When Melody starts school, she knows a lot of words but doesn’t know how to read a book. Mrs. V shows her a documentary about Stephen Hawking, a man who suffers from a disease called ALS. He cannot walk or talk, but he is brilliant. Mrs. V thinks that Melody is similar to him and she comes up with a plan to give Melody more language skills. She completely redesigns Melody’s communication board with a larger variety of nouns, verbs, adjectives, numbers, phrases, and pictures of people in Melody’s life so that she can point to them with her thumb and form a sentence. Mrs. V creates flash cards and Melody learns new words every day. They get along really well and have fun spending time together.

Mrs. Billups calls Melody’s mother and asks her to come in. Melody points to the word alphabet on her board when her mother arrives. Her mother asks the teacher what she was teaching when all the screaming started. When Mrs. Billups tells her they were reviewing the alphabet, Melody’s mother loses her temper. She tells Mrs. Billups that Melody is extremely smart and knows the alphabet, all the sounds of the letters, and hundreds of words on sight. Melody’s mother finds out that Mrs. Billups never even read the teacher’s notes on the students from the previous year. She assesses that Mrs. Billups hasn’t been teaching or challenging the students, but is merely filling their days with meaningless exercises. Soon after, Mrs. Billings quits her job, so the class has substitute teachers for the remainder of the year.  

Melody’s team from Spaulding Street Elementary is up first against Woodland Elementary. After much back and forth between the two teams, Spaulding Street comes out victorious. Their team is taken to a waiting room to watch the rest of the preliminary rounds play out. Melody’s family, Mrs. V, and Catherine are all there. The competition continues and after the fourth round, Perry Valley school wins, ending with one point more than Spaulding Street. Mr. Kingsley announces Spaulding Street and Perry Valley as the two top-scoring schools that will compete against each other in the final round. He states that in addition to competing in Washington, D.C., the winners and their chaperones will have all their expenses paid for the trip, plus be given a tour of the city. The overall winning team will receive a giant gold trophy and their school will receive two thousand dollars.

It’s a very stormy, lightning-filled day, so Melody has to go back to using her manual wheelchair and her old Plexiglas communication board. The morning is very hectic for the whole family, but Melody’s mother agrees to take Melody to school in her SUV. After getting soaked by the rain, she gets Melody in the car. Just as she’s about to back out of the driveway, Melody sees Penny running out the front door. Melody’s mother does not notice her. Since Melody doesn’t have her Medi-Talker, she starts kicking, screaming, crying, and flailing about to try to warn her mother, but her mother thinks Melody is just acting out. The car starts backing down the driveway and they feel a soft thump. Melody’s father comes running out the door calling for Penny. Melody’s parents are horrified when they realize Penny has been injured by the car. Melody sits in the car frozen with fear.