Cameras flashed and proud parents beamed from the sidelines as Mr. Abramowitz began to call the dance: “The lady goes right, the gent goes left, circle left so lightly . . .”
Pippa and Baxter didn’t miss a beat.
“They are so cute together!” whispered Cha Cha.
“I know, right?” I whispered back.
Annie Freeman twirled past, her multiple braids bouncing almost as quickly as her feet. She was busy talking, of course—probably spelling out the moves to her partner. My sister Lauren was right behind her with Amy Nguyen’s younger brother. She shot me a look as she danced by, one that clearly said, I’m so over this dumb kid stuff and ready to tackle ballroom. Lauren still had stars in her eyes about Cotillion.
They finished a few minutes later amid thunderous applause. And then it was our turn.
“Places, everyone!” whispered Ms. Ivey, frantically trying to line us all up. The sixth, seventh, and eighth graders had all been practicing separately during gym class at school, and this was the first time we’d all be together. I waved to Hatcher, who was standing with his partner on the other side of the dance floor. He smiled his sunflower smile at me. Nothing rattled Hatcher.
When we were all in place, Ms. Ivey gave Mr. Abramowitz a thumbs-up. She looked really pretty tonight in her long white satin sheath and red heels. It occurred to me that I didn’t know if there was a Mr. Ivey. If not, maybe Cupid would visit Pumpkin Falls and find her one.
“I still think this is stupid,” said Scooter as he took my hand, placing his other on my shoulder.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Totally lame.”
“And now, folks, it’s time for this evening’s Cotillion ballroom showcase!” announced Mr. Abramowitz.
I could feel Scooter’s palms sweating right through his cotton gloves. He was as nervous as I was. This was not a good sign.
My parents both waved, and I saw something glint at the end of my father’s sleeve—apparently he’d decided to go with Captain Hook tonight. And then the music started and Scooter and I were off and running. Dancing, rather. Slow, slow, quick, quick. I concentrated hard on making my feet go where they were supposed to, and Scooter must have too, because somehow we made it through the fox-trot without a misstep.
As the music segued into the waltz—one, two, three, one, two, three—I relaxed a little. Mr. Abramowitz had really helped me with this one during our practice sessions. I hummed along to the music and looked over Scooter’s shoulder at my classmates.
Cha Cha and Lucas were zipping around the dance floor like old pros. Franklin Freeman was a little robotic, but he and Amy Nguyen were managing to keep the beat too.
The real surprise was Jasmine and Calhoun. Cha Cha had definitely put some polish on him during their secret practice sessions, because not only was Calhoun totally moving in time to the music, he actually looked like he was enjoying himself. He caught me watching him and smiled.
“Oops,” I whispered to Scooter as I stumbled. “Sorry.”
“Totally my fault,” Scooter whispered back. And then he smiled too.
I almost lost my balance again. Smiles from both Scooter and Calhoun? What was going on?
“Very nicely done!” said Mr. Abramowitz as we all twirled to a finish. “Splendid job!”
The band gave a flourish as Mrs. Abramowitz stepped forward. She and Cha Cha’s father conferred briefly, then she passed her husband some envelopes. He jotted down something on each of them.
“This year also marks the beginning of a new Pumpkin Falls tradition, one we hope will last for the next hundred years,” Mr. Abramowitz told the crowd. “Prizes for our young dancers, who have worked so hard this winter!” A patter of polite applause rippled through the hall.
“The square dancers each received a ribbon and a gift certificate to Lovejoy’s Books”—that had been Aunt True’s idea—“but for the members of our Cotillion, we have cash prizes. The first category is best dressed.”
This ignited a buzz in the room, and even though fashion isn’t my thing, my heart beat a little faster too. I couldn’t help it; I’m a Lovejoy and I’m competitive. Plus, this was by far the nicest dress I’d ever owned. Was it nice enough for a prize?
“This was a tough one, folks,” said Cha Cha’s mother, “but the prize goes to—Lucas Winthrop!”
Lucas turned as red as Jasmine’s dress. Mrs. Winthrop leaped to her feet and started filming as he scuttled out to claim his prize.
