In the morning, my temperature was 99.0, and my hand was bleeding, just a little, but Dad noticed. He made me take off my turquoise ring and he got out my ointment while I argued about wanting my ring back.

Jesse was sleeping late for once, so I left him a note that said Congratulations, Dad and Jesse!

It had one cross-out because first I spelled it congradulations. And I drew some wedding things, like flowers and bells. Dad told me the wedding would probably be in May, so I wrote, MAY!

“Does Mom know?” I said.

Dad nodded. “Mom and I talked about it yesterday.”

I didn’t ask what I wanted to, which was Is Mom sad?

Dad answered anyway. “She’s okay with it, Bea. Really.”

When I walked out of Dad’s building, I saw the back of Lizette Ford, halfway down the block toward school. Lizette and I got into a big fight in second grade after I sneaked into the coat closet and took a root beer from her lunch bag and put it in my lunch bag. I had told Ms. Adams I needed to get my ointment from my backpack because my elbow was itching, but the truth was that I couldn’t listen to Lizette bragging about her root beer for one more minute. To make her be quiet, I had announced that I happened to have a root beer in my lunch, too. And everyone believed me right away. But then I realized that if I didn’t show up with a root beer at lunch, they would all know I had lied. What I needed to do was get a can of root beer before lunchtime, and there was only one place I could think of to find one.

The worst part about taking the root beer was that Ms. Adams was ashamed of me. I had taken Lizette’s root beer, and I had lied to Ms. Adams about needing my medicine. Lied right to my face, she said. And I loved Ms. Adams. So it was terrible.

But Lizette and I were friends again by the end of that year.

I ran down the block to catch up with her.

“Hey, Bea.” She held up a small paper bag by her ear, like she was listening to it. “Where’s yours?”