Excerpt from With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Thanks for covering me."

"I'm going to need to you do the same thing when I send this thirst trap pic to Laura."

I shake my head with a smile. We pay for our lunch and make our way back to the table by the windows. One thing about Angelica: she's a pit bull once she sinks her teeth into an idea. And she's right back on discussing electives as soon as we grab a seat.

"Emoni, I see you doing that thing."

I groan and take a bite of my sandwich. I want to save my yummy applesauce for last. "What thing?" I say around a mouthful of turkey. If they put a little chutney on the bread, or a nice garlic spread and toasted it, this sandwich would be bomb. My fingers itch to take out my phone to write down a recipe idea.

"That martyr thing you do when you want something but convince yourself you can't have it because of Babygirl, or 'Buela."

I swallow. Is she right? Is that what I'm doing? Sometimes your girl reads you better than anyone else. "I just wish I had it figured out like you, Gelly. The girlfriend, the art school dreams, the grades."

She points her spork at me. "You're stronger than anyone I know, Emoni Santiago. It's senior year, the last time we get to just be teenagers. If you can't try something new now, when can you?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I'd like to learn how to cook food from Spain."

Behind her glasses, Angelica's eyes get wide. "Girl, you know it's not just learning to cook food from Spain, it's learning to cook food in Spain. My advisor told me there's a weeklong trip in the spring."

Schomburg has offered immersion classes before. A pre-Columbian history class that took students to an archeological site in Mexico, a fashion design class that took students on a tour of old textile mills in New England. There's never been a class I wanted to take, or a trip I thought I could afford.

And you have no business taking this class when you could have a study hall, and you can't afford this trip either, Emoni. But I don't say anything out loud to Angelica. I just take another bite of my sandwich, close my eyes, and savor, because I can't think of a single way to make my life more how I imagine it, but I can imagine a hundred ways to make this sandwich better. And sometimes focusing on what you can control is the only way to lessen the pang in your chest when you think about the things you can't.

Kitchen Sink Conversations

"Babygirl! You already look like you've grown!" I pick her up and twirl her around the living room.

'Buela swats at my butt with a dustrag. "Ay, Emoni, set her down. She just had some crackers." At that threat of throw-up, I settle Babygirl on my hip, even though she's getting heavier and I'm not getting any bigger.

"Did you learn a lot, Babygirl?" She nods and snuggles into my neck, still cradling her juice cup. I run my finger down her chubby cheek. My favorite silent game to play is to try and find my family in her features. Her big brown eyes and long lashes have to come from me; 'Buela has the same eyes. Her lips are the same shape as her father's. Aunt Sarah has shared some baby pictures of my mother and her as children, and I like to think I can see that lineage in her button nose, the seashell of her ears. And then there's the pieces of Babygirl that belong to her alone.

She pulls back from my neck suddenly and lowers her juice cup. "Chugga, chugga, choo-choo train!" she says. I look at 'Buela with a raised eyebrow.

"They read a book in daycare about trains. Mamá Clara says that Emma was very interested."

I nod at Babygirl as she garbles out a summary of the choo-choo trains book. At least, I assume that's what she's telling me.

"Don't you have a doctor's appointment?" I ask 'Buela when Babygirl is finished. "I thought I would find you running out the door. What's it for again?"

'Buela dusts off the family photos on the mantel. "My appointment got pushed back fifteen minutes, so I have a bit of time."

Excerpted from With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo. Copyright © 2019 by Elizabeth Acevedo. Excerpted by permission of HarperTeen. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.