So it’s not a puppy? Maybe a kitten? Maybe it’s a vacation? A trip to NASA headquarters! A trip to Antarctica to see seals and penguins and—

“Libby!”

I jumped, and a couple of kids behind me giggled.

Ms. Trepky was standing right in front of me.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Trepky,” I said. “Could you please repeat the question?” I’d managed to stay in my seat, but the Attentive-Listener part of myself wasn’t doing so great.

“Who said, ‘You must do the thing you think you cannot do’?”

The Answer-Knower wasn’t her normal self, either. I had to say three words I don’t like to say. I looked down and folded my hands. “I don’t know.”

Ms. Trepky looked at me for a few seconds, then stepped to the front of the classroom, right in front of the world map.

In Ms. Trepky’s class we do American history. History is a medium subject for me—not the best, but not the worst. I like that it’s about remembering and memorizing things. I’m good at remembering things like dates and presidents’ names and every muscle in your leg. So that part is good, but it’s not like in science, where it’s remembering and discovering weird and surprising new things that might one day help the world. I’m not really sure what people can do with history.

But at least it’s interesting most of the time. At least it means that there are new people to talk to in my head. Like that time at the beginning of last school year when my class went on a hike in Boulder Canyon. Even though most people in Colorado like hiking a lot, it’s not something I’m super-awesomely great at, because if I go too hard my heart starts pounding and my lungs feel like they’re in a steel cage. Basically, on that hike a lot of the other kids were going faster and faster, so I stayed toward the back where some of the slow adults could see me, and I talked to my friend Sacagawea. In case you didn’t know, Sacagawea was an awesome woman from the Shoshone tribe who helped some Virginian explorers who didn’t know where to go. Sacagawea is a very supportive hiking buddy.

So in Ms. Trepky’s class, I get even more new people to think about and imagine and talk to. People to hike with or to help me when I have questions. And at least it’s not math.

Maybe it’s strange that I like science and not math, because a lot of people think they go together. And maybe they do, but when I see a math worksheet my brain refuses to budge. Sometimes it happens with writing assignments, too, unless the teacher has made it very clear what we’re supposed to write about, like Ms. Trepky does. With science, though, it’s not about guessing what the teacher wants, trying to figure out their sneaky expectations or what they wish you’d written about. In science, you simply follow the instructions and do the experiments. In science, you try again. In science, you have fun.