Kepler’s Dream by Juliet Bell Page B

twenty years? (What was I going to do the whole time here? Take up knitting? Practice the piano? Grandmother didn’t even
have
a piano! She had everything
but
a piano.) So I just said it was fine, but that I was pretty tired and ought to go brush my teeth and get my pajamas on. I think the normal sound of that reassured her.
    When we hung up, I realized that the only thing I could do was start writing a letter to my mom, like Irene said, so I did that, telling her all about the Good Grammar Correctional Facility and all the rules I was picking up. Writing her made me feel a little bit better.
    And after that I really did brush my teeth and get my pajamas on, and then without even reading I fell into a fitful sleep on the cold twin bed, a fan ticking away overhead all night long, in spite of the cold, that became a helicopter in my dreams, medevacing me back home, to my mom, for safety.

    Sunday, June 20, Albuquerque
    Tough to spell—and I used to think Mississippi was hard!
    Dear Mom,
    Well, I’m here. You can say that much. How about you? Are you there?
    I wonder if the nurses are as nice in Seattle as they are in California and if you miss Dr. Lanner. I do. It was nice of him to say I could call him if I wanted to, but I’m not sure what I would say.
    OK, letter writing! Here goes. I will try not 2 use 2 much bad txt spelling. First, here are a few things I have learned since I got here. I think my stay with Grandmother will turn out to be very educational .
    1. Do not say “What?” if you don’t hear someone. “What?,” which I have been saying my entire life, turns out to be all wrong. You’re supposed to say “Pardon?” or even “I beg your pardon?” Like people in old-fashioned books do.
    2. It is never “Me and so-and-so are …” The truth is, I remember you telling me this, too. So—DON’T say, “Me and Lou are worried we’ll be bored out ofour minds here.” DO say, “ Lou and I are worried we’ll be bored out of our minds here.”
    3. If someone has a lot of things in their house, DO NOT call them “stuff.” “Stuff” is bad. You may say “things,” as in, “Wow, what a lot of things you have!” You SHOULD NOT say, “Where did you get all this stuff?” “How do you keep track of all this stuff?” or “Why in the world do you even HAVE so much stuff?”
    4. “Like,” used as a filler word, was invented by the devil. (Like—whatever!)
    The neighborhood is deadly, too. There are no kids anywhere nearby, unless you count whoever is locked up at the Juvenile Correctional Facility a few blocks away. It is an ugly place with barbed wire around it that I guess is a jail for teenagers when they commit crimes worse than sarcasm. The only hope is this girl Rosie, the daughter of the nice guy Miguel who works for Grandmother, but I haven’t met her yet.
    There’s no barbed wire around here, but it does feel kind of like a prison. I call it the Good Grammar Correctional Facility. I won’t get released until Grandmother has fixed up my grammar. I’m thinking ofdrawing a map of the whole place while I’m here, which will help me get around, and might help me plan an escape route. (JK!)
    Grandmother also explained that her house is very unusual in being more than a hundred years old and made of adobe, which is basically mud. I remember when we made adobe bricks in second grade with Mr. Cooper, and Josh Green cried because he hated getting so dirty.
    Anyway, you know all this already—you and Dad were here together once. I saw your names written on the wall in the room where I’m sleeping. You never told me about it!
    I love you. And I miss you like (expletive deleted).
    Ella

FOUR

    â€œAH e M!”
    I was on the field, and Coach was telling me I had to work harder on my soccer drill. My feet were slow and dragging, and I couldn’t seem