Allie Jo
I don’t understand why I couldn’t get Chase to agree with me about Tara yesterday. When I was little, I was a mermaid, a princess, a girl who could fly—I was lots of things and they were all make-believe, but I knew it.
Tara doesn’t know it.
She really believes she’s a Selkie. Even if there were such a thing, she would look more like one, like, like—I don’t know—how vampires have fangs and fairies have wings. I tried to point this out to Chase but he didn’t agree or disagree. It was so frustrating.
One thing I don’t need anyone to instruct me on is family. If Tara’s uncle hadn’t shown up, she would have been part of my family. I was planning it, I could imagine it, and it wasn’t make-believe either. It was real. But a blood relative is even more real. I woke up this morning knowing that.
If I see Mr. Smith again, I’ll reunite him with Tara—Pamela. Family needs each other.
Even though it’s six fifteen in the morning, the hotel staff buzzes with excitement. Everyone who’s helping at Taste of Hope sits in the break room as Dad gives out last-minute instructions. The dark smell of coffee fills the room, and the adults guzzle it to start their engines.
Sophie’s parents left a note for me at the front desk that Sophie had a fever last night and is too sick to come out. I feel bad for her, but I’ll get her some goodies from the other booths.
Chase and Tara sit with me at a table in the back. We’ve got fancy waitstaff uniforms on, and everyone looks sharp. Glancing at Tara, I see her hair’s wet, probably from an early morning swim. My heart falls upon realizing this. I try to raise a smile in her direction, but now I feel sad thinking that something is not right in her brain.
I wonder if it’s a person’s fault if they’re sick in the head. Maybe they need to pay attention or read more books. But I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s their fault. On TV, they show mental patients acting all weird, like having a million different personalities or killing people. I don’t think those TV people have ever met someone with brain problems. Tara’s good. She would never do that stuff.
“Okay!” Dad claps his hands and we file out to the shuttle buses.
Clay leaves the front desk for a moment to walk with Tara, and Chase takes this opportunity to argue with me about her and her uncle. He wonders why her uncle doesn’t call the police or offer a reward or something. He calls the man a creep, a schemer who wants to kidnap her.
I’m done talking about this. I shut him up by saying, “Or maybe he’s just her uncle come to take care of her.”
When we get to the park, Mrs. Brimble and her daughter in college, Toni, are washing down bistro tables on the lower end of the hill, where their booth is set up.
“Hey, Toni!” I yell. “Hi, Mrs. Brimble!” They straighten up, smile, and wave back.
I pass the booth for Books ’n’ Such. “Hi, Miss Pauline!” I scan her booth real quick. Yep, she’s got the jar where you drop your name in, and later you might be the winner of a free book of your choice. I’ll be back here for sure. Gracie’s Attic, Flowers & Vines by Sieg, Coffee Haus, Anne-tiques—they’re all here. Miss Joanie is talking with Miss MaryAnn, who has already set up her easel and is painting on her first canvas of the day.
Looking up and down at the rows and rows of tents and calling out to people, my heart swells with excitement.
All over the hill, people raise their tent flaps and set up their wares. Music pipes from loudspeakers and we’re still cutting through the people when we hear the Toot! Toot! coming from the Children’s Train. There’s a ripple of applause and laughter and it’s like we’re all one big family getting ready for something fantastic to happen.
I can’t wait.