Rachel Timeline and Summary

Rachel discusses what it's like to be eleven with the reader.
She wishes she was 102 though because then she would have known what to tell Mrs. Price, and nobody sass-talks a 102 year old.
At school, Mrs. Price holds up a red sweater and demands to know who it belongs to.
Sylvia Saldívar says it belongs to Rachel, and Rachel is too tongue-tied to argue.
Mrs. Price puts it on Rachel's desk, and Rachel is shocked. The sweater is seriously hideous.
She attempts to keep the sweater as far away from her as she can while imagining what she'll do with the thing come lunch.
This upsets Mrs. Price, who demands Rachel wear the sweater.
Rachel puts it on, and her intense revulsion and embarrassment cause her to cry like a three year old.
Afterward, Phyllis Lopez remembers the sweater belongs to her, but it's too late. The damage has been done, and Rachel's birthday is now a total bummer.
Rachel is eleven years old, and it's her birthday, but she wishes the day were far away from her "like a runaway balloon" (22).