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“I just made it for me.”
    â€œIt’s great you have that freedom, Freida,” her mother said. “I’m so proud of you.”
    Sometimes it was better to get out of the game altogether instead of worrying if you were winning or losing.

COINCIDENCE |kō'-in(t)-s-den(t)s|
----
    noun
    1 a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection : it’s no coincidence that this new burst of innovation has occurred in the free nations | they met by coincidence .
    2 correspondence in nature or in time of occurrence : the coincidence of interest between the mining companies and certain politicians.
    3 Physics the presence of ionizing particles or other objects in two or more detectors simultaneously, or of two or more signals simultaneously in a circuit.
    And the funny part was that she wasn’t going to have to change her name.
    Only Elizabeth didn’t think there was anything funnyabout any of it. Miss Robinson told the class she was getting married. She made it into one of her word games. Elizabeth didn’t write down one word (even though coincidence was such an easy one). She just sat there wondering how she was going to get by for the two weeks Miss Robinson—who would henceforth be known as Mrs. Robinson—was away on her honeymoon.
    coin
    den
    nice
    need
    Sometimes Elizabeth dreamed about Miss Robinson. She dreamed Miss Robinson was her mother and they went on picnics together. It must have been something she had seen in a TV commercial, with a red checkered blanket and a wicker basket, because on the picnic, in the dream, she spilled ketchup on her shirt and Miss Robinson cleaned it up right away with some special laundry detergent and she didn’t get mad at all.
    Miss Robinson never got mad. She taught language arts and social studies. She had her own library in the back of the room and kids were allowed to borrow books without signing them out or being told to be quiet whilefinding one. She called it the honor system. She expected you to return the book. If you lost it, she expected you to replace it with some other (appropriate) book, but she didn’t get mad.
    It’s not that Elizabeth didn’t love her own mother. She did.
    It was just a dream.
    ice
    dice
    no
    in
    none
    Regina Rashad won this time. She got to pick her prize from the drawer. Then Miss Robinson told everyone to take out their notebooks. It was time for language arts.
    â€œI’d like to ask everyone what their parents thought of our anthology.”
    â€œ The Answering Voice, ” Ethan called out.
    â€œ The Answering Voice, ” Miss Robinson agreed. “So let’s go around the room. I’d love to hear.”
    Even the desks in Miss Robinson’s room were arranged in a special way, like a giant horseshoe, two horseshoes—one smaller one inside the bigger one,everyone facing the back of the room, where Miss Robinson sat directly in front of all her books. She started at the far left, outer horseshoe.
    â€œMy mom and dad loved it.”
    â€œVery creative and wonderful.”
    And then once somebody had used a word, it seemed it was the only word the next five people could remember.
    â€œJust like a real book. The poems were all so creative.”
    â€œReally creative.”
    â€œAll the poems were really creative.”
    â€œWonderful and creative.”
    â€œMy mom said it was really creative. She loved it.”
    Elizabeth counted the number of kids till Miss Robinson got to her and asked what her parents thought of The Answering Voice. Only her mother hadn’t seen the book of poetry. Her mother didn’t even know about it, and Elizabeth hadn’t talked to her father in three years—which was actually a very good thing, according to Elizabeth’s mom.
    So what would Elizabeth say? She had had all weekend to show her mom. She had Friday night and all day Saturday and all day Sunday. Friday was the vet and then