I don’t need cusswords on my bag, but I do need words. Strong ones.

My own.

I’ll keep working on it.

In the meantime, I’ve shifted gears on the wheelchair bags I’m still making toward a more cosplay/fantasy theme. I got the idea from some of the costumes we saw at the Fairy Festival, and they’re selling good so far. So are the skater-themed ones.

Of course, there’s always those never-ending packages of pine cones and Spanish moss to keep us nice and sticky.

“I still can’t believe you pulled it off,” Ale says as she counts out pine cones and scoops them into gallon-size ziplocks. “I’m so bummed I couldn’t see Fish’s face the moment you sailed off that stage.”

It was a big risk I took. Probably bordering on foolish, if I’m honest.

But hey. What almost-thirteen-year-old doesn’t pull some fool-headed stunts now and then?

The gamble paid off. With the news cameras catching every minute of my speech—not to mention my perfect jump and landing—Dr. Grayling didn’t have much wiggle room when all those questions started coming in about why more hadn’t been done to make E. L. Pinckney wheelchair accessible before now.

Talk about optics.

I suspect all those cameras being right there—and the way the crowd went for it—is what kept me out of some serious trouble at school for pulling that stunt at all. We’ll see what he meant when he said they’d “look into the architecture matter promptly.”

I know they’ve got at least $2,678 to get them started.

I was a little worried what Devontae’s family might think, given their big donation for what they thought was my new chair. But when they came up to congratulate me after the ceremony, all of them—including Momma Rose—gave me huge hugs.

Best of all, I’ve got my freedom back at school. Speaking up must be contagious or something, because before we even left school that night, Dad made a point to find Ms. Hernandez and Dr. Grayling and inform them I would no longer be needing an aide at school. Case closed.

I felt a little bad about Dawn losing her job, but it turned out okay. Seems she’d always wanted to do more with that scrapbooking hobby of hers, and hearing about our online shop got her thinking. Not only that, but Ale’s aunt Rosaria—the one who makes custom dresses for weddings and quinces and other fancy events—saw the beautiful scrapbook Dawn donated for the raffle and bought a boatload of tickets for it. Not only did she win it, she liked it so much she asked Dawn if she’d make special, event-themed ones to sell in her dress shop and on her website.

Last I heard, orders were already piling up. I ran into Dawn at Dollar General again—both of us in the art supplies section this time—and when I asked how it was going, she looked excited about being an entrepreneur and grateful she doesn’t have to leave her mom home alone anymore. “You really inspired me, Emmie” is what she said.