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“What you see, my Strong Sade,” she said, “is the stuff hope is made of. Wishes we dream for ourselves. Roles that others make for us. We shed them wherever we go, and the stronger those hopes are, the more we drown in them.”
We both of us fought to work in a world not built for our bodies.
And the only thing worse than living nowhere at all was to love somewhere—to fit somewhere—and then, after trying your very hardest . . . lose it forever.
“Small Sade,” I said. “That is what everyone calls me. You forgot.” “I did not forget,” he replied, floating his body around mine so he faced me on the terrace again. “I disagreed.”
Exhausted by the enraging silliness of a world where I could summon a god to carry me but could not find work in a house without stairs.
“Then you are only a spy.” “I prefer the term part-time professional nuisance, but yes.
She had taught me to yowl our trials out loud instead of hiding them like something shameful. We aired our dirty laundry in the public sunshine of humor.
“It’s only . . . some people are like cats. The ones allowed outside instead of kept indoors will kill birds and small-small animals by the hundreds. Even when they are not hungry. It is as though the very existence of creatures weaker than themselves makes them restless. I have gotten good at spotting them—Outside-Cat People. Those who see smallness and poverty as a crime to punish.”
No matter how many times she made mistakes, or said no, or demanded why . . . she would always deserve to be housed, and clothed, and fed, and taught to imagine a better world for herself and everyone in it. Always.
And here is the thing about us ants: Even when we are only one, we carry the colony with us. We carry its memory in our veins, the burden of its scars and dreams.
Many folk, you see, complain that a story is incorrect, when they really mean it is not comfortable.
that there is power in numbers, and a sea of ants can change the world more in a day than a giant can in a lifetime.
If you or anyone you know is at risk of pregnancy coercion or intimate partner violence, you can access help through RAINN.org (24/7 phone hotline: 800-656-4673).
Finally, if you’d like to read another fictional book about class inequality, I highly recommend Munmun by Jesse Andrews,
Maggie Lehrman, my insightful and ever-game editor, who has journeyed with me through three books and counting. (She also wrote The Last Best Story, one of the most unique, ambitious, and timely YA stories I’ve ever read.)
