“No.” She shakes her head and chuckles. “It makes me feel better too.”

One more unexpected thing that we have in common.

We’re quiet as we focus on the garland again. But I realize that this is the first time all school year I don’t feel bad about my IEP. Outside there’s a distant rumble of thunder that wakes Catniss. She starts grooming Dewey, licking the top of her head, and then they fall deeper into sleep.

The rain doesn’t let up at all. It just gets darker and gloomier.

A car door slams. Catniss purrs and leaps over the back of the couch, prancing toward the front door.

“Mom!” I shout.

We jump into action. Dewey wakes up but is confused. I try to explain in my thoughts what’s going on. She follows us to the door but hesitates to step out into the rain.

“Hurry!” I say.

Macy and I both go out with her, neither of us having time to put on our raincoats or even our shoes. We run out to the shed and get Dewey inside.

“I’m sorry!” I shout over the rain. “I’m so sorry, I know you’re scared, but I’ll be right inside the whole time.”

But—

“I’m sorry,” I repeat. “I have to.”

I look to Macy, and I know she can read my thoughts in this moment too, because all I can think is, I can’t do it.

Macy steps between us and closes it for me, saying, “Here, let me.”

We are racing back to the house, when Mom appears at the door. “What on earth are you doing?” she asks. By the time we get back inside, Mom is standing there with her hands on her hips, waiting for an explanation.

“Hi, Mom,” I say, pretending I don’t see anything strange about what’s happening, pretending that the drops of water on my cheeks are from the rain and not from the tears I’m fighting back. I swallow hard.

“Do you want to tell me why you two are running around outside in the freezing rain without coats?” She looks down at the puddles that are forming around us. “Or shoes?”

“Well, our shoes were still all wet from walking home from school earlier, and we just felt like playing in the rain,” I lie. “It was fun, right?”

“Right,” Macy mutters.

“Go get dried off, and change into some warm clothes—I’m not sending Macy home drenched from head to toe,” she snaps, looking more and more annoyed by all the newspaper everywhere and our piles of wet coats and school bags still laying by the door.

“And where is your grandfather, anyway?” She picks up the sleeve of his wet raincoat and shakes her head.

“Oh, he’s—”

“I’m right here,” Gramps says.

“We were making some decorations for Gramps’s room,” I tell Mom. “See?”