Mr. O’Grady deserved a dream like that, but it didn’t sound like he could consent to it. She couldn’t risk breaking the rules for two people, as much as she wished she could.

“Please tell your mom I’m here if she needs anything,” said Maren’s mother, and Maren wondered how she could possibly help anyone when she could barely keep her own life together. She wondered if at this exact moment, Hallie was dreaming of flying.

Slowly, very slowly, the car turned onto a street lined with identical duplexes, and a kid flashed past on a bike. Maren tucked her knees up and shuddered as he skidded to a stop across the street from the driveway they were about to pull into. It was Curtis, the meanest kid in Maren’s grade. He peered inside the car and smirked when he saw Amos in the back seat. Maren hunched so low that she had to loosen her seat belt. She didn’t care if it made her unsafe.

Amos glanced across the street and muttered something Maren couldn’t hear. “Thanks again,” he said as he climbed out of the car. Just before the door swung shut, he locked eyes with Maren and said “Bye.” Something resembling a smile flickered across his mouth and disappeared.

Maren’s forehead went prickly. If it were possible to sink any lower without lying on the floor, she would have done it. As her mom began cycling through her mirror-checking routine, Curtis called across the street to Amos.

“Go, just go, go, go,” Maren whispered. Her mother turned on her headlights, sprayed wiper fluid onto the windshield, and let the wipers run until they screeched on the dry glass. She checked her mirrors one more time. Finally, at the speed of a very old snail, they were off.

Five

Sprawled on the purple velvet couch of her living room, Maren turned on the TV and navigated to her recorded shows. Dance Like Everybody’s Watching sat at the top of the list. Maren had watched every episode multiple times. She liked episode four best because Imani Epps, the eleven-year-old tap-dancing prodigy from Sacramento, had performed a dazzling solo to one of Maren’s favorite songs. Maren selected that episode, set down the remote, and dug her fork into the plastic tray of tasteless pasta her mom had microwaved for dinner.

The music began, a thumping groove that filled the theater. Wearing a sparkling green bodysuit, Imani swung her leg over her head, grabbed her ankle, and spun until she blurred. Leaping out of her spin and flashing the crowd an enormous grin, she launched into a dizzyingly fast combination of tap footwork. Several times, Maren had tried slowing down the recording and teaching herself the combination, but it proved impossible.

“Whoa, did you see that?” she said, even though she’d watched—and forced her mom to watch—this particular solo twenty times already.