Really Truly Read online

  “ELMER!” Thelma called again, louder this time. “THE CIRCUS IS IN TOWN!”

  Elmer was hard of hearing but refused to wear a hearing aid. The reason I knew this pretty much summed up my life in Pumpkin Falls. There were no secrets in a town the size of ours. Everybody knew everything about everyone else—including the fact that Elmer Farnsworth had a stubborn streak which, combined with his pride, was keeping him from admitting that he didn’t hear as well as he used to. This had been a topic of lively discussion recently on the General Store’s front porch, where he and his buddies liked to hang out, and where I often overheard their conversations when I was eating ice cream with my friends.

  Elmer snapped upright like he’d been poked with a pin. “I LOVE THE CIRCUS!” he bellowed.

  I did a mental face-palm and ran for the bus.

  I loved my family and I loved our reunions, but I didn’t love being such a public spectacle. Stealth mode was more my speed, my term for flying under the radar. I didn’t love people staring at us or the prospect of being front-page news, and I especially didn’t love our matching T-shirts—this year’s were a blinding shade of neon green with a bright orange pumpkin on the front and THE GIFFORDS GO TO PUMPKIN FALLS! splatted on the back.

  I hated to admit it, but as much as I’d been looking forward to our family reunion, I was looking forward to it being over, too. Because then my perfect summer could finally begin.

  CHAPTER 2

  I hummed to myself as I set out paper plates and napkins on the half dozen picnic tables that stretched end to end across our backyard. My dad had tacked a note to the bulletin board at the General Store last week, asking if anyone had any extra we could borrow, and just like that, trucks had started pulling into our driveway with picnic tables. Small towns had their drawbacks, but there were definitely advantages, too. I’d always thought that Texas was friendly, but Pumpkin Falls could give it a run for its money in the neighborly department any day of the week.

  I plunked down another paper plate and thought about the perfect summer that would soon be mine. It shimmered in my mind like a lane in the pool first thing in the morning, before anyone else dove into the water. Smooth as glass, not a single ripple—perfection! Well, except for the fact that Mackenzie wouldn’t be here. That definitely counted as a ripple. Still, I was looking forward to long lazy days, with plenty of time for bird-watching and bike rides and hanging out with my friends. Plus swim team. Summer swim team was the best. It was much more relaxed than during the school year, and practices were going to be outside, just like in Texas, since Coach Maynard had wangled special privileges for our team at Lovejoy College’s outdoor pool.

  Helping out at the bookstore was near the top of my list of things to look forward to as well, which was kind of a surprise. When we’d first arrived in New Hampshire, I’d thought the bookstore was stupid. Well, not exactly stupid—I’d loved visiting it when Gramps and Lola, my Lovejoy grandparents, had been in charge—but to me, the family business represented the whole reason we’d had to move away from our home in Austin, so I’d resented it at first.

  That wasn’t fair, of course. It wasn’t the bookstore’s fault that my father had lost his right arm in a bomb explosion in Afghanistan, and that he couldn’t be a pilot anymore. But it had taken me a while to understand that.

  Lovejoy’s Books had been in a sorry mess when we’d first arrived, teetering on the brink of closure. But my dad and Aunt True—with help from all of us, and from Belinda Winchester, the town’s resident cat lady, who had unexpectedly stepped forward to invest in the business—had done what had at first seemed impossible. These days, the bookshop’s future was looking a lot less rocky.

  It still surprised me how much I loved spending time there. Unlike my sister Lauren, who loved books the way I loved water, I wasn’t the world’s biggest bookworm. But there was more to running a bookstore than just reading, as it turned out. I got to help Aunt True come up with creative displays for the windows, which I was surprisingly good at. I got to use the cash register and help set up for events, and I was Aunt True’s assistant for Story Hour on Saturday mornings. And now that we’d added Cup and Chaucer, the mini café that was my aunt’s latest marketing scheme, I also got to run the espresso machine and make hot beverages for our customers, which was fun.

  And then there was the cherry on top of my summer sundae: Romeo Calhoun.

