North Carolina EOC English II Practice Questions - North Carolina End-of-Course English II Test Exam

Read the following passage. When the bus pulled away from the curb, Lina did not wave. She stood on the porch of the house that was no longer hers and watched the taillights shrink until they were only two red pins against the gray road. Her mother had said the move would be an adventure, a fresh start, a chance to become someone new. But Lina understood, even at fourteen, that becoming someone new always meant leaving someone old behind. The oak tree in the front yard still held the swings her father had knotted the summer before he left. She had begged her mother to let her take the rope, but her mother said there was no room in the truck for things that could not stand on their own. Now the new family was due to arrive by Sunday, and Lina hoped, quietly and without telling anyone, that they would have a daughter who knew how to climb. Which statement best expresses a theme of the passage?