“Oh, man,” muttered Scooter. “That’s totally unfair! His mother bought that tux for him.”
“Shut up and clap, Scooter,” I told him.
“Next we have best dance partners,” Mr. Abramowitz continued. “There’s a prize for each grade level.”
I didn’t know the sixth-grade winners, but they sure looked happy when they got their envelopes. Then it was time for the seventh grade. No way did Scooter and I even stand a chance for this one.
“Another tough category,” said Cha Cha’s father, “and in all fairness, Mrs. Abramowitz and I decided we would eliminate our daughter and her partner, because, as most of you know, our wonderful Charlotte, better known as Cha Cha, practically grew up in a dance studio.”
The onlookers laughed.
“And so the prize goes to Jasmine Sanchez and Romeo Calhoun!”
Calhoun looked like he couldn’t decide how to react—mortified that his real name had been so publicly revealed, or happy that his hard work had paid off.
“Romeo?” said Scooter in disbelief. “Romeo? Are you kidding me? That’s what the R in ‘R. J.’ stands for?”
“Yup,” I replied, then shouted “Way to go, Calhoun!”
Calhoun glanced over at me and smiled again.
After giving out the eighth grade prize—someone from Hatcher’s wrestling team and his partner—it was time for the final category: most improved.
“This was also a tough decision,” said Mr. Abramowitz. “Knowing where these students started six weeks ago, and how far they’ve come, we feel they each deserve recognition. So how about another round of applause for all of this year’s Cotillion members?” The crowd responded with enthusiasm, and then Cha Cha’s father continued, “That being said, we would like to recognize one set of dance partners who got off to a truly rocky start”—my heart did a hopeful little skip at this—“but who have come through with flying colors: Truly Lovejoy and Scooter Sanchez.”
Hatcher pulled his white gloves off and stuck his forefingers in his mouth, whistling shrilly. Scooter grabbed my hand and towed me across the dance floor. Mr. Abramowitz passed us each an envelope and shook our hands. Mrs. Abramowitz gave me a hug. “Well done, Truly,” she whispered.
Dazed, I followed Scooter back to where my friends were waiting. How was this possible? Dancing was at the top of the list of things I wasn’t good at.
“Hey, you know, about ‘Truly Gigantic’ and all,” Scooter said uneasily.
That snapped me out of my daze. “Don’t start,” I warned him.
He shook his head. “No, I’m not—I mean, well, I’m sorry.”
I stared at him. Two apologies in one evening? What on earth had gotten into Scooter?
“Truce?” he said.
“Uh, okay, I guess,” I replied.
The music started up again, and the audience crowded onto the dance floor. My parents were among them, my father gamely resting Captain Hook on top of my mother’s shoulder. My father said something and my mother threw back her head and laughed, the light glinting in her strawberry-blond curls. She looked really pretty tonight.
I saw Aunt True dancing with Mr. Henry, and Danny with Calhoun’s older sister, Juliet. Meanwhile, the boys from my class made a beeline for the refreshment table, leaving us girls standing by the wall.
“Figures,” said Cha Cha.
“Cowards,” added Jasmine in disgust.
We watched the dancers, and a few minutes later Hatcher wandered over to join us.
“So, does that make up for yesterday?” he a
sked me, pointing to the envelope in my hand.
I considered his question. Cotillion was hardly a 100 Individual Medley. “Maybe a little,” I admitted.
He smiled at me, then turned to Cha Cha. “May I have this dance?”
My mouth dropped open. My brother wanted to dance with the girl he called “the kazoo”?
“Sure,” said Cha Cha, and he led her onto the dance floor.
Franklin reappeared, cramming the rest of a vomit bar into his mouth. Mumbling something, he held his hand out to Jasmine. She smiled a braces-free smile at him, and they joined my brother and Cha Cha. One by one my classmates were whisked away until I was left standing there all by myself.
I reminded myself that I didn’t like to dance. That I wasn’t any good at it. Okay, maybe not as bad as I used to be—I was holding a prize for most improved, after all—but still.
