I took a breath and then said, “Her classmates walk by, but they ignore the girl because she’s new to the school and she isn’t allowed to visit anyone or have anyone over. Her mother doesn’t like the mess and noise of children.”

“Does the girl just sit?” Lily asks. “Or does she do anything else?”

“The girl has books in her backpack that the librarian gave her. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books. So the girl begins to read. Soon she forgets that she’s hungry and she forgets that she’s waiting and she forgets everything but the world between the covers. She’s in that world with Laura and her family.”

“What is she feeling?”

“She’s feeling what they’re feeling: the bone-chilling prairie winters, the sweetness of an orange at Christmas, the terror of scarlet fever, the happiness of a family who loves one another.”

My throat constricted and I turned my face away from Lily.

“What happened to the girl then?” Lily said quietly.

“She wants to be one of them, living within the pages of a book. Night comes and the mall empties. A cleaning lady sees the girl and speaks to her in Spanish. She takes the girl by the hand. The lady’s hand is warm and firm and the girl misses being touched so much and no one has touched her or loved her since her abuelita died. She is so small and alone and her grief is so enormous. All she wants is human touch and she cries and begs the woman, ‘Please can I live with you?’”

And then I couldn’t speak anymore. Something inside me felt broken.

Lily was there with a tissue, and I wiped at my eyes and tried to calm my breaths.

“What are you thinking, Milagro?”

I glared at her. “I’m thinking that this isn’t my story. My story isn’t a tragedy or a drama. My story is full of laughs and has a happy ending. Everyone says I’m a happy-ending sort of girl!”

“Who says that?”

“I don’t remember!” I shouted. “And this stupid exercise won’t help me remember.” I walked into the house and to my room, slammed the door shut, and picked up my pen. I wrote in first person, past tense, and let myself get lost in my story, a happy, magical story. When I heard the dogs barking and a car coming down the drive, I closed my composition book and went to investigate.

AG was ahead of me, opening the front door and saying, “Come in, come in.”

A pretty young woman with long red curls entered the house and handed him a folder. “Here’s the prospectus you wanted, Sir,” she said with an English accent. She was wearing a blue cotton dress the same color as her eyes, and I felt self-conscious about my sack-of-potatoes outfit.

When she saw me, she looked stunned. “Hello.”