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understand this, Stevie. Just let us know.”
    “Thanks, but it won’t be necessary,” Stevie assured her again. Then she had to dash off to her homeroom. Now she had only eight minutes to sharpen those pencils. Miss Fenton had meant well, but she hadn’t understood. That was okay. Like everyone else, she would see the change in Stevie eventually. For now it was enough for Stevie to know about it.
    It turned out that Stevie didn’t have any time at all to sharpen her pencils, because the minute she got to her classroom, Miss Fenton announced a schoolwide assembly. All students, faculty, and any parents who were at the school that morning were invited to come immediately.
    As they entered the assembly hall, Stevie felt a lot of eyes on her. The looks were of concern, sympathy, and wonder. She realized that by now just about everyone knew that Alex was in the hospital and they were all curious. Some had other reactions, too.
    It turned out that the assembly had to do with Alex.Miss Fenton told everybody—as if they didn’t already know—about his meningitis. Then she explained what she knew about the disease. She also said that to the best of their knowledge nobody else at the school was infected, and it seemed very unlikely that they would be. It was a disease that was spread only by close contact, and since Alex had been out of school for a couple of days already, a doctor had assured her that he almost certainly wouldn’t have infected anyone at school. Then she explained that Alex’s family had been given vaccinations, so they wouldn’t infect anybody, either. What she was getting at was that school was going to continue as usual, and nobody should stay home just because Alex was sick.
    Stevie looked straight forward, gazing firmly at Miss Fenton. She was very aware of the fact that almost everybody in the assembly hall was looking at her, and she could imagine what was going on in their minds. Some of them were feeling pity, most of the rest were wondering if she was carrying any germs they should be worried about.
    Stevie didn’t care what they were thinking. All she knew was that her brother was ill and she had a job to do to see that he got better.
    Miss Fenton dismissed the assembly. The bell rang. It was time for math class.
    Miss Snyder always began the class by having the students correct one another’s homework papers.
    “Okay, everybody swap papers,” she said. She did allow the students to choose which other student got to look at the work they’d done, which had often spared Stevie the humiliation of having somebody she didn’t like sneer at her mistakes. Stevie was reaching for her bag with her assignment in it when Miss Snyder suggested that she just look on with somebody else.
    “But I’ve got the assignment here,” she said, producing it.
    “You do?” The teacher was clearly surprised. Stevie knew she was recalling dozens of weak excuses she’d heard from Stevie, and that she’d just assumed Stevie wouldn’t have gotten her homework done in the face of a real problem.
    “Sure,” she said. “I had a lot of time to work at the hospital yesterday. It was pretty quiet, so I just did my work.”
    “Well, uh, good,” Miss Snyder said. “Very good.” She smiled, her surprise turning to pleasure.
    That made Stevie feel good. Finally somebody was appreciating her new way of living her life. That must mean that it was working. She was sure Alex must feel her own happiness at the new and improved Stevie.
    It turned out that she
was
a new and improvedStevie, because she got eighteen of the twenty problems correct. Miss Snyder was even more pleased by that than she was by the fact that Stevie had done them.
    “
Very
good,” she said to Stevie as the members of the class filed out. “I knew you could do it.”
    “I have to work extra hard these days,” Stevie replied. “See, I’m going to have to help Alex catch up when he gets better.”
    “Yes,” said Miss Snyder. “I