I spin on my heels. I’ve barely stepped back into the hallway when I hear Lucy griping to her friend, “Seriously, my sisters are such pains.”

And yeah, maybe it’s hypocritical, given that I did just complain about this exact same thing only a few minutes ago, but at least I had the decency to keep the thoughts to myself. Either way, I’ve reached my limitation on goodwill.

I pause just outside the door and squeeze my fist shut.

“Hello? Jamie? Hello?” says Lucy, her voice rising. Then she lets out an exasperated groan. “Great. And now my battery is dead. Thanks, family!”

I poke my head back into the room with a serene smile. “That must mean you have time to look for my headphones.”

She finds them in her backpack and hands them over with an icicle glare.

I’ve just returned to my bedroom and gotten settled into my bed when I hear the front door open downstairs.

“We’re back!” Dad yells. “And we come bearing gifts of food!”

Mom follows this up with her own shout, as if Dad had needed a translator. “Girls, it’s dinnertime!”

Ellie squeals and dashes down the stairs, which must mean that Dad and Jude were going out to get something good, because usually it’s nothing but griping when she gets called to the dinner table. Penny, Lucy, and I follow with less enthusiasm. Lucy is still scowling.

Penny seems oblivious that there’s been any conflict at all. “Ooh, Blue’s Burgers!” she says when we reach the kitchen. “Yes!”

Mom and Dad are at the counter, gathering napkins and pouring drinks. Jude is pulling baskets of french fries and cheeseburgers from a collection of white paper bags and setting them out on the table. “Wow, Ellie,” he says, with a genuine Jude smile. “You look like a movie star.”

She beams, showing off the streaks of sparkly purple eyeshadow around her eyes and cheeks. She actually looks like she’s been in a bar fight with a fairy godmother, but she seems so pleased with herself I can’t bring myself to say so.

“Thought we should do our part to support one of our community staples,” says Dad, sitting down and taking one of the burgers from Jude. “They sure have been getting a lot of bad press lately, with all those billboards getting tagged.”

My eyebrows rise as I take my seat. “More than one?”

Dad nods. “Five or six, I think. Someone wrote Lies on a bunch of them and drew sad faces on the cows. I guess there’ve been rumors going around that Blue’s is getting their meat from some awful farms where the cows are all crammed together and fed slop or what have you. All I know is that Blue’s Burgers has been around since the sixties, and they are just as delicious now as when I was a kid. Don’t know why anyone would go after them, of all places. It’s hard enough for a little family-owned place to stay in business without people trying to tear them down.”

“Honestly. What’s wrong with some people?” Mom asks as she hands out paper towels.

I unwrap my burger, overflowing with tomato and pickles and Blue’s mind-blowing secret sauce. My mouth is already watering. But something gives me pause. I think about what Quint said, how Morgan was petitioning to have the government look into a factory farm, something about inhumane treatment of the animals. But that can’t have anything to do with Blue’s Burgers. Their cattle come from organic, grass-fed … something-something … I don’t know, whatever their ads say.

Don’t they?

And even if they don’t, does it really matter to me? I’m not vegetarian. It’s never even crossed my mind to be anything other than a content omnivore. I figure, humans are at the top of the food chain for a reason. And it isn’t like my parents can afford the expensive meat out of the butcher case, so probably lots of the meat I’ve consumed over the years has come from those farms that feed them slop or what have you, as Dad so succinctly suggested.

This isn’t a cause that means anything to me. They’re just cows.

They’re just food.

But Morgan. Regardless of how I feel, this cause clearly means something to her. So much that she was willing to climb to the top of a rickety ladder to tell people about it.

A choice she’s paid the price for.

“Everything okay, Pru?” asks Mom.

I blink up at her. Smile. “Yeah, yeah.” I try to shake the thoughts from my head. My family is staring at me. I clear my throat. “I was just thinking about … um … this project I’ve been working on. Did you know that sea otters play a vital role in balancing the health of kelp forests?”

“What’s a kelp forest?” asks Penny.

I sigh. “It’s a forest. Of kelp. Underwater.”

Ellie’s eyes go wide. “There are forests underwater?”

“Yeah, sort of,” I say.

Mom dips a fry into her ketchup. “Did you learn that at your new volunteer job?”

“Um. Yeah,” I say, because I’m not about to bring up how I spent the afternoon snorkeling with Quint Erickson. Jude is already giving me a suspicious look.

