"You get your birthday letter tonight," Franklin reminded me.

"I know," I said.

"Excited?"

"A little."

After a while, my cousins' car pulled into our long driveway. Aunt Sally jumped out first.

"Look at you, girl! All grown up!" she shrieked as she gave me a hug. "There's a baby in the house, right? I'm dying to meet her!" She ran up the porch steps. Whose birthday was it, anyway?

Uncle Beau hugged me, and Jake rubbed his fist against my head.

Franklin dropped out of his tree-perch.

"What's with the helmet?" Jake asked.

"I'm protecting my cranium from you," Franklin said.

"Great," said Alec, pounding on the top of the helmet. Franklin held it down tight with both hands.

I rolled my eyes. "Come on, we can go eat."

Because of the sloppy joes, we were going to eat in the kitchen instead of the dining room. Uncle Hugh had already brought in extra chairs, so everything was ready.

The sloppy joes were awesome, as always. Two silent compet.i.tions began between those who wanted to be the sloppiest and those who wanted to be the neatest. All the boys were a total mess. Aunt Bessie and Aunt Sally took tiny bites, but Annie let sauce gush out the back of her hamburger bun and left some on her chin. That made me laugh. Then the messy-compet.i.tion got loud with laughter. Alec dipped his fingers in the red sauce and made war-paint streaks on his cheeks. Franklin had sauce all over his face and hands, but I don't think it was on purpose. Ava stayed in her carrier seat on the floor and no one paid any attention to her, for once.

After we all cleaned up, it was time for cake and presents.

I got a a a fifty-dollar gift certificate to the movie store from Aunt Sally and Uncle Beau.

a a One Free Day Trip pa.s.s from Leonard to anywhere I wanted. What came to mind right away was the amus.e.m.e.nt park, but it was October, so it was closed until spring. I'd have to think about where I wanted to go.

a an easy cookbook from Aunt Bessie. She wrote in it: We can learn the recipes and spend more time together in the kitchen!

a a goal journal from Uncle Hugh. It has pages in it where you can write the goal at the top, how you plan to achieve it, steps you've taken, and then the date of achievement on the bottom. He smiled at me when I opened it.

a a book of knot-tying techniques from Franklin. "You need to improve your skills. Then," he added in a whisper, "you can hang your lunch from a hook in your locker instead of letting Amanda squish it, and she won't be able to get it off." It sounded neat to practice knots, but maybe not in my locker. Amanda might make a big deal of that. Franklin's bright ideas could get me made fun of again.

I took the birthday ribbon from Aunt Bessie's present and looped it through my hair around my ponytail. The table was strewn with plates of half-eaten cake and wrapping paper, but my birthday wasn't over yet. I would get my letter at bedtime. But first I said goodbye to my guests.

Franklin was last to go. His mom came to pick him up.

"You have sloppy-joe sauce on your ear," I said as we stood on the porch.

"Oh." Franklin tried to wipe it, but he didn't know where it was. I licked my thumb and wiped it off for him. "See you tomorrow," he said. "Don't forget to start practicing those knots."

"I won't," I said.

I carefully washed any last traces of sloppy joe and blue frosting off my face and put on my pajamas. I got in bed, but sat up, waiting.

Aunt Bessie slipped into my room and handed me an envelope.

It said: Elise, 12.

"Elise?" Aunt Bessie said gently, drawing my attention away from the unopened envelope. "It's the last one. We didn't tell you. We didn't want you counting down."

It hadn't occurred to me that the letters would run out. It would be weird without one next year. I thought there would be one every birthday, for my whole life.

Maybe that would be a lot of letters.

"That's okay."

"Do you want me to stay?" Aunt Bessie asked.

"No, you don't need to."

"Good night, Cricket. Happy birthday." Aunt Bessie kissed me on the forehead, left my room, and shut the door.

For a few minutes I just held the letter. Then I slid my finger under the flap. After so many years, the glue had mostly disappeared, so it opened easily. I pulled out the plain sheet of paper, unfolded it, and began to read: Dear Elise, Today you had a lovely time playing outside in the rain. You just got a new pair of bright red boots and a matching raincoat, so it was nearly impossible to keep you inside. There were ducks in the pond who ruffled their feathers a bit when you tried to catch them, but they didn't fly away, so they must have liked playing with you.

How grown up you must be now. I wonder if you are wearing your hair long and dark like your mother's.

I don't know what we are to do without each other, but by the time you read this, you will have been managing on your own for quite a while. Have you been looking after my brother? He needs some taking care of from time to time, and now you're old enough to tell him what's what. You better be listening to him, too! He has a good heart, your Uncle Hugh.

This letter will be my last to you, but please don't be sad. I'm leaving something else for you, to discover and unlock when you are ready. Remember that while others can help, in great part we mold ourselves.

I miss you so much already, thinking of not being there with you on this happy day. But we will find each other again, I promise, even if not in this life, and when we do meet again, I know you will be the best Elise that you can be.

All my love,

Daddy.

