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brought the soft sleeve to her nose and inhaled. Even though the T-shirt had been washed a hundred times, she believed its threads still held the scent of the Massachusetts coast: the sun-drenched dunes, Aunt Sunny’s living room, the salty air, and even the faintest hint of a waffle cone. She closed her eyes and sniffed again.
    She could almost see herself in her flip-flops and rash guard—the surfer-style bathing suit she preferred—with a towel slung over her shoulder, walking home from the town beach. Or opening the gate to the pasture where the hairy cows wandered, with a dirt road that led to the beach with the rolling dunes, the big waves, and the estuary. Even though last year had been her first trip to Cape Cod, the idea of a summer with only a weekend-long visit to Pruet didn’t seem like summer at all. She needed at least a week there in order to make it count.
    But was it worth sacrificing her only hope of gettinginto the Writers’ Workshop?
    Mom had told her “you get to choose” between Pruet and Summer Scribes like it was a good thing, but the decision already had a weight that was getting heavier by the minute. No matter which option Zinnie went with, she’d have to give up something awesome. Ever since she could remember, she’d wanted to make her own choices: what clothes to put on in the morning, what to eat for dinner, what activities to join after school. But as she’d gotten older and been asked to make more of her own decisions, she’d noticed how much easier it was to just have someone tell her what to do. She closed Muses and stuck her thumb in her mouth—an old, secret habit.
    â€œKnock, knock,” Dad said, tapping on her door. “Can I come give you a good-night kiss?”
    â€œSure,” Zinnie said, wiping her thumb on her pajama bottoms as Dad opened the door.
    â€œUh-oh,” Dad said after taking one look at his fretful daughter.
    â€œWhat?” Zinnie asked.
    â€œI see a worry line,” Dad said. Zinnie pressed a finger to the place between her eyebrows where a line appeared when she was anxious.
    â€œI don’t know what to do,” Zinnie said as Dad sat next to her on the bed. “I really want to go to Summer Scribes.”
    â€œThat’s fine,” Dad said. “You can stay here with usand then go to Pruet with Mom and me. You won’t miss the wedding. There’s no chance of that.”
    â€œBut I’ll miss going to the beach every day and jumping in the waves and climbing the dunes. I’ll miss Aunt Sunny’s stories. I’ll only have three days to get Edith’s ice cream. There probably won’t be time to collect any shells. And Ashley told me she’d show me a hidden rope swing, but now that’s out!”
    â€œThen go to Pruet, honey,” Dad said, and rubbed her back.
    â€œBut then I won’t be able to concentrate on my writing enough to write the best thing ever so that I can get into the Writers’ Workshop in the fall. And then I won’t get to go to England and I’ll have to play soccer and basketball, and, ugh, run track. And I really hate track.” Zinnie’s breath became shallow at the memory of “bringing up the rear.” She was now nearly in tears. “Look,” Zinnie said, opening Muses to the page with the picture of the girls on a double-decker bus. “They go to England over spring vacation, Dad. England! Do you know how bad I want to go to England? Do you know how many stories I could think of there? And all year long I’d get to meet real authors and go to plays and take field trips to interesting places.”
    â€œThat sounds great, Zinnie. But what makes you think you need to do this summer camp to get in? Didn’t you already write something for this program?”
    â€œIt’s not good enough. I see that now.”
    â€œYou’re such a good writer. That play you wrote last summer was