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  He took a bite of the muffin he was holding. “These are great.”

  “Thanks,” I muttered.

  He gave me a blueberry-stained grin. I scowled at him, but it was hard to stay mad at Hatcher. His smile was infectious, even when it was smeared with breakfast. Honestly, it could be raining toads, and my brother would still walk around smiling. He’d inherited the happy gene, along with the Gifford sunflower smile, as Grandma G called it. It was identical to the smile my mother almost always wore, as did my sister Pippa and my cousin Mackenzie and a bunch of my other uncles and cousins. Me? I was a Lovejoy through and through, and only smiled when I meant it.

  “I can’t wait for the race!” Hatcher said.

  I grunted. My brother loved to run. “I can.”

  “C’mon, it’ll be fun. I think our team has a good chance of winning, too.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe.”

  My father may have lost an arm in Afghanistan, but both his legs worked just fine. He was fast, and he’d been training hard. He and Danny had been running together just about every morning since it finally stopped snowing last spring. Hatcher joined them often, although he wasn’t as fanatical about it as they were. Lauren was pretty zippy for an almost fifth grader, plus there was Professor Rusty, who apparently had been on the track team in high school and college. Aunt True called him our “secret weapon.” Emphasis on ‘secret,’ I thought, looking over at her boyfriend’s pale skinny legs and knobby knees. None of us had ever seen him so much as walk fast. As for me—

  “I just hope I can finish,” I said glumly.

  “Don’t be such a wet blanket, Drooly!”

  “Shut up, Hatcher!”

  My mother passed us, carrying a pitcher of orange juice. “That’s enough, you two!”

  “Sorry, ma’am,” we replied simultaneously.

  I waited until she was out of earshot, then turned to my brother and peered closely at him, feigning concern. “I think your nose looks bigger this morning.”

  Hatcher’s hand flew up to his face. He gave his nose an exploratory squeeze, and I suppressed a smile. He was terrified that he was going to inherit the famous “Lovejoy proboscis,” as Gramps called it—the big nose visible on our ancestor Nathaniel Daniel Lovejoy in the portrait in the living room, and on Gramps and our father, too.

  “Come on, Mackenzie.” I crossed to where my cousin was standing and grabbed her arm. “Let’s eat.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Breakfast was over practically before it started, the food vacuumed up by my hungry relatives in nothing flat. Afterward, everyone scattered to put on their race day clothes so we could head downtown. No school bus for us this morning—we were hoofing it, as Grandma G called it.

  “Pumpkin Falls will be jammed,” my father had warned our relatives last night. “As the oldest road race in New England, Four on the Fourth is a big deal. Runners come from all over to check it off their bucket list.”

  My sisters and the younger cousins all ran ahead along Maple Street, excited in the way that only little kids who don’t know what’s waiting for them can be excited. I slouched along next to Grandma G, who was pushing the stroller containing Bella and Blair. The rest of my family streamed down Hill Street, all of us in our matching T-shirts—red, white, and blue today in honor of the holiday. Hey, kids! Check it out! I thought, cringing inwardly. The circus is in town! Step right up and see a gaggle of Giffords!

  “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 by Emily’s Eats, the town’s sole food truck (the one that had been green-lighted at the town meeting this past spring).

  “Looking forward to the race?” asked Aunt True, who had come to cheer us on.

  I made a rude noise, and she laughed. Aunt True and my mother weren’t part of Team Lovejoy. “For one thing, we’re walkers, not runners, and for another, every team needs a cheering section,” my mother had said firmly when my father had invited them to join.

  “The only thing I’m looking forward to is the fireworks,” I
said, which was the truth. I loved fireworks, even though the ones they had in Pumpkin Falls couldn’t rival the ones in Austin. As the capital of Texas, Austin always pulled out all the stops.

  “Cassidy!” Aunt True called out suddenly, waving to a tall red-haired girl who was stretching nearby with a bunch of campers.

  The red-haired girl waved back, then loped over to join us. She was older than me, and obviously a counselor. “Nice to see you again,” she told my aunt.

  “Truly, this is the girl I was telling you about,” said Aunt True. “Cassidy Sloane and some of her fellow counselors are the ones who started the book club for their campers.” I vaguely remembered her saying something about that.

  “How are you enjoying Understood Betsy?” asked Aunt True.

  “We love it so far,” Cassidy replied. “And we adored your pumpkin whoopie pies!”

  Pumpkin whoopie pies were one of Aunt True’s signature treats. She’d been alternating between those and her Bookshop Blondies in the store for the past few months. I’d be sorry to see either of them retired for the season—but Hatcher was right, the blueberry donut muffins were pretty great too.

  Aunt True laughed. “Stop by the bookstore anytime, and I’ll make sure you head back to camp with goodies as well as books.”

  “I’ll definitely take you up on that,” Cassidy replied. Just then, one of the campers trotted over and grabbed her hand, tugging her back toward their group. “Gotta go! Good luck, Team Lovejoy!”

  Hatcher poked me in the back as she left. “Hey, Professor Rusty’s research assistant is here!” He pointed to Aunt True’s boyfriend, who was standing in the shade talking to a girl in a Camp Lovejoy uniform. “I’d know those cinnamon buns anywhere.”

  I grinned. He was talking about her hair, which she wore coiled over her ears in Princess Leia–style poufs. “What’s her name again?”

  “Felicia something.”

  “Grunewald,” Aunt True told us. “Felicia Grunewald.” She gave us a sly smile. “Maybe I should add cinnamon buns to our signature treats at the bookshop.”

  Hatcher and I stared at her, then burst out laughing.

  “What?” said Aunt True, the picture of innocence.

