“But if it’s so scary how come you do it? How can you do it every day?”

Ms. Trepky scooted her chair back and leaned toward me. Even through her glasses I could see her looking at me very, very closely.

“How important are these things that scare you?”

I didn’t even have to think about that one. “The most important.”

She nodded. “Precisely. If they weren’t, or if you didn’t care deeply about them, they wouldn’t scare you. And so you do them anyway.”

“So how do you not be scared?”

“You don’t,” she said. “But you get better at the doing-it-anyway part, even when you risk failure. And that, in my mind, is the perfect definition of courage.”

We were quiet for a minute, and I tried to make sense of it. Maybe there were also two Ms. Trepkys, the Regular Confident One and the Shy Frightened One. And maybe the Frightened Ms. Trepky made the same shrieks and screams and moans that Scared Me made. Maybe the trick for Confident Ms. Trepky wasn’t knowing how to make the wailing go away, but learning how to dance to it.

“Thanks, Ms. Trepky,” I said.

I didn’t know if I was going to be able to be brave like Ms. Trepky, but I didn’t really have a choice. I had too many important, scary things coming up.

“Libby,” Ms. Trepky said. I looked back at her from the classroom door. She hesitated, mouth open like she was searching for words, and I waited. Finally she said, “Good work in my class, Libby.”

A New Doctor

A few days after talking with Ms. Trepky my mom checked me out of school half an hour early.

I flopped into the backseat and dropped my backpack on the floor. It seemed like so many worry whirlpools—baby worry, Mr. Trent Hickman worry, Talia’s worries—were swirling around in my mind into one big blustery mess.

“How was school?” Mom asked.

“It was good,” I said, trying not to pick at my nails. Sometimes I did that when I was so focused and anxious about something.

Mom cleared her throat and looked back at me, so I knew she was going to tell me something important. “Honey, do you … do you remember when you were taking piano lessons and things were really, really hard? And I told you I’d look into something?”

I nodded. Was Mom going to sign me back up for piano?

Mom kept going. “Sweetie, I know things are going on with Talia and school and other things making you anxious and … well, if it’s okay, I’m going to take you to a new doctor’s office because I think they might have some ideas.”

“A doctor? What kind?”

“It’s called a … I think she’s a neuroscientist. Or a psychologist.”

“A neuropsychologist.”

“Sure, that works. Is that okay? We’re just going to talk to her.”

My mom was looking at me, both hands on the wheel, and she looked nervous to be asking me this, like maybe it would hurt my feelings. I smiled at Mom and her shoulders relaxed.