Amy Anne is in such a good mood that none of her sisters’ antics that evening bother her. Alexis practices ballet in their room and Angelina makes a messy pony stall of hers: “There was shredded white recycled paper/pretend hay everywhere—on her bookshelves, sticking out of her dresser drawers, in her bed” (197). Amy Anne, though, feels no desire to run away. She is too eager for the next night’s school board meeting. At dinner she convinces her parents that she will have the courage to speak, and they agree to bring her. After dinner, though, she sees that the box of completed Request for Recommendation forms is missing.

Amy Anne hurriedly asks Alexis, who says she put the box in their mother’s office to get it out of her way for ballet. The box, though, is empty. Amy Anne panics and with a sickening feeling, goes to investigate the shredded paper heaps in the pony’s room. It is as she fears—Angelina shredded all 500 forms. Amy Anne is furious and screams that she hates the family. She throws clothes and her books into a suitcase and starts away, with Angelina clutching her leg. Her father asks if she is overreacting; this makes Amy Anne pause, then calmly tell them that she is fed up with being the one to make constant concessions for her sisters.