Heartbeat

After school, Annie watches from afar as the track coach tries to convince Max to take a pair of used running shoes and Max stubbornly refuses. The girl’s track coach approaches Annie and pushes her again to join the team, suggesting that Annie is refusing out of fear. This angers Annie, who has no interest in running track. Annie informs the coach that she likes to run by herself. The coach then says that Annie may enjoy being part of a team, which makes Annie even angrier, and even wants to hit the coach (120).

Upset by the encounter, Annie goes for a run as soon as she gets home from school. Max joins her, and they begin silently racing to the bench where they usually rest. She narrowly beats him, and when he compliments her on her pacing, she punches him. She runs back home immediately afterward. Annie, feeling guilty about punching Max, puts her savings in an anonymous envelope and leaves it in his locker.

Her mother is now eight months pregnant, and Annie feels increasingly anxious for her mother and the child. As she and her father help prepare her mother for childbirth, Annie learns about fetal development and how the process of labor will work and worries about all the things that can go wrong.