Free The Reinvention of Moxie Roosevelt by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel Page A

horror.
    “What?” I asked, trying to look indignantly shocked. I grabbed the plate and put it back on the counter, shoving it as far away from me as I could.
    “Try the eggplant Parmesan, maybe,” Sage suggested.
    “Great idea,” I said, helping myself.
    The taste of eggplant made me a little sick, but maybe I could just eat the cheese off the top and no one would be the wiser.
    With the entrée disaster now averted, I followed my two new friends to a table.
    “So I hear you have a missing roommate,” Sage said.
    “Yeah, I guess she’s coming later in the semester,” I said.
    “I hear she released some kind of virus from a Petri dish in the bio lab and they had to burn all the desks,” Sage said.
    I hesitated.
    “I’m not exactly sure what happened with her,” I said carefully. A virus?
    “So you were talking about the sea cow? Being endangered?” Reagan prompted as we sat down.
    “What? Well, yeah!” I said. “Because the sea cow subsists, of course, by, um . . . grazing.”
    “Grazing?” asked Sage. In spite of her suggestion, she had avoided the eggplant and grabbed a mixed salad. I eyed it jealously.
    “Yes. So the recent decline in the uh . . . the algae pastures . . . affects the ability to graze efficiently.You know how it goes.”
    “There’s nothing for them to eat?” Sage asked, pausing with her fork halfway to her mouth. She looked ready to pack up her salad and ship it off to the sea cows immediately.
    I shook my head. Reagan looked like she might cry.
    “That’s terrible! There are so many species of animals that are suffering like this, mostly because of humans. We’ve spent the last century or two creating obstacle after obstacle to the ecosystem with our self-interested industry and technology. Why can’t more people understand that we owe animals our help?” Reagan asked. She paused with emotion, her lower lip quivering a little.
    I was starting to feel mighty bad for these sea cows myself, forgetting momentarily that I had invented them along with their imaginary algae pastures. And then I felt even worse. There were plenty of real animals on the endangered list, after all. Now I had invented a new species and practically destroyed it in only a few minutes. Not an ideal start for a budding animal rights activist. The whole thing made my stomach hurt.
    “Let’s not talk about the sea cow,” I said. “It’s depressing. Besides . . .”
    Then I gestured toward her fish. Like, it might upset them. The smaller one did look a little agitated around the eyes.
    “But that’s exactly why we do have to talk about it,” Reagan insisted. “We need to face the painful stuff the last generation has left for us, or we’ll never be able to deal with it ourselves!”
    Uh-oh. My subject-change cue had failed.
    “And I’m sorry to say I’m as ignorant as anyone about this sea cow situation,” Reagan continued. “I mean, where is their primary habitat? How many of them are there? Do you know what percentage of the population has died off?”
    I was now officially in over my head. And the sea cows were circling. My ARA personality was in jeopardy—I recognized that. But there was too much going on in my mind at once. I opened my mouth, and then closed it with an audible click. What I really needed to do was get to the practice rooms as soon as possible. If I knew anything about my real self, it was that when things got crazy, the best thing I could do was pound things out on the ivories for an hour or two. Or at least for a half hour before French.
    “The truth is, Reagan,” I said, taking a deep breath and hoping the truth was about to hit me, “the truth is, in actuality, in the starkest possible terms . . .”
    I leaned forward as if I was going to tell her a secret, and with my body blocking her view, I tipped my twelve-ounce glass of milk into my own lap.
    “Oh, gosh! Darn!” I yelled, leaping up.
    The good news was the subject of the sea cow population was momentarily