Then I thought about what Ms. Trepky had said about courage. Nothing bad was going to happen. The whole room was full of adults who would make sure of that.

So I gulped, nodded, and sat down in the chair by the window.

And Nonny slowly, gently, settled baby Cecilia in my arms, like she was handing me the most important thing in the world. Which she was.

There was so much perfect in this tiny person I had to take it in bits at a time. She was awake and looking up at me. She had wide brown eyes like her dad, flecked with gold. And she had Nonny’s delicate, perfectly arched lips. Those lips made a small pucker while she stared up into my face.

“This is your aunt,” Nonny said, stroking the baby’s thick, curly hair. “The best aunt in the world.”

Very slowly, I unwrapped the blanket from around baby Cecilia’s left side. There was the scar, wrapping under her arm. The skin was still swollen and pink. A tiny slash across the patched-up heart. The people who’d fixed her were heroes. They were scientists. They were magic.

I remembered right then about one of my favorite words. It’s not a Hard Reading Word, but something I learned about on my own, in one of the documentaries I’d watched. It’s a Japanese word: kintsugi. In ancient Japan, the expert craftsmen and artists didn’t throw away their beautiful bowls and teapots when they got cracked. Instead, they melted down gold and filled in all the cracks, no matter how big. Filled in the cracks until the ceramic was traced and lined with shining gold, shimmering and even more beautiful than it had been before. The most beautiful thing they’d ever made. That’s kintsugi.

And here was our new baby—filled and sealed and traced with the purest gold. I touched the scar.

I realized that Cecilia Payne had given me just what I’d asked for.

Baby Cecilia was here, breathing, alive in my arms.

That’s what the scar meant.

And the scar made her perfect.

My People’s People

That night, for the first time since baby Cecilia was born, I thought again about Mr. Trent Hickman.

In my brain he’d lost his privilege to a normal name. Now he was Mr. Jerkface McJerkypants.

I lay on my bed, my hands gripping my quilt, seeing him toss my letters into the trash over and over until my whole face started getting hot and I couldn’t lie down anymore. So I paced back and forth in front of my posters. (I had put them back up when I got back from holding baby Cecilia.)

How could he do that? Who did Jerky McJerkypants think he was, ignoring me like that? Throwing away my letters? It was like the Worry Balloon that had taken up every inch of space in my brain and my heart was worn out, and had finally deflated after holding my beautiful, perfect niece, and now there was room for all this Mad to come storming in.