One day when I came in from school, before I could even drop my backpack in my room, she grinned at me wide and patted the seat next to her. “Come here, I want to tell you something.”

I slid my bag onto the floor and hopped onto the couch next to her. I wanted to snuggle up to her, but I didn’t because I also wanted to look at her face and the swirl of fireworks happening in her eyes.

“We went to the doctor today. We’ve sort of known the gender for a while but today it was definitely confirmed. And … and I talked to Thomas and we’ve picked out a name.”

I bounced up and down. “You did? Boy or girl? It’s a girl, isn’t it? What’s the name?”

“Yes, it’s a girl. She’s a little girl.”

More bouncing. “You’re having a girl! I’m going to have a niece!”

“And we’ve decided to name her Cecilia.”

I stopped bouncing.

I felt a jolt between my shoulders.

“Are you okay?” Nonny said. “Do you not like the name?”

“I…” I swallowed, gripping the edge of the gray couch cushion. I wished I could get such a grip on my own thoughts. If I’d had any doubts about my deal with the universe—with Cecilia—I couldn’t doubt anymore.

This was like Cecilia herself calling me up on the phone.

I hear you, I thought.

“I like it,” I finally managed to say. “I love it. What … what made you choose it?”

“Well, it’s Thomas’s grandmother’s name,” she said. “And I think it’s beautiful.”

“It is beautiful,” I said. I looked at Nonny, at the tiny girl growing in her belly, and then looked out to the sky. I made a promise to all three. “And your baby will be beautiful. She will be perfect.”

Textbook People’s People

More and more time went by without any word from Mr. Trent Hickman at Knight-Rowell Publishing. Calling on the phone wasn’t helping, either.

I needed a new plan.

A phase two.

Pacing helped the juices flow and I began walking between my bed and my desk, back and forth, over and over.

I only had a short amount of time left. Just a few months until the baby was due. If I was going to keep my deal with Cecilia Payne, PhD, I was going to have to start thinking big.

I even thought about flying to New York. I thought about marching up the steps into the office of Knight-Rowell Publishing and standing firm until Trent Hickman had to see me. Except where would I get the money for a ticket? How would I convince my parents to let me go? I’d told them I was working on a special project but hadn’t told them too much about it yet because when I won twenty-five thousand freaking dollars, I wanted it to be a super-amazing eye-buggingly spectacular surprise. Besides, if I talked too much about it then I might have to go into the whole Universe Deal thing, and at least for right now, that needed to stay in a warm, secret place inside me.