I scoff. Not a spoiled brat? Yeah, right. When Nana was still alive, she’d always say, “When people show you who they are, believe ’em! Walks like a duck, talks like a duck. It’s a duck.”

Glancing down at the letter once more, I feel like I’m holding a ticking bomb and a golden ticket all at once.

I turn off the flashlight and slide the letter under my pillow. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. I know what I should do with it. I should run back out to Miss Flora Mae’s mailbox first thing in the morning and add it to the bundle of letters headed to her sister’s house.

Or I could keep the letter. I could throw it away and make it disappear.

But what if . . . I answered it?

I pull the covers up over my chest and squeeze my eyes shut. Whatever decision I make, I don’t think I can make it tonight. But no matter how hard I close my eyes, Kiera Bryant’s handwriting is burned into the back of my eyelids like an image I just can’t shake.

The next morning, Dad makes Texas-shaped waffles for breakfast.

“Mr. DiMarco,” says Oscar, “do you think other states have waffle makers shaped like them?”

Dad laughs. “I think it might just be a Texas thing, buddy.” He flips the iron over. “What do you think, SP?”

The letter is just where I left it under my pillow, and it feels like a lit match, just waiting to catch the whole place on fire.

Dad waves his spatula in the air. “SP? Earth to Sweet Pea?”

I snap to attention. “Uh, yeah. Totally.”

Dad sets the syrup on the table and squints at me. “You feeling okay?”

“Just still a little tired.”

Dad nods, returning to his waffle maker.

Oscar shakes his head. “SP. Not only do you have a nickname, but your nickname has a nickname. I don’t even have a nickname to begin with.”

I shrug. “My dad’s the only one who calls me SP. And only sometimes.”

“Oscar Mayer,” Dad pipes in. “OM! Ommmmmm,” he says like he’s meditating.

“Listen, Mr. DiMarco, no offense or nothing, but people at school have enough things to poke fun at without nicknaming me after a hot dog.”

Dad chuckles and turns back to his waffle maker. “Roger that.”

“Hey, Sweet Pea,” Oscar says a little too loudly. “Have you gotten anything for Kiera’s birthday party tomorrow?”

Dad turns his head to the side, but with his eyes still on the waffle iron. “Kiera? Little Kiera Bryant? You haven’t brought her around in some time now. I didn’t know she was having a birthday party.”

I open my mouth to explain that I’m not going, because I most definitely was not invited.

“Oh yeah,” says Oscar. “A huge party at Trampoline Zone.”

“I didn’t think that place opened for another few weeks.”

“Her parents got the place to let her have her party there anyway.”