“She’s the meanest person I ever met.”

Dad’s eyebrows went up.

Then I said, “Miriam says Sonia might get homesick.”

“I think that’s what’s happening,” Dad said. “Think about it, Bea. Her parents live on opposite sides of the country. If she’s with one of them, she’s very far from the other.”

“I would hate it if you and Mom lived far apart,” I said. And right then I missed Mom so much. Which happens a lot.

“I would hate that, too,” Dad said.

My parents will always live close to each other. It’s on the list of Things That Will Not Change. So I didn’t have to worry about that.

My plan had been to wait for Sonia to come back to the table and then I’d stomp off to the bathroom, to show her exactly how mad I was that she didn’t want to be my sister. I put a cancel on that plan.

“Can’t Sonia’s mom move to New York?” I said. “And then Sonia could live with us on Mondays and Wednesdays. And every other weekend. And every other Sunday.”

I let myself think about that. My room at Dad’s would be our room, for real. She’d have her own bed, and it would look just like mine. Maybe our comforters would match.

Dad smiled. “Sonia’s mom is remarried. Sonia has two little brothers.”

“I know,” I said. She didn’t have a sister, though. Yet.

“They have jobs in California,” he said. “It’s where they want to live. The same way we want to be here.”

Dad was looking at something behind me, and I twisted around to see Jesse and Sonia hugging next to the cash register. It was a long hug.

I had two pizza crusts hidden under my napkin. I gave Dad one of them, and he just held it. So I just held the other one.

—

Miriam taught us the Rule of Hi after Ben Larson’s eighth birthday party, which was one of the three terrible third-grade parties. Ben invited the whole class for a speedboat ride in the Hudson River. The driver made the boat go super fast, and I thought we might all get dumped off the back, into the river, like garbage gets dumped out of a garbage truck.

I screamed, “I don’t like this!” again and again until the ride was over, because I had the idea that my screams were protecting me (and everyone else in the boat) from drowning. After a while, I got really tired of screaming, but I always told myself, “One more.”