“I must say, I was pretty bummed when you decided not to come work at the record store,” says Dad. “But it sounds like things at this rescue center are going well so far?”

I shrug. “It hasn’t been so bad.”

“And Ari has been great, hasn’t she?” says Mom. “I’ve heard nothing but good things.”

“Oh yeah. That girl!” says Dad, picking up a pickle that’s fallen out of his burger. “I think she might know more about music than I do! And, of course, I’m happy to have Jude there.”

Jude smiles, but his mouth is full, so he doesn’t say anything.

“That reminds me,” I say, setting down the burger, unbitten, and wiping my hands on a paper towel. “I told Ari I’d give her my old keyboard. You don’t mind, do you?”

Mom and Dad both stop chewing and exchange looks.

“What?” I ask. “We’re not using it. No one here even knows how to play.”

“Maybe Ellie would want to learn to play,” suggests Lucy, which feels like a suggestion made just to thwart me. I frown at her, then glance at Ellie.

“Ellie, do you want to learn to play the piano?”

Eleanor twists up her mouth in deep, thoughtful concentration. She takes a sip of her milk, still thinking. When she sets the cup down, she finally answers, “I want to play the drums.”

“Good choice!” says Dad ecstatically, while the rest of us grimace. That’s all we need to go along with Penny’s violin lessons.

“Either way,” I continue, “if Ellie or anyone did decide they wanted it, I’m sure Ari would give it back. But for now, I guarantee she’d get more use out of it than we are.”

“Here’s the thing,” says Mom, dabbing her own paper towel around her mouth. “We would have loved for Ari to have it, if we knew, but … well. We don’t have the keyboard anymore.”

I blink at her. “What?”

Then I shove my seat back from the table.

Ellie, who we are constantly having to scold into staying at the table during dinnertime, immediately points at me and shouts, “No leaving the table!”

I ignore her and cross the floor to peek into the living room.

Sure enough, the keyboard is gone, leaving a gaping hole amid the clutter where it used to sit.

I spin back. “Where did it go?”

“We sold it,” says Mom, lifting her hands in something almost like an apology, though not a very convincing one. “You weren’t using it. I didn’t think you’d even notice.”

And she’s right. I never would have noticed, if I hadn’t wanted to give it to Ari.

I slump back into my seat. “You could have asked.”

“And you could have practiced more when you were taking lessons,” says Dad, even though I’m not convinced this argument is at all relevant to the conversation.

“I hope Ari can find herself a nice keyboard,” says Mom. “She really is such a sweet girl, and we do appreciate her helping out at the store.”

I narrow my eyes. “You are paying her, right?”

“Of course!” says Dad, sounding offended. But it had to be asked. I’m fairly sure Ari would work there for free, but I’m not about to tell them that. She deserves to get paid for her time.

“And how is the store doing?” asks Lucy. “Financially, I mean.”

Her question surprises me. The directness of it. We all feel the question immediately sending us out onto thin ice. I have to admit, I sort of admire Lucy for being the one to bring it up, when even Jude and I would rather go on pretending that everything is fine.

Again, Mom and Dad look at each other. Even Penny seems to tense. Only Ellie ignores the topic, too busy trying to make a tower of french fries on the table.

“Fine,” says Dad. “Slow. But it always is this time of year. Tourist season is coming. It’ll pick up.”

He says it with confidence, but what else is he going to say? The record store is doomed and we should all start panicking?

Then Mom smiles and changes the subject, asking Lucy how softball practice went earlier that day.

I pick up my burger again and take a bite. I’m sure it’s delicious, as it always is, but for some reason, I hardly taste a thing.

TWENTY-TWO

“Ugh. I can’t say it. Not again. Please don’t make me.”

Quint leans against the short wall. I can sense his smug grin, feel him watching me. But I only have eyes for the creature in the little pen. “Come on, Prudence. You can do this. Here, I’ll get you started. Repeat after me. Quint, you were…”

I cover my eyes with my hands and give my head a vicious shake. But it doesn’t last long. I have to open my fingers. I have to peek.

Oh heavens. That fuzzy face, the twitching nose, the sweet little paws curled together over his tummy as he rolls around on the floor …

I groan, and feel myself caving. “Fine. Quint. You were”—I grimace, biting back the word for as long as I can—“right.”