Fish in a Tree

Keisha follows Ally to where she’s hiding in a bathroom stall. Keisha asks why she’s upset that she won an award. Ally explains that she thinks it’s a pity award because she has learning difficulties. For her, reading and writing are like riding a bike every day, but knowing the bike will come apart as you ride it.

When Ally tells Keisha she doesn’t know what it’s like to be different from everyone else, Keisha protests that she looks different, as the only black girl in class. Keisha wisely reflects, however, that she is different only “to the people who see with the wrong eyes. And I don’t care what people like that think” (139).

Keisha invites Ally and Albert to her house for a surprise. When they arrive, Keisha announces that they’re going to bake cupcakes with cookie dough letters inside, as she wants to test different bake times for different kinds of dough.

Keisha assigns Ally the task of reading the recipe and Albert the task of rolling the dough. Albert recognizes that Ally has difficulty reading, and he volunteers to switch tasks. Ally spells “cow” in her cupcake because it’s the first three-letter word she thinks of (and each cupcake only has room for three dough letters).