It will be, I know. And that means that Mai will get to meet Mercedes. My dad will be back in Colombia by then, but she’ll get to see my new house and Laurel Park and the Boardwalk. We’ll take Lucas for ice cream, and I’ll invite Sunny over for a chess tournament with Kenny. Maybe Mai will have some tips for being an older sister. Or maybe I’m going to be just fine figuring it out on my own.

On Tuesday morning in social studies class, Mercedes waves to me as she walks in carrying the diorama in a big paper shopping bag. I’m nervous and excited and a little bit sick. Even before Mercedes gets to her seat, Mrs. Ellingham clears her throat and announces the rules for watching mythology presentations. And then she checks her clipboard and says, “Mattie Gómez and Mercedes Miller will be presenting first.”

I feel myself turn red from my toes to my ears. I hate being first at anything. But Mercedes beams like she just won the lottery.

“We’ll need to turn the lights off for our presentation, Mrs. Ellingham,” she says, setting our diorama on the table at the front of the room.

November jumps up and switches off the lights. The class erupts in obnoxious noise, just like they did when it went dark in the planetarium.

“Silence, class,” Mrs. Ellingham scolds. “These two are going to present the Selene myth.”

That’s what you think, I want to say as I switch on the first set of fairy lightbulbs that poke through the top of the cardboard box. They twinkle like the first stars. The whole class oohs and ahhs. I can’t help but smile in the dark. It is pretty cool. The diorama shows the silhouette of a mountain range, a blue sea painted on one side. I’m proud of my artwork—I shaded the mountains with purple and turquoise and added white waves to the water. Little plastic trees we found in Tristan’s toy box dot the landscape.

“Once upon a time,” Mercedes begins.

She introduces Yuí and Tima and their mother. Their cave. I switch the next set of lights on that glow from inside a cave Mercedes made of crumpled paper and tape.

“Yuí flew into the sky and became the sun,” Mercedes says, her voice clear and bright. I pull the lever we notched into the cardboard and make the cardboard sun appear. One bright lightbulb shines on it like a spotlight. I hope everyone can see the faint outline of Yuí’s face I painted on the yellow disc.