Sorry about your ribbon, Miller,” Mrs. Noyes says when we come into the youth exhibit.
“That’s okay,” I tell her. “Maybe I’ll get a ribbon next year.”
“You’ll get your ribbon this year!” She smiles. “I don’t know how it got knocked down, but it’s back up there now. Go take a look!”
Penny and Mom are standing in front of my “physics collection” when Dad and I get there.
“I’m going to be a baking judge next year,” I tell Mom.
“You got a red!” Penny yells.
“Congratulations!” Mom says. “On both things!”
She hugs me and Penny hugs me and Dad hugs all of us. Big night for hugs.
Mrs. Noyes comes over and pulls me aside. “I shouldn’t tell you this,” she looks over her shoulder and lowers her voice. “The judges said your ribbon would have been a blue except this isn’t really a collection. And those judges are—”
“Sticklers for rules,” I say. “I know.”
“But they loved your project, Miller. Loved it! So they’re adding a new category to the youth exhibit, starting next year. Hands-on Science!”
Mrs. Noyes, the nicest grown-up in the world, goes back to her seat at the front of the building.
I grin. Hands-on Science. I can do that.
We wave good-bye to Mrs. Noyes and walk out of the youth exhibit. Dad holds tight to Penny’s hand.
“Miller,” Mom says. “Penny’s been telling me all about everything that’s happened today.” She gives me a knowing look.
I stop smiling. I stop walking. “Everything?” I ask.
“Oh yes. Everything,” she says, looking slightly dazed. “And even though it’s apparently been an eventful day, here we are together, with everyone fine and accounted for.”
I think for a minute. “Even at your work?”
“Yes, honey, even at my work. Our friend went to visit her cousin all the way up in New Roxborough without telling anyone. But she’s back where she’s supposed to be,” Mom says with a relieved smile. “So I was thinking about all of the responsibilities you took on today, and about how careful you tried to be in spite of how hard it was.”
“I know today was nothing like the Fair day you expected, but how about some Fair time on your own right now? All things considered, I think you’ve earned it. Let’s say … ten minutes?”
“A whole ten minutes?” Dad teases.
Mom takes a deep breath. “Okay … fifteen. You can meet us on the concert hill. We’ll pick up dinner on the way.”
Dad puts his arm around Mom. “This is very brave of you, Dana,” he says.
“I will worry,” she says. “But I’ll try not to overdo it.”
I look around at the fairgrounds spreading out in front of us: beautiful, noisy, and crammed full of people. I’m reasonably sure I’ve had enough responsible and careful to last me until next year—or maybe even the year after. Lewis is gone and I’m starving, so sitting on the hill with my parents and eating a Fair dinner is all I really want to do. But then I remember something important.
“Go ahead, then,” Mom says.
“Okay,” I say.
“Meet us at the concert,” she says. “On the side of the hill where we always sit.”
“In fifteen minutes,” I say.
“We’ll be next to the telephone pole. The third pole,” she adds.
“I know.”
“Counting from the stage.”
“See you there,” Dad says, steering Mom and Penny down the path.
I look around at the food booths and the exhibits. Music from the concert floats across the Fair. Down the hill, people are moving in and out of the animal barns. The Ferris Wheel is turning at the edge of the midway, the BlastoCoaster is zooming, and the Gravity Whirl is up at the top of its spin. In a strange way, the Fair feels bigger and smaller to me than it ever has, and I can feel its powerful force field all around. Fifteen minutes isn’t a lot of time. I hope it will be enough.
Even though I’ve run about six marathons already today, I race up the hill one last time. I run all the way up to the town green and join the eighty-seven thousand people browsing in the crafts tent.
I dodge and weave through the aisles, passing doll sweaters, pottery, jars of jam, and dog leashes. The dog leash place has a bowl of free biscuits, so I pocket one for the Wonderdog. I keep going past fleece hats, hand-painted bird houses, and wooden animals. None of those things are what I want.
But then I see just the right kind of stall. I examine every item closely until I find the exact, perfect thing.
“How much for this pink, purple, and yellow heart-shaped pin?” I ask the jewelry seller.
“That one?” she points. “Eighteen dollars.”
I pull the rest of my Fair savings out of my pocket. I count it, as if the three-fifty I had left after the games plus the ten dollars Andrew’s mother gave me could magically add up to eighteen. It doesn’t.
“Thanks, anyway,” I say. I turn away.
“Wait. How much you got?” the jewelry seller asks.
“Only thirteen-fifty,” I tell her.
“Sold!” She hands me the pin, tucked in a fancy velvet jewelry box.
“Thanks!” I say. “Thanks a lot!”
I pay and dash out of the crafts tent. Now I can’t wait for Tuesday. Mom is going to love her birthday present. I race over to the concert hill and find my family with half a minute to spare.
“MOM BOUGHT YOU A HOLMSBURY FAIR T-SHIRT AND A HOLMSBURY FAIR BASEBALL CAP,” my sister yells so everyone on the next planet can hear her.
“I want a T-shirt, too,” someone calls out.
“Penny, you told,” Mom laughs. “I was going to wrap them and give them to you in the morning.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I say. “That’s the best present ever!” Almost, I think, patting the box in my pocket.
“You earned them,” Mom says.
“And this is for you, too.” Dad hands me a ten-dollar bill.
“But I already got my ten dollars back for Lou-Ann’s ride bracelet,” I tell him. “Andrew’s mother gave it to me.”
“That ten dollars is for tomorrow,” Dad says, “so you and Lewis can go on the Gravity Whirl and whatever else you can fit in before you watch the judges do the state bake-off.”
“The Gravity Whirl?” I say, not quite understanding.
Mom smiles weakly. “We’ve been talking about this, and I decided that since you have to come anyway, and I missed today, I’m going to bring you at ten and sub for someone at the lemonade cart. Do you think you can figure out what to do with yourselves for a couple of hours?”
“You mean like rides and stuff? On my own with Lewis?” I gulp. “You’re not kidding?”
“Not kidding,” Dad says.
Now I do jump up and down. “Wow,” I shout. “Thanks! I can’t believe this!” I leap in the air again, then flop down so tired that I wonder, just for a moment, if I’ve dreamed this or what. I can’t wait to call Lewis.
“I get to come to the Fair on Saturday as soon as I’m eleven and a half, too,” my sister says.
Mom passes me a bowl of Garden Club chili and a tall chocolate milkshake. I take one fiery spoonful of chili at a time and cool it off with a swig of shake.
Dad starts singing along with the band. “You gotta rock, in this world, you gotta rock.”
Penny dumps the midway prizes out onto the blanket. She puts all of the spider rings we won on her fingers and makes them talk to the big green dog, the purple giraffe, and the three goldfish.
When I finish eating, I stretch out on the blanket so I can see the stars winking overhead—trillions and trillions of them—so many that if I stare long enough it feels like I’m falling up into them. I wonder why all of the subatomic, string-theory strings that make up me, Miller Sanford, are vibrating here on Earth instead of on some other planet, or even in some other galaxy. Then I think about how there could be a kid in some other galaxy looking up into his sky and wondering about his subatomic strings. Maybe his galaxy is in one of those extra dimensions, or in a parallel universe where he’s just lived through the longest, hardest, worryingest day in his entire life and almost lost his six-year-old sister, too.
“Hey, Penny,” I say. I push myself up onto my elbow. “On our way out, want to go back through the youth exhibit and show me which part of the pear butter is yours?”
“That’s dumb,” one of Pain-elope’s spider fingers tells the giraffe. “Pear butter doesn’t have parts.”
“Right,” I say. “No parts.” And I go back to watching the stars.