Ellie requests to go to Bert’s house, as she is hoping that Mr. Akers can answer some questions about spices at the grocery store. However, she only communicates to her mother that she needs to see Bert. When she arrives, she discovers Bert working in a shed outside. She is hesitant to talk to him at first. She says, “I forget sometimes that without Coralee around, Bert can be hard to talk to” (213). Their interaction, however, goes more smoothly than she expects. She discovers that Bert has been working on making a miniature model of Eufaula in a building behind his family’s trailer. She also learns that someone from school broke into the building and destroyed some of his models before Christmas. This is why he needed to stop riding the bus. She offers to help him repair his model, and they spend some time painting miniature trees to continue the repairs.

Ellie falls asleep in the kitchen trying out different recipes for the bake off. She awakes after having a recurring dream. In this dream, she can walk, shower on her own, and hug her mother at eye-level. She expresses that using a wheelchair after this dream is always worse.