At Mik's place, twenty days before the hanging, Mik's got an ear infection; she rinses her ears out and puts peroxide in them.
On her
way to school, Mik sees Fatima with papers and asks when she'll see her again.
How about dinner tomorrow?
Mik
agrees and says she'll see Fatima at her place this time.
She's
supposed to tell someone when the speech therapist doesn't show for class, but
Mik doesn't bother—she'd rather practice making paper angels from the
newspaper.
After
class, she heads to the bathroom to fiddle with her ears. They stick out so
much, which she hates. She wishes God would give her some normal ears.
Still,
she hates when people feel sorry for her, even though she doesn't mind feeling
sorry for other people.
In art
class, Jaekwon sits across from her. They have to sketch each other, and she
gets him pretty close.
He draws
footballs for her breasts, and then tells her she has a nice body; he also says
he almost can't tell she's deaf since she talks normally. Mik wonders whether
he's telling the truth.
At
lunch, everyone crowds around Mik: Jaekwon and his crew, along with Shanelle
and her peeps. There's lots of whispering that Mik can't quite make out with
her hearing aids, but she gets that Shanelle wants all of Jaekwon's attention.
Too bad
he's more interested in Mik's drawings and chatting her up. This doesn't go
over well with Shanelle, who can't understand why her man would even talk to
Mik.
As
everyone leaves, Shanelle warns Mik to watch her back.
After
school, Mik walks home with her mom, and they run into Jimmi releasing hundred
of paper doll angels into the breeze.
It looks
like they are flying all around, and it's a beautiful sight.
She
turns to her mom and asks why she hates Jimmi so much. Her mom doesn't really
answer her, but we can see everyone thinks this is a kind gesture of Jimmi's.
Joe sets
up a bank account for Mik for her operation. He also tells her, though, that he
knows she's not sure about the surgery.
That
night, Mik pulls her mom's old guitar out of the closet. She asks her mom to
play, but her mom claims she doesn't remember how.
Mik asks
her why she strings it up then, if she won't play, but her mom claims she has
to get back to work.