  Calhoun loomed large in my plans for a perfect summer. Right after school had finished, he’d casually asked if maybe I’d like to go to the Lovejoy College Summer Film Festival with him. I’d tried to sound equally casual when I said yes, but inside I was jumping up and down. A whole week of movies! With Calhoun! I didn’t care that his father was the one who’d suggested it, or who’d arranged free tickets for us, or that Calhoun had invited all the rest of our friends along too.

  This year’s film festival was featuring movies from the 1950s. Aunt True had pounced on the brochure when I showed it to her.

  “Wait until you see Rear Window,” she’d said with a happy sigh, scanning the list of movie titles. “Grace Kelly is SO gorgeous! And so is Audrey Hepburn—you’ll love her in Sabrina. And you’ll love Singin’ in the Rain, and Born Yesterday, and Ben Hur, and Father of the Bride!” She looked up at me and smiled. “What a fantastic series! I think I’ll get tickets for Rusty and me too.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that. Double-dating with my aunt and Professor Rusty did not exactly fit into my perfect summer plans.

  “Truly!” My mother’s voice snapped me out of my daydream.

  “Yes?”

  “Can you feed Bilbo?”

  “Lauren’s home for the weekend—that’s her job!”

  “I know, but she’s busy. Rooster’s organized a scavenger hunt for the younger kids.”

  “Can’t Hatcher do it?” As usual, my brother had gone AWOL—military shorthand for “absent without leave.”

  “He’s helping your father show Aunt Lily and Uncle Scott the Underground Railroad hiding spot,” my mother replied.

  Of course he was. My brother always managed to find something more interesting to do than chores. “Fine,” I grumbled.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Fine, ma’am.” My parents were sticklers for politeness. And in a military family, that meant plenty of sirs and ma’ams.

  This past Spring Break, the Pumpkin Falls Private Eyes—that was what my friends and I called ourselves—had solved another mystery in town. Two, actually. One involved maple syrup rustlers, or at least what we’d thought were rustlers, and the other involved the Underground Railroad. It turned out that one of my ancestors had been involved with helping runaway slaves. She’d hidden them right here in Gramps and Lola’s house. We’d discovered the secret compartment under the front stairs that had concealed the runaways and the escape tunnel that led through the cellar and under the back lawn to the cemetery. After the tunnel caved in, my parents had decided it was too dangerous to preserve, despite its historical value. Professor Rusty had begged my father not to seal it.

  “It would be an irreparable loss!” he’d protested, but my father hadn’t budged. My aunt’s boyfriend still hadn’t quite forgiven him, although he was somewhat mollified by the fact that the secret compartment under the stairs was left intact.

  I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and checked the time. I was going to have to hustle to make it over to the Mitchells’ and back before dinner.

  The Mitchells were our neighbors. They were away for a few weeks and had offered us the use of their house for the reunion. It had six bedrooms, just like Gramps and Lola’s house, and half the adults were staying there. Most of my cousins were sleeping outside in tents. Only Mackenzie and I opted to stay indoors.

  “Smart girls,” Grandma G had said when she’d heard this. “I like my creature comforts too.”

  I double-timed it around the picnic tables, slapping down the rest of the paper plates and anchoring them with silverware, then setting out rolls o
f paper towels. Uncle Teddy’s blackberry jalapeño ribs were famously messy. The aroma wafting over from the grill was making my mouth water. Uncle Teddy was the undisputed king of barbecue in our family. “Low and slow” was his motto when it came to smoking meat, and he knew exactly how much heat to put in his signature sauce: enough so your lips tingled a little, but not so much that it made your nose run. That didn’t stop half my family from adding extra hot sauce. I smiled, thinking about the surprise that would be waiting for them at dinner.

  One thing about our family reunions—the food was always fantastic. Everyone contributed their favorites, from Uncle Rooster’s signature lasagna to Aunt Sally’s famous banana French toast to Uncle Teddy’s ribs and more. On the final night, we always “splashed out,” as my mother called it, and chipped in to have dinner catered. And being Texans, and being Giffords, there was no such thing as too much barbecue, so we always had the catering for that meal done by the Salt Lick, a family favorite near Austin.

