In sixth grade, the only person who likes my frog shorts is Ms. Bishop. “Your mom made those for you,” she asks, her great horned eyebrows waggling. “Neat!” Ms. Bishop has a plague of black curls, and arms thick as cottonwoods. She tells our science class she got divorced because she was tired of washing socks. All my other teachers have been a Mrs., so I oooooo in my head. In her classroom, two taxidermy owls are suspended from the ceiling. Ms. Bishop tells us their names are Lincoln and Blinkin. I wonder what they’re stuffed with. Pet shavings? I look up at the owls’ unblinking eyes. Their perpetual state of all-seeing. I think yes. I’ve found another member for the Save the Endangered Animal Club.

*

The club’s only other member was Liberty Ann Hildebrand. As in LAH LAH LAH, LAH LAH LAH! Since third grade, we’ve been on and off BFFs. Our states of friendhood depend on Libby’s spells. Sometimes she’s in madness, and I get clawed on the back. Other times, she’s seized with spirit and we research horny toads and black-footed ferrets. We make posters that say CAUSE OF ENDANGERMENT: HABITAT LOSS. In fifth grade, her eyes smoldered at the sight of my frog shorts. All the compost-colored frogs! How they hung loose over my tush and sleeping-bagged down my knees. Now, I find notes that say things like Check out Laura’s frog shorts!  LOL. Aren’t they like, so 4th grade? What a freak. My eyes gush. My throat whales. And because I don’t know what else to do, I swallow my sadness down and send it to my ovaries. The only part of my body I don’t know how to find.

*

Mom’s middle name Faith puts ovaries on my mind. Faith comes from Grandma’s ovaries. The one-fourth of an ovary she had when she got preggers with Mom. I can notate all the species of taxidermy owls, hawks, and songbirds in Ms. Bishop’s classroom, but if she gave us a test asking to point out the ovaries, I’d fail. If I ask Mom, she’ll turn it into a Teachable Moment. Strip down her own pair of frog shorts and pull out her ovaries. Gross. I have Mom’s middle name that there will be another meeting of the Save the Endangered Animal Club. The field behind my house is about to get bulldozed into apartments. At night, after I’m done crying over Libby’s silent spells, I worry about the burrowing owls and horny toads. Where will they go when the bulldozers come? Our compost pile?

*

In science class, we watch Bill Nye the Science Guy, episode eleven: Birds. I learn that Great Horned Owls really can turn their heads around completely and catch whoever’s writing notes behind their back. I learn that while birds are the only animals that have feathers, humans are the only ones that get into feather pillow fights. I laugh for the first time all day as Bill’s helper pummels her brother with a pillow. Being in Ms. Bishop’s classroom is like being in an episode of Bill Nye. Her classroom walls are covered floor to ceiling with science posters: the earth’s crust, the periodic table, the scientific method. There are shelves of formaldehyde jars with cow parts, hermit crabs, and sea anemones. Ms. Bish the Science Witch. I raise my hand every time she asks a question. When the bell rings to end class, I find a wadded up note by the trashcan. Unfold it. See Libby’s handwriting in purple Gelli roll. Laura likes Ms. Bishop so much, she should just marry her. Hot tears well my eyes. I chide myself to only answer two questions. To stop running over to Ms. Bishop’s desk to ask her what her middle name is. Juno Helen Bishop. Jesus Had Bunions.

*

Over the summer, my cousins, sister, and I were getting ready for a mall trip. My aunt saw my frog shorts and told me to go change. I borrowed my cousin’s blue jean Limited Too’s. That’s better, she said. I don’t have Mom’s middle name that it’ll get better. That Libby will swing back into coloring posters of horny toads shooting blood from their eyes underneath a caption of ENDANGERED DUE TO HABITAT LOSS DUE TO DEVELOPMENT. On the bus home, I sit alone and think it’d be okay, just okay, if the bus drove into a ditch.

