25. Ardath
My mother was the single best human ever to walk the earth. Since my dad bailed before she even knew she was pregnant, it was always her and me against the world. Mom worked two jobs, but she only took positions that allowed her to bring her child along with her. She homeschooled me, and she never let me leave her side. I’m convinced she never would have let me leave her side if she had a choice, but sometimes your body doesn’t care what you want.
She told me that only two things mattered: family and smarts.
When she died in my arms, minutes before the ambulance arrived, I decided that I’d become a doctor one day, and I’d make sure as few little girls as possible lost their mothers. I was planning to become a surgeon, but during training, I changed paths and went into emergency medicine. It was so visceral.
I still like riding with the ambulance from time to time. There’s something therapeutic for me about being there, with my boots on the ground, using my two hands to save the people I couldn’t have saved when I was a kid.
But I didn’t get here overnight.
It was a very long road, and it started when I was barely in middle school. I had no money, I had no mother, and I was living in a group home. That meant I had to try twice as hard as everyone else, and I didn’t have a safe place to do things like science fair projects.
That’s why I set mine up in the back, near the dumpsters behind the school. Although my idea was a basic one—grow plants, and see which ones do better with various additives—I was determined to make mine stand out. After quite a bit of research, I settled on using the top fertilizers, ranked by brand and cost, and meticulously measuring my yield. I also thought I’d be able to set my project apart by doing five samples of each plant, to account for natural variation based on location or other variables outside of my control.
It took me days and days of research to set things up.
I had to skip lunch for three weeks to save up the money to buy my supplies. Then I had to lug them to school over a period of days so the group home director didn’t notice. I found a way to sneak out before school, during lunch, and after school so I could monitor and chart the growth.
It wasn’t like I was a criminal, I reasoned. I just didn’t have the permission to use the premises because the school couldn’t extend the same courtesy to everyone. I felt a little guilty, and I was scared I’d get caught, but I’d heard the winner for the whole school district got an interview for a scholarship to the best private school in Scarsdale. I was determined to win. I knew college was hard to get into, much less pay for, and I planned to get there any way I could.
The first two weeks went perfectly.
I measured the fertilizer carefully, using the same cup for each brand so they wouldn’t become cross contaminated, and feeding each plant with a funnel to make sure the water and fertilizer were evenly distributed. I’d chosen snow peas, because the crop should be easy to objectively measure, plus it was a good growing season for peas in the spring in New York. Not that many things can be sown directly in March here.
I covered them before a storm. I put up a barrier to keep stray animals away. I limited every variable I could think of.
By the third week, I had a very respectable start to my experiment. I was optimistic. But then, at the beginning of the fourth week, without any reason or warning, a whole row of my plants started to die. I was frantic. It made no sense. I cradled the tiny, wilted yellow leaves carefully. I spoke to them. I sang to them—then I realized they’d probably die faster if I continued.
By Thursday, when the plants on the second row started dying too, I decided it was time for drastic measures. I skipped school the next day to get eyes on my plants, so I could figure out what was going on.
I’d chosen my spot for its inaccessibility, and I felt reasonably confident no one would stumble upon me. They had to go around the dumpsters and then behind a half wall, and there wasn’t anything else back here. It was a real stroke of luck for me that the district had installed a water spigot. Otherwise, I’d have had to haul water out here three times a day.
For hours and hours, I waited, but nothing happened. Lunch came and went, and I started to doze off. Then voices woke me—unfamiliar voices.
“I think I can make it to the third row today,” a boy said. “It’s all about the angle of your hip.”
“No way,” a younger boy with a bit of a lisp said. “There’s no way you can.”
I crept forward until I could peer around the corner of the trash cans to where the boys were standing.
“I can. I know it.” Older kid.
“You have to hit the funnel or it doesn’t count,” the little boy said.
Then, before I had the time to figure out what to do, the biggest boy unzipped his pants, pulled out his. . .
I gulped.
And he peed up, up, up and over in an impressive arc that ended right into the funnel that he had stuck in the perfect, bright green snow-pea plant of the third row. I was so shocked, I had no idea how to react.
The little boy did the same thing next, only he aimed for the funnels in the front row, hitting them all in sequence.
I didn’t think it through. I didn’t consider my options. Watching all that ammonia poisoning my plants, I acted entirely on instinct. I burst around the corner, my arms waving, my face frozen in a rictus of rage. “Stop it right now, you miscreants! I’ll report you to the police.”
