The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl

At a school assembly, the kids learn they must form teams and do community service projects—bring toys to a children’s hospital, send sports equipment to Kenya, clean a city park, and so on.

Windy gets Lucy to be on her team. Windy will find a third person, but Lucy doubts anyone wants to work with her. Windy’s excited about the project, saying that “we’re going to change the world,” but Lucy doubts her own ability to affect others: “changing the world is a tall order for someone who is just trying to survive each day” (79).

In language arts class, Ms. Fleming asks Lucy to begin reading from a short story. Lucy has to count all the words and the number of letters in each before she reads anything, and she tries to get out of the task, but the teacher insists, so she reads a paragraph at a time and then halts while she counts the next paragraph’s words. Windy volunteers to take over the reading, which gets Lucy off the hook.

The class breaks into groups; Lucy’s group elects her secretary and she ends up doing all the work, answering the study questions while they talk about boys.