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“What? That’s my job. All the twirlers shout out.”

“Well, don’t.”

“Girl, if you’re looking for someone to blame for messin’ up, point that finger back at yourself.”

Razi was the first Carter to reach her. He threw his arms around Keisha.

“You got tangled up in your nerves again, Key. Here’s a hug.”

Keisha shrugged him off. “If you weren’t fooling in the bleachers, I might have done better. Mama, Razi acting crazy messed me up! Don’t let him come next time.”

“What about me?” Grandma asked. “I was yelling louder than Razi. Should I not come, too?”

Daddy handed Paulo to Mama. “Fay, can you get a
ride with Mr. Sanders and the boys? I promised the folks over at the V.A. facility that I’d put up some decals to protect the birds from their picture window. They’ve already had one collision. I’ll take Keisha with me.”

Despite her poor performance, Marcus, Jorge and Aaliyah had all scored personal bests, giving Langston Hughes just a few more points than Cesar Chavez and winning them a spot in the district regional meet in Detroit.

High fives, chest bumps, back claps were traded back and forth. But not with Keisha. She was so mad she didn’t even say good-bye to her friends. Once she was in the truck, she realized she was still holding on to the jump rope she’d used in the speed jump.

“Daddy.” Keisha smacked the rope against the glove compartment. “You can’t let Razi come to the district regionals. He made me mess up.”

Daddy didn’t answer for a moment. He fiddled with the heater and rolled down the window, using his gloved hand to wipe the ice crystals off the side mirror.

“Something for you to think about, Key,” he said, backing out of their space in the school parking lot. “Razi ran all over the gym last year, just like the other kids his age. It’s a long time to sit still. But most important, honey …” He paused and, without taking his eyes off the road, put his hand on Keisha’s arm.

She shrugged it away.

“It’s never bothered you before. Are you sure Razi is what’s making you—”

“I don’t know what it is! Everything is making me jumpy—”

Daddy laughed. “That’s a good thing. It
is
a jump rope competition, after—”

“Not in a good way.” Keisha wished Daddy wouldn’t laugh … 
or
give high fives to Marcus and Jorge, who both placed in speed jumping even though it was their first year on the team.

They entered the drive to the V.A. facility. As they drove toward the main entrance, Daddy spotted Sarge all bundled up, sitting on a bench in the sun.

“Why don’t you visit with Sarge while I install these decals? It will be good for you to get some sunshine and fresh air.”

“Fine.” Keisha jumped out of the truck without another word.

“Well, hello, Miss Carter. How nice to see you. How is the squirrel situation going over at the Mt. Mercy campus?”

“Okay.” Keisha didn’t bother to brush away the snow. She hopped onto the bench and studied her mittens. “Well, not okay, really. One got into the president’s office with a peanut, and he’s allergic.”

“Still …” Sarge gave a long, cat-like stretch and closed his eyes. “You should never take your job too seriously. Or it can affect your not-job. At the moment, it’s a beautiful February day. The sun is shining, the snow is sparkling. But you look like you have a storm cloud over your head.”

Sarge re-arranged himself on the bench to try to find a more comfortable position. “Unless this has nothing to do with squirrels at all. I see you have your jump rope with you.”

Keisha looked over at Sarge. His kind eyes were all it took to make her pour out the misery of the day. “It’s the safest routine I’ve done all year! Coach just wanted me to jump clean. But I couldn’t even do that.”

“I’m sorry, Keisha. I know how important it was for you to do well for your team.”

A fat teardrop balanced on Keisha’s eyelid. She had wanted so much to be the backbone Coach Rose had asked her to be.

“Does this mean you don’t get to go to Detroit?”

“No. We still won because Marcus and Jorge got first and second in speed jumping. We just beat Cesar Chavez.”

“That’s great!” Sarge held up his hand and Keisha got a high five after all. “When do you go?”

“The district regionals are two weeks from Tuesday.”

