CHAPTER 27

The afternoon passed agonizingly slowly. I was keyed up about Amanda Appleton and eager to talk to Hatcher. He was still with Lobster Bob, though. I channeled my nervous energy into vacuuming the entire store, helping Belinda unpack the latest shipment of books, and taking turns with Aunt True at the Cup and Chaucer counter.

Later, back home after my shift was over, I slam-dunked a quick dinner, then gathered the cleaning supplies that Dr. Calhoun had asked us to bring to the Grange. My mother was backing the minivan out of the barn when Lobster Bob’s truck finally appeared and Hatcher hopped out.

“You’re late,” I told him, wrinkling my nose. “Plus, you smell like fish.”

He grinned and tipped his new baseball cap at me. It was red, with a white lobster on the front. “You were expecting roses?”

“I was expecting maybe you’d take a shower before rehearsal!”

“Hey, all we’re doing tonight is cleaning. I’m just going to get all sweaty and dirty anyway. Chill, Drooly.”

The Grange was already abuzz with activity by the time our mother dropped us off. Elmer Farnsworth, Belinda, and Augustus, who must have finished the draft of his new book, because his laptop was nowhere in sight, were beating the curtains onstage with brooms. Bud Jefferson and Lucas trailed in their wake with a pair of vacuum cleaners, attacking the clouds of dust that had been stirred up. A group of actors was mopping the floor, and Mr. Henry and Lucas’s mother and the rest of the costume and makeup team were tackling the windows with buckets of water and rags.

“Ah, the cavalry is here!” said Dr. Calhoun, swooping down on my brother and me. He handed us each a long-handled duster. “How does cobweb duty sound?”

We started with the chandeliers. As we swiped at the cobwebs, I filled Hatcher in on what had happened at the library, from our dead ends to Amanda Appleton’s surprise appearance.

“So do you think she suspects anything?”

I shrugged. “That’s what Cha Cha asked. I honestly don’t know.”

“Maybe I should get another perspective,” he said a few minutes later, and wandered off to talk to Cha Cha, leaving me on my own to start on the rafters. He’d been talking to Cha Cha a lot lately. I dragged a ladder into place and was halfway up when I heard a voice below.

“Hey!”

I looked down to see Calhoun standing there, smiling at me. I was suddenly acutely aware that I was covered in cobwebs. I smiled back. “Hey yourself.”

“Want to take a break and help me?”

“Sure.” I followed him out the back door to where a large, rectangular something was waiting, strapped to a dolly and covered with a drop cloth. It looked kind of like a refrigerator.

“You’ll see” was all that Calhoun would say when I asked him what it was.

“Set it by the stage,” his father called to us as we rolled it inside. “Gather round, people!”

Work around the Grange halted as everyone came over to stare at the drop cloth–covered object.

“What is it?” asked Jasmine.

“Our time machine to the 1950s!” Dr. Calhoun enthused. He reached for the drop cloth and pulled it away. “Behold, a genuine, bona fide midcentury jukebox!”

“Groovy!” said Belinda. “Does it work?”

He nodded. “Elmer was able to get it going for us.”

Calhoun plugged it in, and the machine lit up like a Christmas tree. Belinda punched a couple of the glowing buttons.

“One, two, three o’clock, four o’clock, rock…” The song began blasting from the built-in speakers.

“Five, six, seven o’clock, eight o’clock, rock,” Belinda sang, her short white curls bobbing in time to the music. Augustus grabbed her around her ample waist, and the two of them started to dance.

“Nine, ten, eleven o’clock, twelve o’clock, rock,” Bud Jefferson continued, as he and Mrs. Winslow followed suit.

“WE’RE GONNA ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK TONIGHT!” bellowed Elmer, twirling his broom around the stage.

The music was upbeat and irresistible, and bit by bit everyone joined in. My brother paired off with Cha Cha. Dr. Calhoun danced with his daughter, Juliet, and Jasmine danced with Scooter. Calhoun took my hand, and the two of us began bobbing up and down to the music too. He’d grown since the last time I’d danced with him during cotillion last winter. We were almost eye to eye.

Dr. Calhoun was grinning broadly when we finished in a breathless whirl. “I knew the 1950s was the right era! If we can bring this same kind of bounce and energy to Gilbert and Sullivan, we’ll have the audience eating out of our hands.”

We all took turns picking songs as we continued with our cleaning. We sang along to the ones we knew and tapped our toes to the ones we didn’t. The rest of the evening flew by, and by the end of it the Grange looked as good as it was going to get without a complete renovation. The windows sparkled, the chandeliers and rafters were cobweb free, the floor was mopped clean, all the chairs were wiped free of dust, and the stage was neat and tidy.

“Good work, team!” said Dr. Calhoun. “You’ve earned a break. Juliet will hand out refreshments while I go over a few housekeeping items and give you a brief outline of my vision for the play.”

“Chocolate with chocolate ganache frosting or carrot cake with spiced cream cheese frosting,” whispered Juliet as she passed around a tray of cupcakes. “My father made them.”

“The operetta usually opens aboard a ship or a beach along the coast of Cornwall,” Dr. Calhoun continued. “But in this case, we’ll open in a 1950s malt shop.”

Lucas’s hand flew up. “What’s a malt shop?”

“Like a diner,” Dr. Calhoun replied. “With lots of ice cream on the menu. A malted is kind of like a milkshake. Anyway, I thought we’d name it the Rockin’ Mermaid to give it a nautical flair, as a nod to the traditional setting. As the prelude begins, a pair of pirates will wheel in the counter and stools, and atop the counter will be our own resident mermaid, Miss Truly Lovejoy, the Esther Williams of Pumpkin Falls!”

“Like a float in a parade,” whispered Scooter.

More like a fish on a platter, I thought in dismay, feeling my face flame.

“This will bring in another nautical element and help set the scene a bit.” Dr. Calhoun outlined his vision in broad strokes, from the pirates dressed in black leather jackets, white T-shirts, and a hairstyle called a ducktail, to the high school prom dance floor where the second act would take place. I tuned out after a while and focused on my chocolate cupcake with chocolate ganache frosting. It was delicious. Dr. Calhoun really knew how to bake.

When he got to the finale, though, I tuned back in again big-time.

“It’s here that the pirates are revealed to actually be noblemen, and thus entitled to wed the daughters of the Major-General”—my brother hopped up and took a bow—“and then of course there’s the big smooch between Frederick and Mabel at the end.”

Dr. Calhoun added this last bit almost as an afterthought.

I sat in shocked silence. Scooter, being Scooter, gave a wolf whistle. Calhoun was expressionless in his seat beside me, staring straight ahead. Farther down the row, Cha Cha had gone beet red. This was clearly a surprise to both of them, too.

“I understand that this can be awkward for actors your age,” Dr. Calhoun told his son and Cha Cha, “so fake it for now during rehearsals. We’ll save the real thing for the performances.”

The real thing?

He couldn’t mean it!

But he did.

This was really truly happening! My crush was going to kiss my closest friend in Pumpkin Falls onstage right in front of me, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it!