  The loudspeaker crackled. “Runners, make your way to the starting line, please!”

  “Team Lovejoy’s Books!” barked my father. “Follow me!”

  As Hatcher, Danny, Lauren, Professor Rusty, and I set off after him, I surreptitiously sized up the other teams.

  Team Library was led by Mr. Henry, who had pulled his dreadlocks back into a ponytail for the occasion. Beneath his racing bib he wore a red-and-white-striped tank top over red shorts. No surprise there—Aunt True called red and white Mr. Henry’s signature colors. Hatcher said he looked like Waldo in Where’s Waldo?

  “I’m so E-X-C-I-T-E-D!” squealed Annie Freeman, skipping along beside Mr. Henry. Annie was the reigning winner of the Grafton County Junior Spelling Championship and my sister Lauren’s best friend. Annie herself wouldn’t give us too much of a run for our money today, but there was also Annie’s brother Franklin to consider, along with Calhoun and his sister, Juliet, and my friend Jasmine’s brother Scooter.

  Jasmine herself was running for Team Starlite, which was definitely stiff competition. Jasmine was a star basketball player, and Cha Cha and her parents were in great shape, thanks to all the dancing they did at their studio. Plus, they’d recruited two guys from the high school track team.

  The Team Kwik Klips “krew members,” as they called themselves, were looking pretty competitive too. They’d all sprayed red, white, and blue streaks into their hair, and were clearly fired up for the race.

  Oh well, I thought, whether or not we won, at least we were all running together in support of Mr. Henry’s library project. That was the main goal. Our real competitors were the teams running in support of Ella Bellow’s Grange project.

  Ella wasn’t running in the race herself, but she’d twisted the arms of a bunch of her customers to join her team, including my swim coach’s wife and Bud Jefferson. Mr. Jefferson was a huge bear of a man who I hoped was as slow as he was big. Technically, he was Ella’s landlord, not her customer, although he’d taken up knitting after getting roped into a class on socks that my mother and I had signed up for over Spring Break.

  Team Mahoney’s Antiques looked stronger. Like my father and Danny, the Mahoneys were both dedicated runners, and their friends on the team looked equally fit. Team General Store, on the other hand, was a bit of a wild card. None of the Farnsworths were running—they were all older than Grandma G, for one thing, and hardly what you’d call athletic. Four of the people on their team I’d seen around town but had never met. The only two that I knew were Mr. Burnside, our school principal, and Mr. Bigelow, my science teacher. Like Professor Rusty, Mr. Burnside was tall and skinny—thanks to my weird habit of classifying people as birds, I’d always thought of him as a flamingo—and he had the look of a runner, with long legs and a lean build. But any potential edge he might give to the team was probably offset by Mr. Bigelow, who was short and kind of tubby and reminded me of a duck. On the other hand, I knew from experience that Mr. Bigelow had an enormous amount of enthusiasm—he was one of our school’s most popular teachers—and sometimes that made up for lack of athletic ability.

  The only team I was almost positive that we’d be able to beat were the Speedy Geezers. Reverend Quinn had been bragging about his team for weeks and making pronouncements about “dark horses” and “underdogs,” though, so maybe he knew something the rest of us didn’t.

  I scanned the crowd of onlookers, searching for my mother. I spotted her and waved. She waved back, and so did Aunt True, Pippa, and Grandma G, who coaxed Bella and Blair into waving their chubby little fists from their stroller too.

  “Go, Team Lovejoy!” shouted a deep voice. I caught a flash of purple and recognized Augustus Wilde, the romance author who was our town’s celebrity. For once, Augustus wasn’t wearing a cape. Instead, he sported a purple T-shirt emblazoned with the words GO TEAM LOVEJOY! Belinda Winchester was dressed in an identical T-shirt, and both of them were fanning themselves with matching purple baseball caps. I gave them a thumbs-up.

  “Runners, take your marks!” cried the voice over the loudspeaker.

  My mouth suddenly went dry. The dread that I’d been feeling earlier came flooding back in a rush. Why had I let myself be talked into running this stupid race?

  Hatcher leaned over to me. “Remember, Drooly, all you have to do is finish.”

  “Don’t call me Drooly.”

  He grinned. “That’s the spirit!”

  Finish, I thought. I could do that.

  Couldn’t I?

  CHAPTER 5

  As it turned out, I could, though just barely.

  Even my little sister Lauren beat me to the finish line, which I knew I’d never hear the end of. How was it that I could swim as fast as lightning for what felt like hours on end and barely be short of breath, but an easy 4K loop completely knocked me out?

  Mackenzie had doubled back at one point to run alongside me. “How’s it going?”

  I’d given her a curt nod. My cousin hadn’t even broken a sweat, which was almost as irritating as the fact that she felt she needed to check on me.

  She’d trotted alongside me as the two of us turned onto Main Street, the official halfway mark in the race.

  “There are the girls!” called my mother, who was standing in front of Lovejoy’s Books, and my family cheered for us. Aunt True was balancing a baby on one hip. Bella, maybe? I couldn’t tell. The twins were dressed alike today, both wearing matching red, white, and blue onesies and floppy stars and stripes sun hats.

  My friend Lucas Winthrop and his mother were there too. Lucas was smeared with industrial-strength white sunscreen, his face practically hidden beneath a floppy hat similar to the ones worn by the twins. Poor Lucas! His mother still thought he was six. He’d wanted to run, but she wouldn’t let him.

  “Heatstroke,” she’d warned when he asked. “We can’t risk that.”

  A huge smile spread across Lucas’s face when he saw Mackenzie. He waved, trying to attract her attention. Ever since she’d come to visit last Spring Break, Lucas had been smitten with my cousin.