“So you have another chance. That’s excellent news! I have some good news, too. I got my new sleeve.”

“Really?” Keisha brushed her cheeks with the backs of her mittens.

“Yup. This baby brings new meaning to the phrase ‘perfect fit.’ ” Sarge tugged on his pant leg to show Keisha. “Wanna hear how they made it?”

Keisha nodded. She scooted closer to Sarge and examined the shiny plastic cup that fit snugly to the end of his leg, just below his knee.

“A doctor took a wand filled with sensors and rubbed it all over my stump. Like this …” Sarge demonstrated by rubbing his left hand all over his right fist. “I watched on the computer screen as the wand communicated information about the contours of my stump and built a three-dimensional model in the exact same shape. Every little mole or fold of skin was included. So now there’s no rubbing at all. Pretty soon, my new walking foot will arrive and I can start learning to walk again. I mean, I do know how to walk, but I’m going to learn with my custom-made foot.”

Keisha sat back. Sarge was like a little kid, so excited to be learning how to walk again. She crossed her arms and tilted her chin to feel the sun on her face.

“But what’s even better is that since this sleeve fits my leg perfectly, I can attach all kinds of artificial feet to the other end and each one will feel comfortable right away. They have special feet for different uses. When I’ve saved up enough money, I can buy one that will let me climb again.”

“You can climb up mountains again?”

“Sure I can. Climbing mountains is the same as
walking from here to the entrance of the building, Keisha. One step at a time. Hey, look. It’s Larry.”

Keisha followed the direction of Sarge’s finger to the moving puffs of snow that Larry kicked off the branches as he leapt from limb to limb.

“I don’t know what it is about these guys … but they lift me up, you know? They’re carefree. And they don’t mind doing the same darn thing over and over and over. They’re always straining and struggling to climb the bird feeders—did I tell you that Lt. Washington had to install raccoon guards because the squirrels here are so tenacious that the regular squirrel guards didn’t work? I think about how stubborn they are when I’m trying to bend and stretch in physio.

“Problem is, I can’t really see them from inside. That’s why I come out here whenever it’s not too cold. We haven’t had too many days like this one.” Keisha and Sarge watched Larry find an acorn still clinging to the tree. He smoothed his tail along his back like a big, fluffy scarf. After he’d finished nibbling the acorn, he pressed his body flat along the limb, as if he was going to take a nap.

“You know what, Keisha? I just thought of something. When I was a climber, I competed a lot. I wanted to be the best. After a while, I found that it meant so
much to win that I started getting nervous before a competition. So nervous that sometimes I threw up. That would sap my energy and make it harder to scale the verticals.

“Somewhere along the line, I realized I’d gotten off track. I mean, I didn’t start climbing as a young kid to earn trophies. I decided that at the next event I would just enjoy myself—basically that I would let myself lose if that’s what having fun cost me. Having fun became my goal—not winning. So I relaxed and just got into it.”

“Did you go with the flow?” Keisha asked, remembering her conversations with Savannah and Marcus the day before.

“Yes, exactly!”

“What happened?”

“I didn’t win. Not even close. But I had more fun at that meet than I’d had in the whole past year. I liked climbing again. The same as when I was a kid. And after a while, I started winning, too.”

Sarge re-adjusted his pant leg so that it fell back down around his false leg. “Now, going back, my challenges will be different. I know I can’t do things the same way. I’m going to have to learn to think differently … be a little better about taking my time. But I can still have fun. Like our friend Larry up there.”

“Keisha!” Daddy had stepped out the door of the
V.A. facility and was waving his arms at his daughter. “Want to come in here and check my decal placement?”

Keisha was ready. She couldn’t even feel her rear end, it was so numb from sitting on the snow.

She hopped down and gave Sarge a big hug. “Next summer, I’ll bring my friends Aaliyah and Wen and we’ll teach you how to double-Dutch,” she promised before skipping up the sidewalk to join her dad.

