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favorite apron, the pink one with DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS on it, and he’d stuffed the top with dish towels to give himself a bust. A couple more wadded into the seat of his pants added an exaggerated bottom. He did a little dance, wiggling his rear end at me, and I couldn’t help it, I laughed.
    Which was the whole point, of course. Hatcher’s always trying to crack me up.
    Mom says that except for his hair color, he’s pureGifford. Her whole family loves practical jokes, and telling funny stories, and they’ve all got these big, loud laughs just like Hatcher’s. My brother is the definition of happy-go-lucky. Nothing much bothers him, and he’s always looking on the bright side, just like Mom. “Cheerful as a sunflower,” she calls him.
    I, on the other hand—well, nobody’s ever called me a sunflower. Hatcher and I look a lot alike, with our freckles and brown eyes and stick-straight brown hair (his is shorter than mine, of course, thanks to Dad’s vigilance with the clippers), but that’s where the resemblance ends. He’s sunshine; I’m shadow. Like I said, I’m the quiet type. Except for the times when I stick my foot in my mouth, and when you wear size-ten-and-a-half shoes, that’s a whole lot of foot. Unfortunately, my foot spends a lot of time there. I’m kind of famous in my family for blurting out the wrong thing at the wrong time.
    Hatcher danced over and placed a colander on my head like a crown. “Duty calls, milady,” he warbled. “Prepare to wash and chop.”
    My smile vanished. Grumbling, I crossed to the fridge and started pulling out salad fixings. KP was my least favorite chore. The plan was for Hatcher and me to alternate weeks with Danny and Lauren, to help Mom out now that she’s going back to college. It’s always been her dream to be an English teacher, but between juggling all of us kidsand our constant moves with the military, it was pretty much an impossible one. Now that we were finally putting down roots, she had decided to finish her degree. It’s really convenient for her, what with Lovejoy College being right here in Pumpkin Falls.
    The college was founded in 1769 by one of our ancestors: Nathaniel Daniel Lovejoy, my great-great-great-zillion-times-great-grandfather, who built this house and who looks down his Lovejoy proboscis at us from his oil portrait hanging over the fireplace in the living room. His wife, Prudence, whose nose is a normal size, stares back at him from her portrait above the piano. There are more Lovejoys scattered over the walls in other parts of the house too, so many that I can’t always keep track of their names. Nathaniel Daniel is pretty hard to forget, though. What were his parents thinking?
    Even Pippa thinks it’s a stupid name. “Nathaniel Daniel looks like a spaniel,” she sing-songed the first time she heard it.
    â€œWhen’s everybody due back?” asked Hatcher.
    I shrugged. “Soon, I guess. Mom said they’d be home for dinner.” Lauren and Pippa had gone along for the ride while she and Danny registered for classes—my mother at Lovejoy College, and Danny at the high school over in West Hartfield. Not only is Pumpkin Falls too small to have its own movie theater, it also doesn’t even have its own high school, whichmeans Danny will have to drive himself nearly half an hour to school each day.
    My brother slid the lasagna into the oven and gave me a sidelong glance. “So, what’s the deal with the grade?”
    I made a face and sliced into a tomato. “I don’t know, Hatch. Ever since I found out we were moving again, I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I tanked a couple of tests.”
    â€œDid you think Dad wouldn’t find out?”
    â€œI thought I’d beat him to the mailbox, that’s for sure.”
    â€œMoron,” he said, punching me in the arm. It was a friendly punch,