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off.
    â€œAll right, then. Any questions? You set?”
    â€œI have to get my cards in the right order.” She has been so busy watching the parade and, well, thinking about things, she has almost forgotten about her speech.
    â€œGet them ready. Don’t want to mess this up.” Patsy Whelk taps twice more on her clipboard. “I’ll be back,” she says, and then she disappears into the crowd.
    â€œRuby will be fine,” Aunt Rachel says to the spot where Patsy Whelk used to be. “She always is. Aren’t you?”
    Ruby smiles for Aunt Rachel.
    â€œThey’re going, honey. Look. See?” The bagpipers’ backs are to the circle in the square now, their kilts swishing side to side with every step. Carter-Ann lifts one hand from her ear and then smooshes it back down. They might be going, but she can still hear their music.
    Ruby sorts through her cards. Patsy Whelk is right. She should not be thinking about Nero or Lucy or anything else. She should be thinking about not messing up. Okay, the destiny card is first, but what comes next? Ruby finds the card near the back of the stack and slips it in where it belongs.
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Donut holes made him famous, but being a sailor was what Captain Bunning loved. When he and his ship grew too old to sail,

How Ruby Knew
    If you are a sixth-grader at Bunning Elementary, the last three weeks of school are likely to be so busy that you might not even tell your best friend about your quarter sailing through Captain Bunning’s bronze donut. She might be busy with her auditions for this summer’s Hungry Nation play, and you might not want to distract her. And if you did tell her about the quarter, she’d ask what you wished for. And you’d have to tell about the day Gigi died. About messing everything up. And how maybe you aren’t as good at figuring things out as you’re supposed to be.
    Besides, you might not be entirely sure your wish is going to come true.
    You might have messed up the wishing, too. Maybe you miscounted and said your wish eighty-nine times or ninety-one times instead of the exact right ninety. You have no proof that a wish is in the works. Nothing felt different after your quarter went through the donut. Nothing, as far as you can tell, has changed.
    So you don’t say anything. You focus on the end of the year. There are tests to take, after all, and final projects to present and desks to clean out and assemblies to attend. The kindergarteners will host a “Goodbye, Sixth-Graders” picnic, and you will eat egg salad sandwiches and try to remember what it felt like to be six and have your whole life ahead of you.
    There will be a field trip to the middle school, where you’ll tour the classrooms and the hallways and meet the school principal and the counselors and a librarian who seems nice but who tells you this is her last week of school too. That she is retiring in order to spend more time showing her champion corgis. And you will try not to stare at the middle school students, who look so much older and taller and bigger and cooler. You will wonder if they remember what it feels like to have just turned twelve.
    And then it will be time for graduation. There’s a ceremony a few days before the rest of the school lets out, and if you are a girl like Ruby Pepperdine, you will sit in a folding chair up on the stage with your classmates and look out at all the parents and grandparents and uncles and aunts. Speeches will be made about your past and your future, and your teachers will hand out awards. Outstanding Student in Mathematics. Outstanding Student in Language Arts. Outstanding Musician.
    Your student council leaders, McKenzie Monk and Mark Davis, will announce awards voted on by your classmates: Funniest. Friendliest. Most Dramatic (which goes to your best friend, Lucy). Most Likely to Succeed (which goes to McKenzie Monk and Mark Davis).
    If you were Ruby Pepperdine and knew that