The bigger boy turned around, so shocked he didn’t stop what he was doing, and he peed all over my shoes.
I burst into tears.
“There you are.” A small girl shot around the edge of the school, freezing, clearly horrified, when she saw us. “Jake, what in the world are you doing?”
The little boy turned around then, still mid-stream, and coated the other girl’s shoes. He swore, loudly .
“Who are you?” the girl asked, clearly addressing the smaller boy.
“I’m Killian.” He put his business away, and then ducked his head. “I’m Jake’s little brother.”
“Excuse me?” the girl asked.
“My assignment,” Jake said. “You know, because of the thing , I had to do community service.” He widened his eyes and tossed his head at me.
“What were you two doing?”
“Skipping class,” Killian said. “And learning to pee sooo far.”
“I’m going to kill you,” the girl said, “but that would be redundant, because Dave’s going to bury you already.”
“Please don’t tell him,” Jake said.
“Hello?” I asked. “I’m standing right here, the scientist whose experiment they’ve been wrecking while they skipped class and exposed themselves in public.”
“Public?” Jake sneered at me. “Please.”
“I need this experiment to go well,” I said. “It’s my only hope of getting an interview for a scholarship to Harvey.”
Jake rolled his eyes. “Harvard from a bunch of peas? Yeah, right.”
“You idiot,” I said. “HAR VEY .” I scoff. “It’s a private school for smart kids, so definitely not you. You can’t even hear right.” I grabbed my bag. “I’m going to report you for this.”
“What happens to your experiment if you do?” the girl asked.
“Just let her do it, Bea. Who cares what the nerd says?” Jake shrugged. “It won’t be the first time I get in trouble.”
“You peed on her stuff,” Bea said. “That’s pretty bad. It’s also public exposure.” She spun around. “Even if this isn’t exactly public, it’s not private.”
“Right?” I pointed at him. “You’re cooked.”
But Bea wasn’t done. “You—why do you need a scholarship? Most of the parents around here would die to send their kids there.”
I frowned.
“Your parents can’t afford it?” She didn’t look like she was trying to be rude.
“I don’t have parents,” I muttered. “My mom died.”
Bea’s face softened. “A scholarship would be good, but. . .” She glanced at the peas. “What if I could offer you something better?”
I wasn’t sure what she was saying.
“The boys will apologize, and they’ll promise never to come here again, and never to pee anywhere but in the toilet.”
“Hey,” Jake says. “You’re not my?—”
“What was that, exactly?” Bea frowned. “I’m not what , exactly?” She dropped her hand on her hips, and a flare of jealousy surged up inside me.
This girl was everything I wasn’t.
She had a family.
She was brave.
She was unapologetic about her demands.
“Go,” she said. “And if you ever argue with me again I’ll tell everyone you’re perverts.”
To my shock, they ran.
She turned back to me. “Now, let’s talk about this scholarship.” She smirked. “As good as it would be, and maybe you can salvage. . .” She frowned. “Whatever experiment this is.”
“Maybe,” I said.
My one hope was that I could still use the three mostly unharmed rows of plants. I ran over and watered the ones Jake just hit, hoping to wash away any damage. Three sets of plants wouldn’t be as impressive, but it might do alright. “You’ll keep them away, and I keep my mouth shut?” She’s right that if I handed them in, I’d also have to out myself for using school property without permission. They might not do anything to me, but they’d definitely throw the plants away, ruining my whole project.
But she didn’t threaten me like I expected. “I have some people I’d like you to meet. How’d you feel about sitting next to me for lunch tomorrow?” Her smile was kind, one of the kindest things I’d seen.
“Alright,” I said. “I guess.”
And then, I did. She was right. Meeting Dave and Seren was way better than a scholarship in every single way. It changed my life forever.
All I had to do was keep my mouth shut about the funnels. In a way, what Jake and Killian did was the best thing that happened to me after my mom died.
The funnels made me a Fansee.
**I hope you have loved reading about Octavia and Jake’s story, and I hope you’ll be excited to join me when I write Ardath’s story, Old Money . It’ll be out by April of 2026 at the latest. I’m always hopeful I can move things up, and I’m sorry you have to wait! I always have too many projects and not nearly enough time.
If you can, preordering it now helps me gauge interest and make decisions about series in the future. (Like how many books to write for the series and which series to prioritize!) Thank you!