That didn’t make me feel any better.
It wasn’t so much that I wanted to dance, it was just that not dancing was worse. Way worse. Not dancing meant I was a wallflower. Not dancing meant I’d probably end up an old cat lady, like Belinda Winchester.
Who happened to dance by just then with Augustus Wilde. She’d traded the shorts I’d seen her wearing earlier for jeans and a red plaid flannel shirt. A plastic bag was looped over one of her wrists. I watched, incredulous, as Captain Romance gallantly dipped and twirled the former lunch lady, his red cape and silver hair streaming behind him.
Are you kidding me? I thought.
“Truly?”
I turned around. It was Calhoun. “Hey,” I said.
“Would you like to dance?”
My mouth dropped open for the second time that evening. “Uh, sure,” I managed to squeak out.
“You snooze, you lose,” said Calhoun, his dark eyes gleaming in triumph. This time he wasn’t talking to me, though. He was talking to Scooter, who was standing behind us with two cups of punch and a shocked look on his face.
Across the room, Aunt True beamed and gave me two enthusiastic thumbs up.
No, I wanted to tell her, it’s not what you think!
Or was it?
The music shifted to a waltz, and Calhoun swung me smoothly into the one, two, three rhythm. I focused intently on not stepping on his toes. I really didn’t want to step on his toes, for some reason.
We passed my brother and Cha Cha, and then almost bumped into Ella Bellow, who was dancing with Lou from the diner.
“It shouldn’t be much longer before I can move in,” she told him loudly, so that he could hear her above the music. “It’s the perfect spot for my new shop.”
Wait, what was Ella Bellow talking about? I steered Calhoun a little closer.
“I feel badly, of course,” she continued. “You never like to see someone’s business struggle. But it’s certainly worked in my favor.”
I came to an abrupt stop. Ella was talking about Lovejoy’s Books!
I pulled away from Calhoun and marched over to her. “You’re the one who took it!”
Ella Bellow looked at me in surprise. Then she stopped dancing too. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Charlotte’s Web! I overheard you just now, and you practically admitted it!” I told her, my voice rising. The couples around us spun to a stop. “You had us special order that book about starting a new career in your retirement, and you’ve been prowling around the bookshop for weeks now, snooping. You’re just waiting for us to fail so you can take over our space!”
“I most certainly am not!”
“You took it!” I shouted at her. “You need to give it back!”
Ella looked shocked. “How dare you accuse me of such a thing!” she sputtered.
My parents and Aunt True were making their way toward us through the crowd now.
“What’s going on?” asked Belinda Winchester, dancing by with Augustus Wilde.
Ella pointed to me. “She just accused me of stealing from the bookshop! As if I’d ever do such a thing!”
The music had stopped by now, and everyone in the room was staring at me.
“Stealing what?” said Belinda.
“Charlotte’s Web!” I replied.
Belinda looked puzzled. “How could anyone steal Charlotte’s Web?” she said. “It’s bolted to the wall.”
It took me a minute to realize she was talking about the bronze sculpture in the library.
“I’m talking about the book,” I told her. “The autographed first edition that was in the cabinet in our shop.”
“Oh,” said Belinda. “No one stole that. I have it right here.” She reached into the plastic bag she was carrying and pulled it out.
A gasp went up from the crowd. My father stepped forward.
“Where did you get that?” he demanded.
“From Andy,” she replied mildly. “He gave it to me for my ninth birthday.”
“Wait a minute, you’re the ‘Bee’ in the inscription?” said Aunt True.
Belinda Winchester nodded.
“Who’s Andy?” asked my father, his head whipping back and forth as he tried to keep up with the conversation.
“E. B. White,” said my sister Lauren. “It was in my book report, remember?”
“See? I told you I didn’t steal anything,” Ella Bellow said triumphantly. She turned to me. “And just in case you’re wondering, Miss Think-You-Know-It-All, I have absolutely no designs on Lovejoy’s Books. Bud Jefferson is going to rent out half his space for my new shop.”
Once again, I’d gone and put my big foot in my mouth. I was Truly-in-the-Middle-of-a-Mess.
