Marianne had assured her it would be fine; they were going to make Popsicle-stick bird feeders and go on hikes, not anything stressful! Plus, Marianne would include her in everything.

And Marianne had been right. Marianne made friends and those friends were happy to have Skyla around.

On the second day of camp, after Skyla had refused to swim for the third time, Marianne pushed Skyla off the dock into the water. After the shock wore off, Skyla had laughed and laughed and never complained about swimming in public again.

The nice thing about sitting and doing a craft was that you could just relax, and think, and remember.

Why couldn’t crafts earn grades at school?

Marianne finished a round of orange as Lillian propped her door open.

“Ever heard of knocking?” Marianne groaned.

“Homework done?” Lillian leaned against her doorframe.

“I could kill you,” Marianne said, dropping the rug. “You’re two years older than me, you’re not my au pair or something.”

“Ooh, look at you with your ‘au pair’ reference,” Lillian said. “Fancy.”

“Mom worked as an au pair after college, remember?” Marianne said disdainfully. Why did she have to prove how she knew anything fancy? “And did you ask Harper to join your boring book club yet?”

“If you’d ever actually read a book, you’d know they’re not boring,” Lillian snapped, extra angry at her for some unknown sister reason.

“You know what? That’s, like, really mean.” Marianne picked up her fabric again and shook her head. “You think you’re so perfect…” She pulled a strip through another strip. “Can you just go?”

“I don’t think I’m perfect!” Lillian hissed. “I just don’t give up every time things are hard, so I’ve learned that eventually I’ll be at least okay at stuff!”

“Yeah,” Marianne grumbled, “‘okay’ as in Honors classes, featured in the school paper five hundred times, fastest swimmer, everyone’s favorite person—”

“Ya know, you think everything comes so easy for me?” Lillian snapped. “News flash: It doesn’t. I work hard. Ugh, you are just so—”

But before Lillian could finish, their mom appeared behind her, placing her hands on Lillian’s shoulders. “Homework done?” she asked, and Lillian laughed.

Marianne slumped from her bed to the floor and crawled to her desk, moaning the whole way. Her mom and sister “Oh, Mar”ed her, and Marianne got to work. She answered her two history questions about the Revolutionary War.

Dropping the pencil and eyeing the clock, she saw that six minutes of writing had gone by. It felt like an hour.

She picked up her Quiz Quest flash cards.

Her brain felt fried.

And Skyla was mad at her. How could she concentrate?

Marianne reached for her phone.

porch? Marianne texted Skyla.

They met at the steps.

Skyla handed her a paper plate with tinfoil wrapped around it.

“Papa and I made brownies,” she reported.

“What? Without me?” Marianne felt the warmth of the goodies under her hands. “Thanks,” she added.

Skyla kicked a sweet gum ball with her feet and it rolled under a shrub in the yard.