Mrs. B steps up next to Karina. “Okay, time to vote. Remember, the vote has to be unanimous to pass. Raise your hand if you are in favor of donating our portion of brownie sales money to Jewel and Baby.”

I hold my breath as one, two, then three, four, five hands go up. I feel a knot growing in my throat. I need more votes than that.

“Oh, come on,” Fire moans. “It’s an old lady and a little dog!”

Desiree crosses her arms across her chest and looks away.

Dylan, who’s actually been playing quietly in the corner, pipes up, “It’s Toto!”

“Oh, whatever.” Desiree laughs. She raises her hand, and so does Alexa.

I watch as another hand and another and another hand goes up.

The only holdout is Carmen.

I look right at her. “Please, Carmen?”

She looks back at me for a long time. I use all my brainpower to make her raise her hand.

Carmen looks away. Slowly she raises her hand.

Mama beams. Mrs. B grins.

Karina nods. “The motion is passed.”

Fire whoops. “Yay for girl power! We’re going to raise them a million bucks!”

Behind the podium where no one can see, Karina takes my hand and squeezes it.

We spend the rest of the evening dividing up the boxes of Raspberry Swirls, Mocha Mints, Buttercrunch Blondies, Choco-Lots, Caramel Dreams, and Pistachio Surprise. Mrs. B gives everybody order forms too.

“We’re not going to have the luxury of time that we usually do with these order forms, ladies,” Mrs. B says. “We need to get them out and the orders back by the end of next week.”

Karina must see the look of panic on my face because she says, “In the meantime, we’ll sell outside of the usual places. That’ll be cash in hand.”

“Yeah, but we won’t sell enough at those places to raise that much money,” Carmen says.

Daria holds up her hand. “We won’t if we just sell brownies,” she says, speaking for the first time.

Phoenix snorts. “Well, what else are we going to sell?”

Daria looks at me and nods. “We’ll sell Baby and Jewel’s story.”

Karina’s eyes light up. “You hit the nail on the head. It’s the story of Baby and Jewel that will sell the brownies,” Karina finishes. “Not us.”

“And we need to tell their story to a whole bunch of people,” Fire says. “People who love brownies.”

But how?

Mr. Yee says from the back of the room, “Isn’t the monthly student assembly this Friday at Olympia Elementary?”

Karina nods. “That would be a great place to tell Jewel and Baby’s story,” she says. “I’ll get us on the agenda.”

“Who will do the telling?” Desiree asks.

All eyes turn to me. “Piper?” Karina says.