  This time around, though, we were in Pumpkin Falls, not Texas, and my parents had opted to host a clambake for our final meal. Not that we were anywhere near the ocean—you pretty much couldn’t get any more landlocked than the Pumpkin River Valley—but clambakes were a New England tradition, and my mother was determined to send everybody home having had what she called “a genuine taste of Yankee food.” And this year that meant a house call from Lobster Bob, instead of the catering team from the Salt Lick. But the clambake wasn’t until tomorrow night. Tonight, there was barbecue!

  I sniffed the air again greedily, then loped off across the lawn toward the neighbors’ house. Lauren was the animal-lover in our family, and she was usually the one who looked after the Mitchells’ pet ferret. This summer, though, my younger sisters were both away at camp, so most of the time I was the one who ended up stuck with cleaning Bilbo’s litter box and giving him his meals.

  Another part of my perfect summer was the fact that, with Lauren and Pippa at Camp Lovejoy, and with my brothers shortly heading off to a weeklong wresting clinic at Boston University, I would have my parents’ undivided attention.

  As the middle kid, it was easy to be overlooked. But this summer, for a whole week, I wouldn’t be Truly-in-the-Middle, I’d be Truly-the-Only-Child! My mother had already promised to fix my favorite foods and take me to West Hartfield shopping for a new swimsuit and treat us to pedicures. She’d even mentioned driving down to Boston for the day, just the two of us. I was looking forward to being pampered and spoiled a bit. It was going to be perfect.

  “Hey, Bilbo!” I called, opening the Mitchells’ back door. I heard scrabbling from across the kitchen. The ferret was waiting by the door of his cage, pacing back and forth and looking at me with his bright little eyes. I wasn’t wild about any animals except birds, but even I had to admit Bilbo was pretty cute. We’d almost become friends.

  After I’d fed him, given him a little playtime, and made sure he was settled for the night, I headed back outside. There was no fence between my grandparents’ backyard and the Mitchells’, so my father had commandeered the entire expanse of twin lawns for our reunion. The picnic tables were on our side, closest to the kitchen. The fire pit and lawn chairs were just beyond, also on our side. The tents and hammocks were spread out pretty evenly across both backyards, and the far side of the Mitchells’ back lawn had been arranged with separate zones for badminton, croquet, and horseshoes.

  “Organized mayhem” my dad called it. He was more cheerful this weekend than I’d seen him in months. There was nothing Lieutenant Colonel Jericho T. Lovejoy liked better than bossing people around, and the reunion had given him a real boost in that department.

  Just then our back door banged open, and Hatcher finally appeared. “Need any help?”

  I shot him a look. “Not anymore.”

  He shrugged and sauntered off. I glared at his back. I’d hardly seen Hatcher all weekend. He’d vanished into the herd of older male cousins, all of whom were sharing one of the huge tents that Hatcher and Danny had set up at the far end of our lawn. It shouldn’t have been that big of a deal, Hatcher spending time with his favorite cousins. I was spending time with mine, after all. But I hadn’t seen a whole lot of Hatcher since summer started—and for months before that, now that I thought about it. He’d been involved with the Pumpkin Falls Private Eyes, at least for a little while over Spring Break. But other than that, he always seemed busy with wrestling and his school friends. It wasn’t like it used to be. Back in Texas, Hatcher and I had always been a team—the two of us against the world. Now things were changing. I’d seen them change before, after my brother Danny started high school. He’d gotten his driver’s license and a girlfriend and a part-time job, and after that he was hardly around anymore. This fall, Hatcher would be starting high school too. Would the same thing happen to him?

  Does anything ever stay the same? I wondered. My gaze wandered over toward my dad. That question was easily answered. Things could and did change in the blink of an eye.

  I watched as he picked up a spatula with the Terminator and started showing off for some of my uncles. The Terminator was what we called my father’s fancy prosthetic arm, the one made of black titanium. He’d gotten it this past winter, after our move to Pumpkin Falls, so none of my relatives had seen it in action before. Some of the littler cousins had been afraid of it at first, just like Pippa had been, but fascination eventually won out over fear.

