The Dillards live in the penthouse. This should in theory be awfully high for any pests to get to, but they have had to call the landlord four times about mice and rats. The traps aren't any good at catching them and Rebecca swears they must be coming in through the drains or something, covered in what must be garbage disposal junk or shampoo-slick hair from the shower, they look so gross compared to cute pictures of pet rats, but once John nailed one with the cast iron frying pan for Mom to shake angrily at the landlord and they promised to have everything checked and caulked again and that did help.

Rebecca sings, in school and in church and on the Internet, and she's good at it. Sometimes she sings to things when she's all by herself and no one can hear her silly made-up lyrics, and she's gotten her computer to work after being broken that way, though this is certainly just superstition, and she perks up her plants that way if she forgets to water them, which she's less sure about, and she has toyed with bringing this peculiarity to a parent or to church but she likes that it's hers. One day she's home sick from school, all by herself, recovering from a stomach bug, and a rat that looks like it must've come through the toilet skitters across the floor towards her and she doesn't have long to improvise, but she kills the icky rat with a bit of quick patter ripping off snippets of Hamilton, and calls maintenance so she doesn't have to touch it to clean it up.

Rebecca is fast asleep when it happens, hugging her pillow and wearing her silk pajamas with music notes on them and dreaming about winning on American Idol, and then she's awake, just in time to get one last glimpse of her dim room before it's gone.