She hangs her head sadly. “All right. G’night,” she says, and sulks off down the hall.

“Thanks again for the bike!” I call after her. But I don’t hear a reply.

The house is quiet again, but I can’t sleep. I wait and wait until finally I hear the floorboards creak below and my parents’ voices again. They get low and quiet, and I can tell they’re making up. I hope Ivy is still awake so she can hear, too.

Chapter Three

“This is pretty great!” Micah says when I ride my bike to his house the next day.

Micah always gets new stuff when he outgrows something. He never has to sort through hand-me-down bags like I do. He probably doesn’t even know what one is.

“Let’s go for a ride,” he says. “To celebrate summer. We can pack a picnic.”

I follow him inside. His parents aren’t home, so we raid the kitchen for snacks. We make peanut butter, lettuce, and mayonnaise sandwiches. They’re my mom’s favorite and have become mine, too. The first time I made one for Micah, he almost threw up when I told him what it was. But then he took another bite and realized how delicious they are. We add a bag of chips and half a box of ginger cookies. Then we put it all in Micah’s backpack and head out.

I follow behind Micah and get used to my bike, trying the gears and testing the brakes just to make sure they really work. I’m so used to being scared on my old bike that I can’t seem to stop worrying.

We didn’t agree on where to go, but I have a hunch we’ll end up at our usual place, the small local beach that’s only a short ride away.

It’s early summer, so there aren’t too many people here. The lifeguard looks bored. We lock up our bikes and find a spot at the far end of the beach where no one likes to sit because tall grass grows where the beach ends, and there are lots of frogs and crayfish.

Micah unzips his backpack and hands me a small box wrapped in neon-green wrapping paper. “Happy birthday,” he says.

I slowly unwrap the paper, careful not to rip it. The box is white with a horse head drawn in blue pen.

“Did you draw that?” I ask.

He laughs in an embarrassed way. “You know I can’t draw horses.”

“I like it.”

Inside, there’s some folded tissue paper, which I lift out to reveal a woven friendship bracelet.

“Wow,” I say. “Did you make this?”

“Of course I made it. That’s our rule. Do you like it?”