  “Having a bunch of brothers-in-law around is good for him,” said Aunt True, coming up behind me.

  I turned around. “Huh?”

  She nodded toward the grill. “Your father. It’s good for him. All that male-bonding stuff.”

  She was probably right—my aunt usually was. My father did seem like he was in his element this weekend. Besides the whole I-get-to-organize-everything-and-boss-everyone-around thing, he adored my uncles, and they adored him. The seven of them had always had fun together. My father had even agreed to an arm-wrestling competition, for old times’ sake. The tale of how my uncles had made my dad arm-wrestle every single one of them before they’d allow him to date their little sister—now my mother—was part of Gifford family lore.

  After his injury had forced him to become a lefty, though, my father wasn’t as invincible as he used to be. Last night, Uncle Lenny had finally managed to beat him—something he’d been waiting years to do.

  “Time for Rooster Rover!” hollered Uncle Rooster, popping through the back door like a jack-in-the-box. The scavenger hunt was over, apparently.

  A herd of younger cousins spilled out of the house behind him, squealing with excitement. I smiled. I used to squeal like that too.

  Uncle Rooster had made up the game years ago. It was just like red rover, except instead of chanting “Red rover, red rover, let so-and-so come over,” he’d changed it to “Red Rooster, red Rooster.” And before a player could run toward the opposing team to try to break through the line of linked arms, he or she had to crow like a rooster. Of course the little kids thought this was hilarious, and everyone tried to outdo everyone else. By the end, it wasn’t much of a competition, just a bunch of kids collapsed in a pile of giggles.

  I watched my uncle as he led the group to the far side of the lawn. His nickname suited him perfectly. Uncle Rooster was, well, like a rooster. Big, colorful, and loud. A bit of a show-off, he definitely liked to strut. And right now, he was strutting his stuff at the head of a line of little kids who would come to dinner worn out, hungry, and happy.

  I did a final sweep of the picnic tables to make sure everything was ready, then headed to where I’d stashed tonight’s surprise.

  “Three at every table,” my mother whispered from the kitchen window, startling me so much that I almost dropped the box I’d fished out from under the back steps.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I whispered back.

  Acting as casual as I could, I distributed the bottles on the tables. No one paid me the slightest bit of attention except Hatcher, who suddenly ma
terialized again.

  “They turned out awesome!” he gloated, picking up one of the bottles. “You’re a genius, Drooly!”

  “Thanks,” I said, and smiled at him. It was hard to stay mad at someone who was paying you a compliment, even when he called you by your least favorite nickname.

  I stood there for a moment, admiring my handiwork. I’d worked hard on the design, with a little help from Aunt True. The bottles were tall and thin, with bright red stoppers and a shiny silver label. On the label was a flexed arm that looked identical to the black titanium one my father was currently wearing. In its fist was a flag with a skull and crossbones on it, along with two words in fiery red: THE TERMINATOR.

  “Ribs are ready!” Uncle Teddy called just then.

  It was the announcement we’d all been waiting for. Giffords swarmed from every direction. Mackenzie and her mother and a long line of aunts and uncles appeared from the kitchen, carrying platters and bowls piled high with corn bread, coleslaw, and Grandma G’s baked beans, which were almost as famous as Uncle Teddy’s ribs. Everyone raced for the buffet table, where we piled food on our plates like we hadn’t eaten in weeks.

  “What have we here?” cried Uncle Rooster as he took a seat and spotted the Terminator bottle nearest him.

  “A little something to spice up your sad, bland life, Rooster,” my father teased.

  “It’s homemade hot sauce!” blurted my sister Lauren, unable to contain her excitement any longer. “Dad made it, and everybody gets to take a bottle home, like a party favor!”

  “Is that so?” My uncle reached for the bottle nearest his seat. “ ‘The Terminator,’ ” he read aloud. “I like it already.”

  “Fair warning,” my father told him. “It packs a punch. You might want to try just a drop or two to start with.”

  A collective “oooh” went up around the long tables as Uncle Rooster grinned at him, then picked up a rib and defiantly shook three drops onto it.