It happened when I was at lunch and I was sitting by myself and then all these girls like Carlene and Bonnie and Chrissie Tolman, who is the new student body president for next year I just found out, and who learned my name my first day back, which made me excited, and then a boy said, “She knows everyone’s name. That’s what she does,” and I said, “Oh.”

Anyway, all of the girls I know and lots of girls I didn’t know came to my table.

“You’ve won a major award,” Chrissie said.

One girl, a redhead named Sasha, she started to cry.

“What’s wrong?” I asked the others.

“She was up for the award but you got the most votes.”

I was going to ask what it was for but then the principal was on the loudspeaker and said she had a special announcement. “One of our very own students has been picked to live in Portland, Maine!”

Everyone gasped.

“This only happens to one out of every 345,908 sixth graders.”

Chrissie and Carlene and Bonnie and all the girls around me started patting me on the back and I was nodding and thanking them and I felt bad for Sasha and I said, “I’m so sorry.” And she said, “You deserve it.”

And then the principal said, “Instead of announcing it myself, I have invited someone very special to do the honors for me.”

The whole lunchroom was silent and I wondered if it’d be Beyoncé or maybe the president of the United States.

And then, after a few seconds, a man’s voice came on.

My dad’s voice.

My dad.

And he said, “Don’t go, Olivia! Come to Bryce Canyon with me! I miss you so much! Don’t go to Maine and eat lobsters.”

I wanted to go to Maine to eat lobsters.

Of course I did.

But I knew, even though the girls were all staring at me, some holding hands, others whispering, Maine, Maine, Maine, Maine, even through all that, I knew, with all my heart, that I was meant to ride around on a horse with my dad at Bryce Canyon.

And that’s when someone threw a hamburger patty at my head.