The next two weeks fly by. Either we’re busy with the dogs or we’re busy getting ready for Seagate Halloween. Micayla and I have sleepovers pretty much every other night, to make up for all the nights we missed this summer. Claire sometimes comes too.

In addition to getting Mr. Brookfield ready for his new role, we’re in charge of getting costumes for all the dogs, and we’ll be the ones walking them in the doggie part of the parade.

Rascal and Atticus are going as Ping-Pong players—we’re strapping Ping-Pong paddles to their backs. Marilyn Monroe and Tabby are going as Superwoman and Princess Leia. Oscar and Potato Salad are wearing matching doggie tuxedos. Palm is going as a Frisbee, since he’s so little. We’re basically strapping a Frisbee to him and hoping people get it.

We’re trying to get them all into their costumes now so that we can do a run-through before the parade tomorrow. It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it. We don’t want them to be totally caught off guard tomorrow.

The tuxedos are my favorite of all the costumes, and I kind of wanted Rascal and Atticus to wear them too. But Calvin and Bennett were set on some of the dogs being Ping-Pong players.

“Come on, Rem,” Bennett said. “They love to watch the games, and Ping-Pong is a Seagate tradition. It would be weird to leave it out.”

I agreed but am kind of regretting it. The tuxedos are just so cute.

Finally, after wrangling and twisting and bribing the dogs with treats, we have them all in their costumes. They’re running around Dog Beach that way, and it’s pretty much the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.

We return the dogs home later with their costumes and tell their owners to make sure they’re ready to go at eleven tomorrow. We want to get them prepared for the parade before everyone else gets there at noon.

That night, Micayla, Claire, and I have a sleepover at Micayla’s house. Her mom makes us bouyon, an amazing St. Lucian dish that’s a sort of stew, and homemade peanut butter cookies. We all sleep in sleeping bags on Micayla’s screened-in back porch, even though her room is cozy and nice.

We want to make the most of one of our last nights here and sleep by the sea.

“So what’s going on with you and Mason?” Claire asks Micayla.

“I dunno.” She laughs nervously. “He’s leaving tonight.”

“What?”

“Yeah. His sister is starting college. So they had to go back to Philadelphia to get her all settled,” Micayla says. “I said good-bye. He said to say good-bye to you guys too.”

“He’s missing Seagate Halloween!” I yell. “And all the dogs.”

“I know.” Micayla sighs. “But it’s okay. There’s always next summer.”

I look at Micayla and am amazed by her attitude. But she’s right. One of the best things about summer on Seagate is that there’s always a next summer to look forward to.

“And what about you?” Claire asks me. “Are you ever going to say anything to Bennett? Or no? And do you guys feel replaced by my brother?”

“A little,” I say. “But it’s okay. Bennett needed a guy friend.”

“You’re just going to let the summer end and not say anything?” Claire asks. She seems so serious and concerned, it’s making me feel uneasy. I kind of like my friendship with Bennett the way it is. We’re friends. And I have a little-more-than-friends feeling about him. But that’s okay.

It makes me wonder about Claire, though. Maybe she has a secret, and she’s worried about keeping it inside until next summer.

“I’m okay with waiting until next summer,” I admit. “I don’t want to mess anything up.”

“You won’t, Rem,” Micayla says and puts her arm around me. “Honestly. It’s Bennett. He’ll love you forever, no matter what.”

“Yeah.” I go over to the table and take another cookie. “Love me like a friend, like his sister.”

“Well, I’m not so sure about that,” Claire says. Her eyes have this strange twinkle, and I get the feeling that she wants to tell me something but she’s not totally sure that she should.

Micayla and Claire move closer together on the couch. It’s getting chilly out here, the way it always does at the end of August. It feels like summer is tired and needs a rest and can’t handle being so hot anymore. It’s breezier and colder, and we spend most of our afternoons in sweatshirts.

“We need hot chocolate,” Micayla tells us, and she hops up from the couch to go and get it. I sit on the back porch with Claire, who now has her sweatshirt hood covering her head and most of her face.

I want to ask her what she’s hiding, but I’m also kind of happy to have stopped the Bennett discussion. I don’t know how I feel, and sometimes it’s okay to admit that you don’t know. It feels better that way. It feels like it’s protecting me from doing the wrong thing.

“Remy, we have to tell you something,” Micayla says when she comes back from the kitchen with a tray of steamy mugs of hot chocolate. I guess Claire and Micayla had a secret conversation at some point and I didn’t realize it.

My heart starts pounding. It’s happening, and I can’t believe I haven’t realized it until now. What if Claire loves Bennett and Bennett loves Claire and this has been going on all summer and I didn’t even notice? What if that’s why Claire told Bennett, so she could figure out if he liked her?

I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know.

“Bennett likes you,” Claire says. “Really, really likes you.”

“What?” I ask.

“I mean, okay, he doesn’t love you like he’s going to propose or anything. I mean, you’re eleven,” Claire continues. “But he likes you in a different way than he likes us. He slept over the other night. And I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth. My loser brother and Bennett were in my grandpa’s upstairs den, and they were playing some dumb video game where they have to get robots into hot-air balloons. My brother might need an intervention, given how obsessed he is with computers and video games. But anyway—”

“Yeah?” I ask. My heart is racing. I can’t look at Claire and I can’t look at Micayla. I stare at the fraying cushion on Micayla’s outdoor chair. I pick at the threads.

“And Bennett goes, ‘Remy loves hot-air balloons.’ And then my dumb brother goes, ‘You’ve mentioned Remy, like, a million times tonight, dude.’”

Micayla starts laughing. “Your brother has a way of saying things. Have you noticed that?”

“Yeah. Always.” Claire rolls her eyes. “And then Bennett basically said that he hadn’t mentioned you that much, but then Calvin said he had, and then Bennett said, ‘I guess I did. I dunno. She’s pretty awesome.’”

Claire sips her mug of hot chocolate. “And then they went back to playing their game.”

I don’t want to feel or act too excited, because all that means is that he thinks I’m awesome, but I have to admit that it makes me happy. My heart finally calms down, and I smile and sit back on the frayed outdoor chair.

“Thanks for telling me that, Claire,” I say. “You didn’t have to.”

“Of course I didn’t have to. Duh.” Claire eats another cookie. “But I wanted to. I thought you should know. Because even if you don’t say anything, you can go home and spend the year knowing that Bennett thinks you’re awesome. And yeah, that’s a nice thing to know.”

We spend the rest of the night chatting and thinking about the parade tomorrow.

Instead of sleeping on the back porch like we’d planned, we bring our sleeping bags down to the beach and sleep on the sand.

“It’s good to have the ocean at our sleepover,” Claire tells us. “That’s something I never thought I’d say. But it’s really true.”