“Truly, I think you owe someone an apology,” my father told me sternly.
My shoulders slumped. “Yes, sir,” I said. I turned to face the postmistress. I’d been so sure she was the thief! “I’m really sorry.”
Her mouth pruned up. “As well you should be.”
“Show’s over, folks!” my father announced. He took me by the arm and hustled me over to a corner of the room, near where Annie Freeman was being interviewed by a Patriot-Bugle reporter about winning yesterday’s spelling bee.
“And then this boy from West Hartfield messed up on a trick question,” Annie told him. “The P is silent in P-T-A-R-M-I-G-A-N. Which is a bird.”
One that happened to be on my life list. I’d been lucky enough to spot it when we lived in Colorado.
It took us a while to get everything straightened out. Once Belinda explained that she’d grown up in Maine, and that her family lived on the farm next door to E. B. White, it all made sense—the lunch-lady entry in the yearbook that talked about lobsters, the news report about her trip back to the seacoast to visit her sister, the cats named after Fern and Avery Arable in Charlotte’s Web. Only two things still puzzled me.
“How did you manage to lose the book in the first place?” I asked her.
Belinda shrugged. “Things go missing,” she said. “And things get found.” She rummaged in her plastic bag again, emerging this time with a kitten and a half-eaten vomit bar. She took a bite—of the vomit bar, not the kitten.
The other thing I didn’t understand was how Belinda could possibly not have known that we all thought the book was stolen. It had been all over the news.
Except she didn’t own a television, and she never read the newspaper. Plus, she had her earbuds in most of the time, listening to her music. Somehow, she’d managed to miss the whole thing.
The mystery was solved, at least, but not in a way that was going to help the bookstore. No way could my father and Aunt True use the book to pay off the bank loan now.
“Erastus Peckinpaugh, do you want to ask me something or not?” Aunt True said suddenly. Startled, I looked over to see the man in the green jacket—only tonight he was wearing an ordinary suit—hovering behind her.
“Punkinpie?” said Pippa. “That’th a funny name.”
My mother turned around too. “Professor Rusty! How nice to see you here.”
The man in the green jacket—the stork—wa
s Professor Rusty? And Professor Rusty was Erastus Peckinpaugh? I felt something in my brain stir and come to life. Where had I seen that name before?
“Out with it already!” Aunt True put her hands on her hips as she turned to face him, tapping the toe of one of her red cowboy boots. “I’m tired of you creeping around like some silly high school boy. Do you think I haven’t noticed you lurking outside the bookstore these past few weeks?”
And then Annie spoke up again behind us. “Finally, I got the winning word,” she told the reporter. “ ‘Thespian.’ T-H-E-S-P-I-A-N. It means actor.”
Snick! The last puzzle pieces fit together as neatly as a sudoku puzzle. I leaned over to my friends.
“I know where the final clue is,” I whispered.
CHAPTER 37
We ran straight to the bookshop.
“There’s something I need to check on,” I told my friends as we clattered up the stairs to Aunt True’s apartment. The key was still under the mat where she always left it, and I unlocked the door and led everyone inside. “Don’t let Memphis out.”
“Thespian” had been Annie Freeman’s winning word, and Aunt True and Erastus Peckinpaugh had both been in the Thespian Club back in high school! I’d seen it in my aunt’s yearbook.
The scrapbooks were still piled on the coffee table, where Lauren and Annie had left them. I started leafing through them, and it didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for. “Ha!” I said triumphantly, showing my friends the program for Much Ado About Nothing.
“Hey, that’s the show my parents starred in,” said Calhoun, spotting their names. “My mom has a copy of that program too.”
“Yes, but check out their understudies,” I said, pointing to the cast list, which confirmed my suspicions.
My friends’ mouths fell open when they saw the names: True Lovejoy and Erastus Peckinpaugh.
“My aunt and Professor Peckinpaugh—Professor Rusty, the guy in the green jacket—were Beatrice and Benedick too. Unofficially, of course.”
I pointed to the prom picture on the opposite page. “Now check this out—”