Ava stood in the aisle, calm the way only a matter-of-fact nine-year-old can be, and asked her simple question loud enough for four rows to hear. “Ma’am, is that your boarding pass you’ve been sitting on this whole time, the one that fell out of your purse when you put your feet up?” The woman blinked. Ava pointed to the crumpled paper wedged beneath the woman’s leg, the thing she had been trying to point out since boarding. “Because it says seat 32C. You’re not even in the right row. This was never your seat.”

A ripple of quiet laughter moved through the cabin. The woman snatched the pass from under her leg and stared at it. Row 32. Nowhere near row 14. She had bullied a mother and a baby out of seats that were never in dispute, over a window seat she had no claim to in the first place. Her face went from smug to scarlet. And Ava, still standing, added the line that made the flight attendant press her lips together to keep from smiling. “My mom paid extra for these. You just sat down in the wrong place and yelled at us for it.”