Then the counselor asked, Are there other times that you are distressed? and I wanted to help him so I said, Sometimes I can’t sleep. The pancake counselor said, Because you are worried about a snake biting you? I stayed quiet, but my scar spoke up. The counselor asked, Is that why you can’t sleep? So I just said, Can I have a pancake? I could tell it wasn’t what he wanted me to say, I mean he probably wasn’t even thinking about his own face and how much like a pancake it was, but he smiled again and he asked me, Are pancakes your favorite food? I said, Mama K says I’m not allowed to have a pancake or any cake. I am allowed to have pemmican arranged in the shape of a cake. But sometimes Mama L makes me pancakes when no one’s home and Grandma Barlow makes us pancakes whenever we want, me and Altemonte. The pancake counselor said, I’m sorry to say I don’t have any pancakes, but you may certainly have pancakes later.

So it was a successful distraction and I didn’t have to tell the pancake counselor why I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t have to tell him that lately I almost started to fly out of my body, I almost sent myself out like the special power that Savah of the Sun Folk has because I missed my Mama L so bad, and I missed Mama K, too, and the Mean Aunt and Rudy, and I didn’t want to tell the pancake counselor that, because I touched my scar and it told me, Use your tricks. Dazzle him.

Afterward, in the waiting room, which had Blue’s Clues and this giant baby with a bottle that couldn’t walk but just sat there looking, looking, the Outside Girl extended her hand and received a piece of paper from the pancake counselor. I saw it all happen. And we stopped at the CVS on the way back to Grandma Barlow’s. And that night when Altemonte took his blue nail polish pill I got to take one, too, and then we had pancakes for dinner. Which were good. Eating pancakes was like eating my pillow which I had always wanted to do, but knew wouldn’t be as good as it looked. And that was funny, because two days after I took the pill I noticed that the pancakes tasted like that. Like my pillow. Like nothing. Like a cardboard person eating a cardboard cake on the PlayStation. And anyway, my stomach started hurting and I didn’t want any more pancakes.