me?” She held out the atrocious thing. I mean really, how impossible can she get? She must know how much I hate it. I grabbed it and draped it over my shag, grinning out from between the sleeves.
“Now it doubles as a towel. You get what you want twice now.” I’m pretty sure there was still toast residue on my teeth when I smiled at her.