“I’m not going to take it off.”

“Okay,” said Lucy, who had learned to pick her battles. “Whatever. Have you got your lunch? And where’s your sister?”

“She’s in the bathroom.”

Lucy pounded up the stairs and found Sara leaning over the bathroom sink, applying mascara with leisurely strokes punctuated with long pauses to examine the effect she was creating.

“You’re going to miss the bus—you’ll have to finish that at school.”

“The school bathrooms smell.”

“I don’t care. You have got to go. Now.”

“You could drive us,” said Sara, slowly screwing the top of the mascara tube.

“In your dreams. GO!”

She gave Sara a shove towards the stairs but she detoured into her bedroom.

“What now?”

“I need my book bag.”

Peering into the bedroom the girls shared, Lucy saw no sign of a book bag.

“Where is it?”

“I don’t know. I can’t remember where I put it.”

“When exactly was this?” inquired Lucy.

“Last June.”

“There’s no time. We’ll look for it later. You have to go.”

“I’ll get in trouble.”

“Maybe you should have thought of that yesterday,” said Lucy, reaching for her final card. “I will not drive you. If you miss the bus you will be late or absent. Is that how you want to start your high school career?”

“Okay, I’m going, Mom.”

Sara managed the stairs with the speed of a death row prisoner taking the last mile, but eventually she made it down to the kitchen and out the door with her sister. Lucy stood for a moment, savoring the view of the two departing girls, then turned back to the counter to pour herself a celebratory cup of coffee. That’s when she noticed Sara’s lunch still sitting on the counter. Grabbing it, she ran after them, catching up just as they joined the group of parents and children waiting for the bus. All the Prudence Path moms were there, except for Chris, whose kids were still too young for school.

Sara wasn’t all that pleased to see her. “Mom, I don’t want it,” she hissed, reluctantly taking the bright red insulated bag Lucy had bought for her. “The cheerleaders all buy lunch.”

“We didn’t discuss this…” began Lucy, but thought better of continuing in front of the entire neighborhood. She suspected the cheerleaders didn’t eat lunch at all, probably subsisting on diet soda from the controversial machine that some parents were trying to have removed from the cafeteria, but this wasn’t the time to go into that. She pulled a couple of crumpled dollar bills from her pocket and gave them to Sara just as the big yellow bus came into view. There was a flurry of hugs and kisses and waves and then the kids were all aboard, the door closed, and they were on their way.