*

After dinner, I put on my frog shorts and corner Mom at the kitchen table. My younger sister’s at a sleepover, and Dad’s watering the plants. Mom’s attempting to clip a parakeet’s wings. She’s still in her frog shorts. She has a matching white shirt with a frog jumping into the pocket. The shirt’s stained with iced tea and cookies from an afternoon meeting with neighbors. They threw their arms in the air and spit venom about the college kids that’ll move in if the field gets bulldozed into apartments. There was no mention of the horny toads. Or how all of them are gonna have to live under our compost pile should the bulldozers come. “Mom,” I say above the parakeet’s screech. “What’s a good way to die?” “I want to die in my sleep when I’m old,” Mom says, reaching for the scissors. “No, Mom,” I say as Mom stretches out the bird’s wing. “I want to kill myself.” Mom drops the scissors. They bang the tile as the parakeet wriggles free from her hands. Then there’s a ruckus of wings flapping to the top of refrigerator. Mom heaves a sigh of the evening going not as planned. She turns to face me. As we stand frog shorts to frog shorts, I realize the look on her face is the same one I give Libby every time she ignores me. Or writes a mean note. Or whispers behind my back. Too much heart ache. Too much pain. I send it all to my ovaries. Mom scrunches her eyebrows. I imagine she’s wondering how to turn this into a Teachable Moment. “You could try poison,” Mom says eventually. “But it’s pretty painful. You could also stab yourself, but that would also hurt really bad.” I watch the parakeet stretch his unclipped wings and let out a squawk of triumph. “No, I want something painless.” “There’s no way to die that’s painless,” Mom says. Then, for my ovaries, it’s all too much. My childhood field of horny toads, only having friends that ignore me, being a freak in frog shorts. My eyes spit out tears. I cough-sob. Mom’s arms are around me, pulling me against her frog shirt. I cough-sob with more force. Mom tells me middle school was really hard for her too. She had this science teacher she loved named Ms. Gertz. Ms. Gertz started a tennis club where Mom was the only member. Instead of canceling the club, Ms. Gertz worked with her one on one. Taught her tennis. The other girls thought she was so weird. They made fun of her and then, six years later, voted to award her the skinniest legs of all the 1,500 kids in her class. I hack. Mom rocks me back and forth. The parakeet flaps from the refrigerator to his cage. In the field behind our house, the horny toads are probably lazing under the blue grama and side oat grasses. Their blood’s pooled, ready to spit from their eyes. They’re so terribly unaware. What good is blood spit in the face of a tractor wheel?

*

At recess, Ms. Bishop and I hold an unofficial meeting of the Save the Endangered Animal Club. Libby and the other girls are too busy laughing and shrieking at the boys’ football game to attend. After ten minutes, Ms. Bishop gives up getting me to stand with the girls. I call the meeting. I give her the bad news. Yesterday, I spied the yellow hunk of a bulldozer at the east edge of the field. I Bill Nyed my way through grasses and weaved behind dumpsters. Hummed the Mission Impossible theme song. It’s true, I confirmed. The bulldozer had arrived. Ms. Bishop’s great horned eyebrows knit together in disappointment. “Well, poop,” she says. I ask if she has anything to report. “Just that I want your mama to make me a pair of those frog shorts.” I grin for the first time since breakfast. Mom left a note on my plate that said Have a good day today Laura! After school, why don’t we dissect an owl pellet? Maybe we’ll find a pelvis! “What’s your middle name, Laura?” Ms. Bishop asks. I cough. Regain my composure. Meet the all-knowing brown of her eye. “Elizabeth.” Laura Elizabeth Zak. LEZ.

Laura Gould is a queer writer from the Texas Panhandle. Her work can be seen in Lunch Ticket, NonBinary Review, and The Manifest-Station. She is a recent graduate from the University of Idaho’s MFA program and co-host of the POP-UP PROSE reading series in Moscow, Idaho.