I ran my fingers through my hair, all the way to its ends. I was glad I hadn't cut it. I wondered if the dark color of Mom's hair he mentioned really was the same color as minea"a deep, chocolaty brown.

I don't have any memories of Mom, and only a few of Dada"mostly what Uncle Hugh, Aunt Bessie, and Leonard tell me. Which is enough, usually.

My birthdaya"my first day, and Mom's lasta"would be the only day the three of us were all in this world together. It made sense for Dad to commemorate that day with letters.

But what had Dad meant, he was "leaving something else" for me? What would it be? And where was it? And how was I supposed to find it?

The thoughts whirred in my head until they became heavy and dreamlike, and I fell asleep.

Being Twelve Is (Unfortunately) Just Like Being Eleven.

The curling ribbons from Aunt Bessie's present were still tangled in my hair. My neck hurt. And my eyes felt funny, because everything seemed all green. The light had been on all night.

It was morning; my birthday was over.

I wrapped a sweatshirt blanket around me and stumbled to the kitchen.

"Morning, cupcake." Aunt Bessie hugged me hard, pressing my head into her chest. "Your breakfast is ready." On the table was a plate with an enormous slice of birthday cake and a tall gla.s.s of milk.

"Thanks." I started to eat. The cake tasted so good for breakfast.

"Will you be ready to go in twenty minutes?"

Only then did I realize: "I didn't do any of my homework."

"Why not? You knew you were having a party. You should have done it right after school."

"I thought there would be time after everyone left."

"You really should have done it before. Do you need some sort of note?"

I shook my head. "The teachers don't care if it's your birthday. That kind of thing is for first graders."

Just then, Ava started crying. Aunt Bessie bustled off.

I pulled the half-flattened ribbons out of my hair and left them on the table.

Franklin decided to go to an "Interested in Student Government?" meeting during lunch. I was definitely Not Interested, so I headed to the cafeteria on my own for the first time. I wasn't sure where to sit. The lunchroom is big, crowded with kids from all grades, so it doesn't seem like the friendliest of places without your trusted buddy.

One girl was sitting by herself. She looked small enough to be a sixth grader. Maybe she'd be really neat and we could be friends.

"Hi. Can I sit here?"

The girl thought for a minute. "Where's that weird boy you're always with? Would he have to come, too?"

"No," I said, stunned. "And never mind."

I continued to wander the tables until I spotted Caroline eating alone. Just knowing her name made her seem comfortingly familiar. I sat diagonal from her, returned her smile, and took out my pulverized PB&J and bruised apple.

I was just opening my mouth to take a bite when someone announced in my ear, "Move it, Scab-Picker." Amanda was standing there, surrounded, as usual, by sidekicks.

I shut my mouth, missing the sandwich. I didn't want to find out what she'd say next if I stuck around, but didn't want to give in entirely. I slid my lunch to the last spot at the table and b.u.mped down the seats. When I picked up my sandwich, Amanda hollered, "I said move it, Scabular. We don't want you at our table."

My throat felt like I was choking. I'm not a crier; I could count on one hand the number of times I remembered crying. But it seemed that if I opened my mouth, I might start to cry right there in the lunchroom. That would be even worse than scabby legs or bandaged hands.

I put my sandwich in my bag and moved three tables over near some kids I didn't know.

Maybe they didn't know I was a loser.

They didn't even look at me.

"I finished my homework," Franklin announced when he showed up in my room that afternoon.

"Good for you, dorkus," I said. "I didn't even start." I had been lying in my bed, staring at the ceiling.

"Want to play Knights?"

I looked at the smooth white patches of skin on my healed legs. I thought about lunch, and how those scabs were going to stick with me forever now. About how there'd been another silly-looking injury the very next week. Maybe there was a tiny chance that people would forget if I was more careful.

"No."

"Oh, okay," Franklin said. "What do you want to do? We could play Robbers, or tag, ora""

"I don't want to play," I said. I added, in a whisper, "I don't want to play ever again."

"Why not?"

"We're too old."

"Since when? I don't remember any rules about that."

"Well, there are. I just don't want to anymore."

"Want to do something else, then?"

"Not really."

Franklin crouched down and started tracing marks with his fingers along the floorboards.

About ten minutes later, he finally said, "How many floorboards do you think there are?"

"I don't know."

"We could probably figure it out.a Oh, I know! I totally forgot. I'll be back in a few minutes."

He must have gone all the way home, because twenty minutes later he returned with a cardboard box. Its contents made a shifting sound. "A puzzle. A thousand pieces. I haven't even opened it."

Was a puzzle a cool thing to do? Well, I was pretty sure no telltale injuries could happen from working on it. It was nice of Franklin to think of something like that.

We went to work on the dining room table. The puzzle was of a s.p.a.ce shuttle orbiting Earth. Franklin, of course, had a systematic plan.

"First we'll separate things into four piles: edges, black s.p.a.ce pieces, white shuttle pieces, and blue and green Earth pieces."

We dumped the pieces out and started sorting. For some reason, I couldn't help sliding separated pieces back into the big pile when Franklin wasn't looking.