Chapter 1


I’m Veronica Conti and I’m seven.

Seven and a half, actually.

I think I may even be seven and three-quarters, but my know-it-all brother, Jude, says I’m not.

He is nine years old, which is only two years older than me, but he is always correcting me and bossing me around and trying to help me when I don’t even need help!

When I tell people I’m seven and three-quarters, Jude says, “You won’t be seven and three-quarters until December. That’s just simple fractions, which you don’t know how to do yet.”

“I may not know fractions, but I know percents!” I reply. “I know that you are one hundred percent annoying.”

He shrugs. “Just trying to help.”

My best friend, Cora, already knows how to do fractions even though she is in second grade, just like me. She’s a whiz at math … and spelling … and pretty much everything in school, except for gym and music. She finishes her homework with lightning speed and never needs any help.

It takes me forever to do the same homework. I don’t mind my reading, because I get to choose any book I want. I love books about animals. Especially talking animals! Especially talking animals with superpowers!

But the rest of my homework is so boring that I have to take a little break after every question to sing or doodle or do a handstand. Some of the questions don’t make any sense, and it feels like a Martian made them up. I just skip those.

Then, after a million minutes, Jude walks by and says, “Are you still doing your homework? I finished mine ages ago!” It drives me bonkers.

Then my mom or dad or grandma or grandpa walks by and says, “Need some help?” But I shake my head because if Jude can do it by himself, then so can I.

I tap my fingers on my desk really fast, which is what I do when I’m thinking hard, and finally I finish my homework sheet. I jump for joy. Then my mom or dad or grandma or grandpa checks it and says, “Why’d you leave all these questions blank? And didn’t you see the back of the sheet?” I get so frustrated that I feel like snapping my pencil in half.

In fact, I did that once. You know, pencils are not that hard to break. In fact, they’re pretty flimsy.

After I broke the pencil, I told my mom, “I’m so bad at homework! Jude finished his hours ago, all by himself.”

My mom is really good at knowing just what to say when I’m upset. That’s because she’s a therapist and part of her job is to help people with their feelings.

“What’s wrong with needing a little help?” she asked. “After all, you help people all the time.”

That’s true. I am the president of the Fix-It Friends. The group has four members—me, Cora, Jude, and his best friend, Ezra—and the whole point of our group is to help kids with their problems.

“But that’s real-life problems,” I said. “Like worry and teasing and stuff. Not subtraction problems and what’s-the-capital-of-Kentucky problems.”

“It’s the same thing,” Mom said.

I sighed.

“What you have to remember,” said Mom, “is that homework may be easier for Jude, but there are plenty of things that are hard for him that are easy for you.”

“That’s for sure! Have you ever heard Jude sing? He sounds like a dying hyena. And he can’t do anything on the monkey bars. If he tries to hang by his knees, his legs get all tangled and Ezra has to rescue him.”

“And all those things are easy for you,” Mom pointed out.

“Oh yeah,” I agreed. “I could do that stuff in my sleep!”

Sometimes I actually do that stuff in my sleep. Then Jude, who sleeps in the top bunk, says very angrily, “You’re singing in your sleep again! SNAP OUT OF IT!”

What a grump.

“It’s that way with everyone, you know,” Mom said. “We all have stuff we struggle with.”

I nodded, but the truth was, I didn’t really believe her, because some people just seem perfect, with absolutely no problems at all.

Like Liv.


Text copyright © 2017 by Nicole C. Kear

Illustrations copyright © 2017 by Imprint