My eight-year-old skipped lunch for six weeks to buy a red dress for the little girl across the street. The next morning our lawn was covered with fifty lunchboxes — and taped to the biggest one, a beat-up metal thing sitting alone in the middle of the grass, was a note that said OPEN THIS ONE FIRST.

She held it up in the air and waited.

Nobody said anything. Not one of the fourteen.

Milo was on the stairs. I didn't know that until later. He'd come down for the tape himself.

He said, from the landing, "She knows when someone's kind to her."

That is a verbatim quote and he was eight years old.

Rosalind put the dress down on the table and sat back in her chair and asked somebody to pass the beans.

The party was Tuesday. Six people in Rhonda's back yard, a store cake, a sprinkler.

Rhonda got the dress on her and Birdie made a sound I have never heard a human being make before or since, grabbed the skirt in both fists, and spun until she went over sideways into the grass laughing.

Milo laughed harder than anybody there.

Rhonda posted three photos that night. That's all. Three photos and about four sentences about a neighbor boy and where the dress came from.