“What did you and Sarge talk about?” Daddy asked as he led her down the corridor and past the nurses’ station to a big sunroom with floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides.

“The flow,” Keisha said, smiling at Daddy’s puzzled expression.

Whatever the flow was—and Keisha wasn’t sure she could describe it yet in words—it was happening outside the windows of the new sunroom at the V.A. facility. Men and women sat in their wheelchairs beside low coffee tables, observing the birds flitting from bush to tree to feeder. Goldfinches clung to the thistle netting, and nuthatches climbed the suet feeders. Bright red cardinals swooped in for a quick bite at the sunflower-seed platform.

Keisha searched the woods for squirrels. Sarge was right. The ones on the ground were too far away to admire
their bright eyes and bushy tails and silly squirrel antics. If only there were a way to bring them close without their messing with the bird feeders so that Sarge and the other vets could enjoy them year-round.

“What do you think?” Daddy put his arm around his daughter.

“I love it. It’s like a wildlife show.”

“All birds, all the time. But I meant, what do you think about my decals?”

“I think you need a few more down low. Remember the cardinal that ran into our courtyard window at school? That was right near the bottom.”

“Good point.” Daddy peeled another decal from its backing.

“Then I think maybe we should go home so I can say I’m sorry to Razi.”

“Marcus, when did we switch from social studies to architecture?” Mr. Drockmore was walking around checking student work. They’d been assigned a “mind-mapping” exercise to find a good topic for their reports on the Civil War. He picked up Marcus’s paper and studied it closely. Then he held it out for the class to see. “Please enlighten us about this structure … and how it connects to your Civil War report.”

Marcus twisted his pencil eraser inside his ear and crinkled his nose. He always did this when he got embarrassed. “I got my mind map done on the other side. I was just doodling to keep from disturbing others.”

“Oh, well, then. Congratulations on the speedy completion of your assignment.” Mr. Drockmore flipped the piece of paper over. “Back to work, everyone.”

Once again, heads went down and pencils were picked up. Keisha liked doing mind maps. You wrote down three things you wanted to learn more about, and then you asked questions about each thing. Then you asked questions about the questions, narrowing your subject down until you got a good idea for your paper.

Mr. Drockmore kneeled next to Keisha. “Do you
mind asking Marcus some clarifying questions?” He placed the mind map Marcus had done on Keisha’s desk. “In the meantime, I’ll let Marcus look at yours.…”

“Sure, Mr. Drockmore.” Keisha’s writing and Marcus’s drawings often got tacked up on the PMA board (“PMA” stood for “positive models of accomplishment”). When students were really good at something, Mr. Drockmore often asked them to help other kids “step up their game.” Keisha looked at other people’s writing, and Marcus critiqued posters before they were displayed.

Keisha studied what Marcus had written. “Guns. Carrier Pigeons. Tents.” Under “Guns,” he’d written, “What kind?” Under “Pigeons,” “How come they didn’t just fly away?” Keisha brainstormed more questions for Marcus to ask. After she’d come up with a few, she flipped over the page to see what Marcus had drawn.

It was a house built with crazy-sized pieces of lumber. Hey! She recognized those pieces. They were from Big Bob’s box of odds and ends. The box had been donated by their friends who worked in the woodshop at Downtown Senior Neighbors’ Community Center. At the last meeting, the Wild 4-Evers had decided the pieces weren’t big or standard enough to make birdhouses, so they planned to save them for a big s’mores roast.

But it looked as if Marcus had other ideas. Could birds live in these? Keisha let her mind wander. This was the sort of house Razi would enjoy living in. He could climb from one perch to the other. In her mind, Keisha saw him leaping through the bleachers. He frolicked like a … like Larry the squirrel!

Mr. Drockmore rang the bell on his desk, which signaled that it was time to get ready for lunch.

Keisha rushed over to Marcus. “Will you bring this to lunch?” she asked, slapping the paper on his desk, house side up.