I meet Macy at the corner of my street where she’s waiting for me. It’s hard to stand still at the bus stop because it’s chilly again, so we keep moving to stay warm. Macy sways back and forth, and I bounce up and down, my teeth chattering.

Now that I’m out of my house, there’s this overwhelming wave of sadness that washes over me.

Macy frowns. “What’s wrong?”

“Gramps had a hard night.” I shake my head, trying to blink away little pinpricks of tears. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

Macy nods—of course she understands not wanting to talk about something that’s upsetting. And now I do too.

“I’ve been trying to talk to Dango,” she says out of nowhere, changing the subject.

I’m so thankful to have something else to think about. “Is it working?” I ask.

“It’s hard to tell. I’m not sure if I’m just making things up in my head or if he’s really talking to me.”

“That’s how I felt at first, too.”

“How did you know for sure, then?” she asks me, wrapping her scarf around her neck one more time.

“I guess because Dewey started to tell me things I couldn’t have already known, like her name and how she was in trouble and needed help,” I answer. “Has Dango said anything that you couldn’t have known about?”

She looks off into the distance like she’s thinking and says, “No. Maybe it’s just a thing between you and Dewey.”

The bus comes rumbling down the street toward us. I sigh, thinking of all the hours that I’ll have to go through before we’re dropped back off again.

“Stupid block of cheese on wheels,” Macy says, which makes me laugh, even through my chattering teeth.

I spend most of the day staring out of the windows in our classroom. Dewey pops into my thoughts and I imagine what she’s doing—Gramps feeding her breakfast, or running around the backyard—and then my imagination sort of takes over the way it does sometimes. A little scene plays in my mind of Gramps hanging out with Dewey in the Puppy Palace, Dewey curled up in her warm bed while Gramps sits at Mama’s desk with a big sketchpad, drawing. Then I imagine I’m there too, sitting on the floor next to Dewey. She looks up at me, with her tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth.

“Sadie? Sadie!”

Something snaps me back to the classroom.

“Sadie,” a voice says again.

“Huh?” I say. “What?”

Ms. Avery is standing in front of me, with this weird bulging vein in her neck, looking super frustrated. “I said, where is your homework?”

I glance around. We’re on math, apparently. I look down at my desk—I have my social studies book open.