Finding Perfect

To twelve-year-old Molly Nathans, perfect is:

—The number four

—The tip of a newly sharpened No. 2 pencil

—A crisp white pad of paper

—Her neatly aligned glass animal figurines

What’s not perfect is Molly’s mother leaving the family to take a faraway job with the promise to return in one year. Molly knows that promises are sometimes broken, so she hatches a plan to bring her mother hom...