The next day is really busy. We meet at Dog Beach earlier than usual because Oscar’s mom has to take the babies to their pediatrician. I get worried that he’ll be lonely without Marilyn Monroe and the others, so all the dogs get picked up early.
Then we take them for lunch at Daisy’s—she serves up a full doggie menu on weekdays, when she’s not so busy—and we entertain them for most of the afternoon.
I can tell that Marilyn Monroe wishes it was just the two of us at Daisy’s, the way she sits on my lap at the table and then leaves a few dog treats by my feet, as if she thinks I’d enjoy the treats too.
It’s a great day, but by the end, we’re so tired that I’m worried we won’t have enough energy for trivia.
“Let’s meet there,” Micayla tells me as we’re walking home from Sundae Best. After such a tiring day, we deserve ice cream and we need the sugar to energize ourselves. “Six o’clock, right?”
I nod. Bennett’s already back home, since he needed to meet Asher after camp. I don’t know why they wouldn’t pick me up on the way, but I’m too tired to ask.
I rush inside, shower, put on a pair of skinny jeans and a tank top—and even though I only planned to lie down for five minutes, I fall sound asleep on my bed.
When I wake up and look at my clock, it’s five thirty.
I rush out of bed, tie my hair back in a ponytail, since it’s such a mess from my falling asleep with it wet, and hurry downstairs.
“Rem, no dinner?” my mom asks. She grilled some hot dogs, and they’re on a platter in the middle of the kitchen table.
“I can’t. Seagate Knowbodies tonight.”
“Take a hot dog for the walk,” my mom says. “We’ll meet you there.”
I quickly put a hot dog on a paper plate, squirt some ketchup on it, and hurry out the door.
I get there in ten minutes, and I’m pretty impressed with my ability to walk and eat. Micayla and Bennett are already sitting up on the stage, and they’re testing out the buzzers. The best part of Seagate Knowbodies (aside from winning) is that we get to use actual buzzers like in a real game show.
“Sorry I’m late, guys,” I say, a little out of breath.
Micayla motions to me that I have something on my face, and I quickly wipe away the drop of ketchup from the corner of my mouth. Maybe I’m not as good at walking and eating as I thought I was.
I sit between Micayla and Bennett. They saved me the middle seat. It was nice of them to do that, but that wasn’t the reason they did it. They did it because we always sit in this order, and we’re a little superstitious. We’ve won the past two years sitting in this exact formation.
Up on the stage, I can see everything. All the people who came to watch, Sundae Best’s ice cream cone sign, the one-dollar-books cart in front of Novel Ideas Book Shop, and even the path all the way to the ocean.
They only put up the stage a few times a year: for Seagate Knowbodies, for the Fourth of July concert, and for the judges of the Seagate Halloween Costume Contest.
I feel lucky that I get to sit here, because the view is one of the best in the world.
Unfortunately, I also see Claire and Calvin in the front row. Yes, they have grown on me, but it doesn’t feel right to see them at such a Seagate-y event. Also, Calvin is sitting there making faces at Bennett, doing those armpit farts and then pretending to faint from the imaginary smell. He’s going to distract Bennett, and we’re going to lose. I don’t think that’s what any of us want. And Claire looks ridiculously bored, staring at her phone and rolling her eyes.
“Welcome to the fifteenth annual Seagate Knowbodies Trivia Competition!” Mr. Aprone yells out into his megaphone. He’s the head of the Seagate Community Association, and he also owns the Novel Ideas Book Shop. He lives in Rhode Island but comes to Seagate every weekend of the year. “That’s K-N-O-W, people! Our reigning champions, Team RemBenMic, are back, and we also have a few newcomers, Team Sunny Days and Team No Sugar Added.”
We’re allowed to keep coming back to the contest because we keep winning, but the newcomers have to go through a rigorous selection process. They have to submit a proposal about why they want to participate, and they have to score high enough on Mr. Aprone’s entrance exam. He takes this whole thing very seriously, obviously, which only makes it more fun.
“Team No Sugar Added is a group of ladies from the diabetes support group,” Micayla whispers to me. Her mom is a nurse and she volunteers with that group during the summer, helping answer questions and stuff. “They look so excited, don’t they?”
“Yeah.” I look over at them again after I hear the loud slaps from their high fives. “I guess they’re not Sundae Best’s best customers.” I laugh.
“They have sugar-free flavors,” Micayla reminds me, all serious-sounding. Maybe my joke wasn’t really that funny.
“So, teams, hands off the buzzers!” Mr. Aprone says. “We’re ready to begin.”
He pauses for applause, and I see Calvin standing up, clapping furiously, the only one who has decided to give us a standing ovation before the contest has even started.
Bennett cracks up but stops when I glare at him.
“First question: How many gazebos are there on Seagate?”
My hand hits the buzzer first. Mr. Aprone always starts with an easy one, and this one is almost too easy.
“Yes, RemBenMic has hit the buzzer first,” he says. He has a screen that shows which team’s buzzer buzzes first, so there’s really no debating it.
“Six,” I answer.
“That is correct,” Mr. Aprone says. “Bonus question goes to RemBenMic first and then will be opened to the other teams if they answer incorrectly. It is: Where are the gazebos located?”
