Her parents loved their jobs, and wanted to be the best and the first. They lived here because it was an easy commute into New York City by train, and Macey could grow up in a house with a yard and a dog, and her grandparents would be right down the road to pitch in. Her mother was in marine insurance, oil tankers and stuff, and her father in banking, mostly foreign loans.

They were wildly proud of Macey, but they were wildly proud of themselves, too, so it was relaxing to be around Nana and Papa, who just muttered and rolled out pastry. She was the only grandchild, and they adored her. In their eyes, she was the most intelligent, interesting, beautiful and talented girl in America. When Macey reached high school, and there was a lot of competition for those slots, she found out Nana and Papa were wrong: She was not the most intelligent, interesting, beautiful and talented girl in her class, let alone America. But still, it was nice to hear.

“For my local history paper, I was thinking of doing the construction collapse,” said Macey. “Remember how eight floors fell in? Think of the photographs and sound effects!” She bet the newspaper had done a special issue, which would certainly make the research quicker.

“That was seven years ago,” said Nana. “The history of this town begins in 1652.”

“And we’re all very proud of the settlers of 1652,” agreed Macey, “but things happened in the nineteen nineties, too.”

“They aren’t history!”

“They will be eventually,” said Macey. “You just have to wait awhile.”

Nana slid the perfect nine-egg omelet neatly onto a serving platter and divided it in three. Macey decided she could eat around the asparagus. They sat down at the table and asked the Lord’s blessing.

Macey broke off a piece of brioche, a soft, buttery bread that was Papa’s this-month favorite to bake.

“How do you do a term paper with sound effects?” said her grandfather.

“If you get an A, you can put your paper on the school Web page,” said Macey.

This was the first time Macey had ever seen boys thrilled by a history assignment. Normally, a boy sadly wrote his name all crammed up into the corner of a blank piece of paper and then watched his signature, hoping the letters would spread and fill the rest of the page. This condition could last for days, until the boy finally admitted that letter spread was not a known scientific possibility. Gloomily, and acting betrayed, the boy would finally start to write.

But this was different. Their papers would go online.

“In school you have a Web page?” said Nana. She flounced in her chair, a technique Macey wanted to learn: how to look huffy while sitting down.

“It’s not evil,” said Macey, laughing. “We’re not making rugs out of endangered animals or exchanging recipes for dolphin sandwiches.”

“You like computers,” accused Nana.