Brakes squeak outside. The neighbor in our duplex is heading off to who knows where. Every week he pulls in with a new delivery sign on his car. This week it’s THE SNAPPY TOMATO. I wonder if he’ll give us free pizza. I think of who I’ll eat lunch with at this new school when I can’t sit with Emma Claire. Probably no one.

“Mema’s never going to go for this.”

“That’s why we don’t tell her until we’re there.”

“So lie?” I try to raise my eyebrow as high as Mom’s but can’t quite make it.

“No, not lie. Delay the inevitable.”

“So stall.”

She takes both of our bowls to the sink.

“Yes, stall.”

“I like it.”

The counselor’s office looks like an ad for PBS Kids—there’s a painting on the wall of a face with a nose on the forehead and eyes where ears should be. Every angle I try, it won’t come out right. The room itself is all bright pastel, if that’s even a thing—purple and peach and green everywhere, and a little lamp with a peach shade. It’s like ’90s Barbie became a school counselor. But Mrs. Lawrence is nice and always remembers to move the chairs so I can roll right in. She’s sitting behind her desk, while Lauren and the special ed coordinator, Mrs. Hayes, sit on the couch along one wall and Mom stands next to me by the door. Fast exits are key.

“We understand your special circumstances, Ms. Cowan, and we are sorry to lose Ellie halfway through the school year, but our job today is to make sure we have a competent assessment of her current needs to send on to her new school in…” Mrs. Hayes looks down at her notes. Her purple glasses hang on the tip of her nose, and I wait for them to topple off, but they don’t.

“Oklahoma,” Mom says.

“Yes, Oklahoma.” Now Mrs. Hayes looks at Lauren, and I have to shut my mouth so I don’t actually sigh out loud. “What are your observations, Ms. Osborne?”

“Well,” Lauren says from the depths of her turtleneck, “I think given Ellie’s history, I would recommend her continuing with an aide at her new school.”

We all know by “history” she means “medical history”—the thing I can’t outrun. Cerebral palsy is like the “Go to Jail” card in Monopoly: No matter where you are, it always shoots you back to zero. In my case, that’s birth, day one of CP.