I don’t have to hit the buzzer since it’s our question, but I do offer it up to Micayla and Bennett to see if they want to answer. They shake their heads. Maybe I’m imagining it, but I start to feel like I’m the only one fired up about the contest.
“On the grassy lawn by the stadium, by the entryway to West Beach, one in front of Sundae Best, one by the entrance to Dog Beach, one behind High Tide Bar & Grill, and one at the end of Ocean Walk.”
“That is correct!”
Everyone claps after I answer, and even Claire looks a little bit proud, but Bennett and Micayla have sort of a delayed reaction. They don’t look as excited as they should be. I want to nudge them with my elbow and get them to perk up. I wonder if it’s the long day with the dogs that exhausted them, or if it’s something else. I can’t interrupt the contest to ask.
I also can’t be the only one on the team to answer the questions. That’s a Seagate Knowbodies rule—one team member can answer a maximum of three questions in a row.
“Next question,” Mr. Aprone says after he adjusts his microphone. It was making a terrible screeching sound, and we all had to cover our ears. “When was Seagate founded?”
I attempt to hit the buzzer, but No Sugar Added gets to it first. I guess I delayed a little bit because I was hoping Micayla or Bennett would take the chance.
“1932,” one of the women answers.
The bonus question is who was the first person to come to Seagate, and of course I know the answer is Melvin Jasper, but they get the first chance to answer and they get it right.
The next question goes to Sunny Days, but I didn’t know the answer. It was some geographic question about what it’s called when an ocean experiences two equal high tides and two equal low tides in a day. The answer is semidiurnal, and I always forget that.
We each get a few more questions, and then the score is tied.
“Come on, guys,” I say, finally. Micayla did get the answer right about the number of kids in Seagate Schoolhouse’s first graduating class, so I high-fived her for that. “We need to perk up! Bennett, you haven’t answered a single question.”
“Okay, okay.” He does this weird finger signal to Calvin and then bursts out laughing. It seems like Bennett would much rather be in the audience watching with Calvin instead of participating with us. “The next one is all me.”
So when Mr. Aprone asks, “Name the famous actor who once had a summer home on Seagate,” and Bennett hits the buzzer, I get all excited because he obviously knows this one.
Except that when Bennett’s ready to answer, Calvin does some awkward fist-bump thing and Bennett starts laughing and then says, “Alec Baldwin.”
“Unfortunately, that’s incorrect,” Mr. Aprone says.
Then No Sugar Added hits the buzzer because I’m not allowed to answer, since my teammate got it wrong.
“George Clooney,” one of the ladies says, and that team takes the lead.
“That is correct!” Mr. Aprone yells. “We will now take a five-minute break.”
“Bennett!” I say. “Don’t you remember our moms telling us the story over and over again?”
He looks at me, confused.
“Remember? When we were little babies, I was crying so loud that George Clooney came over from his table at Picnic to our table and picked me up and got me to quiet down?”
“Why were you eating at Picnic when you were so little?” he asks me.
“My parents’ anniversary.” I glare at him. That’s so not the important part of the story. What is wrong with him? “Duh.”
“Sorry, Rem.” He hits the buzzer accidentally and gets everyone’s attention. “Sorry, folks, technical difficulties.” He’s not even making sense. That wasn’t a technical difficulty; that was him being stupid, but Calvin laughs anyway.
It seems Calvin will laugh at whatever Bennett does.
He’s ruining our chances at winning for the third year in a row, and yet he’s just laughing. I turn my head to whisper something to Micayla, and I notice that she’s not sitting next to me anymore.
I look around, shocked that I didn’t even notice her leaving. Maybe she was sick and had to leave in a hurry. I wonder if I should go check on her. Then I look out into the audience and I see her sitting next to Avery Sanders, whispering something in her ear.
Mr. Aprone announces that the break is over, and Micayla runs back onto the stage.
“What was that all about?” I ask her.
“Nothing.” She looks at me weirdly, like it’s a bizarre question. I don’t have time to say anything else, because Mr. Aprone tells us it’s now round two.
“Name three of Sundae Best’s retired flavors,” he says.
Bennett whispers, “I got this one,” and hits the buzzer. He answers, “Peach pistachio, caramel apple, and s’more explosion!”
“Yes!” Mr. Aprone matches Bennett’s enthusiasm, and then everyone starts cheering. It’s silly, but the fact that Bennett answered this question right immediately makes me feel better. Of course he knows the answer. He knows the Sundae Best flavors better than anyone.
But after that, things go downhill again. Sunny Days gets a question right about the consistency of sand, and No Sugar Added correctly answers a question about some old folk-singer who performed on Seagate more than two hundred times. Then we get an answer right about the Seagate Book Club, since all our moms are in it.
But the final question is about the price of a summer home on Seagate in 1950, and we have absolutely no idea.
We lose.
The RemBenMic victory streak is over.
Bennett’s leaving tomorrow for a four-day boat trip, and Micayla was whispering with Avery Sanders.
Maybe I’m being dramatic, but it feels like it’s not just the Seagate Knowbodies contest that’s over. It feels like Seagate life as I know it, and have always known it, is over too.
At least I have the dogs. That’s what I keep telling myself. When everything else feels out of control, the dogs are reliable. In a way, dogs are better than people. They don’t take their bad moods out on you, if they even get in bad moods. They don’t let you down, and they’re always pretty much the same.