Right then Dad sashayed into the kitchen, blaring Beyoncé’s “Run the World” from his phone. He pulled Nonny up from her seat and twirled her, and she nearly bumped her nose into his armpit. I laughed so hard I snorted. Even though Nonny had told Dad the special news a couple of weeks ago, while the adults were coordinating her coming home and everything, having Nonny actually here meant he’d been distracted from lesson planning all night long.

“You are ridiculous,” Mom said.

“I was thinking,” Dad said, “that even though we don’t know the sex yet, and nothing changes how perfect my new grandbaby is going to be … Wouldn’t it be great to have a baby girl in the family again?”

He grabbed my hand and tried to twirl Nonny and me in some kind of knot-windmill move but we ended up crashing into each other and laughing.

“Okay, okay, you sillies,” Mom said. “A couple of you really do have school tomorrow.”

“Do I hafta?” Dad said.

I went to the pantry where we kept peanut butter (for Dad), Chips Ahoy! (for Nonny), and a box of sterilized needles (for me). Then I got the small vial of medicine from the fridge. The vials aren’t any bigger than my dad’s thumb.

“I haven’t watched you do this in a while,” Nonny said. “I’m still really impressed.”

“Impressive is in her genes,” Dad said.

Nonny flinches when she watches me do my shots. I think she’s just a tiny bit afraid of needles.

I unwrapped the needle from its paper packaging and took off the long plastic cap. There was the tiny little needle.

“Tell us your Hard Reading Words while you do it,” Mom said, “and then bed.”

Holding the needle was as normal to me now as holding a pencil. I pushed the sharp tip into the rubbery top of the bottle.

“Flabbergast,” I said. “It means to shock or amaze. Perturbed means annoyed.”

I tipped the bottle so the clear liquid inside poured down to the top, where the needle was. This watery liquid was my growth hormone, the medicine that made me grow as tall as other girls. Dad calls it my Magic Beanstalk Juice.

“Implore means to beg and beg.”

Very carefully I pulled the plunger part down and down until the growth hormone filled the syringe to the exact right line.

“Antagonize means to be mean or a bully.”

I pulled the syringe out of the bottle and held it up close to my eyes to make sure there were no bubbles. I gently flicked the syringe a couple of times, like Mom showed me, to make double sure. I lifted my shirt just a little bit until I could see my belly button and I pinched a bit of my tummy pudge.

“And persist means to keep going and going, no matter what.”

Then bam. Poke the needle fast into the pinched bit of tummy, push in the Magic Beanstalk Juice slow like testing out a peach with your thumb, then pull the needle out.