“What’s up with you?” asked Mackenzie, giving me a sidelong glance.
“Nothing.”
“So, are you going to try out for the play?”
I frowned. “What play?”
“Weren’t you paying attention? It was all Cha Cha and Jasmine could talk about.”
“Really? When?”
“Yesterday. Downtown. After we all got our pictures taken.”
I shook my head. I’d probably been too busy keeping an eye on Calhoun, but I wasn’t about to admit that.
“Well, anyway, it’s called The Pirates of Penzance, and tryouts are tomorrow at the Grange.”
“The pirates of what?”
“Penzance.”
“That’s a play?”
Mackenzie nodded.
“Technically, it’s a musical,” Hatcher interjected, wedging himself between us. “A really famous one, by these guys called Gilbert and Sullivan.” He draped his arms—already sweaty, thanks to the rapidly rising temperature—over our shoulders.
“Eew!” I protested, pulling away. “It can’t be that famous, if I’ve never heard of it before.” But the names Gilbert and Sullivan sounded vaguely familiar. Had my mother mentioned them at dinner a few nights ago? Or maybe Aunt True?
“The flyers are all over town,” said Hatcher. “You can’t miss them.”
I shrugged. Somehow I’d managed to.
“Cha Cha says that Calhoun’s father is directing,” Mackenzie continued.
This was a surprise. “I thought Dr. Calhoun was only interested in Shakespeare.”
“Apparently he makes an exception for Gilbert and Sullivan,” my cousin told us. “At least that’s what Calhoun said.”
“Since when were you talking to Calhoun?”
“Since you were feeding Bilbo yesterday. He rode his bike over to say hi.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“Sorry. I forgot. Anyway, Cha Cha and Jasmine are both going to try out.”
“I might too,” said Hatcher.
I gaped at him. My brother had never in his life expressed the remotest interest in acting. I wondered if this sudden burst of enthusiasm for the theater had anything to do with the fact that Cha Cha was planning to try out. Hatcher seemed unusually interested in Cha Cha Abramowitz lately.
“You should try out too,” he added.
“Fat chance.” Singing was way up on the long list of things I wasn’t good at. My mother, who rarely said anything critical about anybody, liked to joke that I couldn’t carry a tune in a paper bag. Even Miss Marple, my grandparents’ elderly golden retriever, who had inexplicably latched onto me as her favorite Lovejoy, whined and scratched to be let out of the bathroom whenever I sang in the shower.
And it wasn’t just the singing—I’d never had any desire to be onstage, period. It was the whole stealth mode thing, which had kicked in big time after my überweird sixth-grade growth spurt. I hated drawing attention to myself. Piano recitals were an agony, and I dreaded oral reports at school. I tolerated swim meets only because I was mostly underwater. Being onstage, in the spotlight, in a musical? No way.
We reached the bottom of the hill and crossed the village green. My father was right about the streets being jammed. Dozens of runners were already assembled by the church, signing in at the long registration tables and putting on their numbered race bibs.
“Huddle up, Giffords!” my father shouted, using his official Lieutenant Colonel Jericho T. Lovejoy voice in order to be heard about the crowd. My extended family crowded together as closely as thirty-seven people could. Thirty-nine, counting Aunt True and Professor Rusty.
My father proceeded to explain how things would work. Technically, our relatives wouldn’t be running for Team Lovejoy’s Books, since the officially sponsored teams were limited to six runners each. “But we hope you’ll run alongside us for moral support anyway,” he told them. “Pace us, pass us, cheer us on, make fun of us”—Uncle Rooster gave an enthusiastic whoop at this—“just get us across that finish line!”
That was the only catch to winning the Four on the Fourth race: The whole team had to cross the finish line in order for the official time to count.
“Once you’ve got your race bibs, we’ll gather on the green for warm-ups and stretching,” my father added as he led us over to the registration tables. While we were waiting in line to sign in, two big buses with CAMP LOVEJOY lettered on the sides pulled up to the curb. A little girl in a pixie haircut leaned out of one of the windows and waved at my littlest sister in excitement. “PIPPA!” she shrieked.
“TARA!” Pippa shrieked back. She flew over to the bus. Lauren was hot on her heels.
I watched as a river of girls in navy blue shorts and white polo shirts with the official Camp Lovejoy logo flowed from the bus, engulfing my sisters. Should I have gone to camp this summer too? Gramps and Lola had offered to pay for it, and my sisters were obviously having fun. But I’d turned down their offer in favor of my perfect summer.
After Mackenzie and I signed in, we joined the rest of my family on the village green. I looked around as my father led us through a series of stretches. Pumpkin Falls had gone all out for the Fourth of July. In addition to the requisite flags flying from every shop and building in town, all of the flower containers hanging from the lampposts had been planted in patriotic colors, and there was red-white-and-blue bunting hanging from every conceivable spot, including the bandstand.
“The town that time forgot,” Mackenzie intoned in her radio announcer voice, as the Pumpkin Falls Brass Band struck up a Fourth of July medley. I had to smile. She was right. Pumpkin Falls was kind of stuck in a time warp.
Most of the benches scattered around the village green were full of racegoers and their families and friends. I watched as people set up lawn chairs in the shade and lined up
