Vilonia Beebe Takes Charge by Kristin L. Gray

Author:Kristin L. Gray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books

Chapter Fifteen

We slurped down our malts and Neely took the long way home, past the fairgrounds. From the looks of it, every business owner downtown had shuttered his or her shop to help decorate for the Forty-Seventh Annual Catfish Festival. There were tents to put up, booths to open, twinkle lights to string. A hot dog truck roared behind us and turned into the gravel lot.

AC grabbed my arm and squeezed. The carnival rides loomed in the back, filled with ghost passengers. My toes tingled. Just thinking about taking the Ferris wheel to the tip-top made me forget about my troubles for a moment. Two workers were tying balloons to a metal archway that’d serve as the starting line for the Catfish 5k. Of course, Leon planned to run.

“Look, Vilonia!” AC squealed, and dug her fingers into my arm. She pressed her nose against the car window, making it hard for me to see the source of her excitement, even though I’d bet my best glove I knew exactly what it was: the stage.

“You might want to turn here, Mrs. Nutter,” I said as AC practically gave herself whiplash to see better. Neely made a right, and sure enough, past the balloon arch, in the eye of the fair, stood the stage where the new Miss Catfish would be crowned. Jasmine Washington won last year, and her royal sixteen-by-twenty portrait still hung on the wall in a fancy gilt frame at her daddy’s BBQ joint, right above the tray of tangy-sweet sauces.

“I can’t wait to see who will be the new Miss Catfish. Miss Connelly would be so perfect. She made second runner-up last year.” AC slumped back into her seat, lost in thought.

“Well, if I had anything to do with it, the crown wouldn’t go to DeeAnne Druxbury’s big sister. She steals kindergartners’ snacks when no one’s looking and exercises her toes.”

We rolled on past the trailers, looking for Tom Sawyer’s yellow food truck. Daddy was there, helping set up picnic tables and chairs, a blue dish towel slung over his shoulder. Neely honked. He looked up, and his face split open with that wide grin of his. Poodles. Why couldn’t he agree to a dog?

The whole ride home, Ray Charles’s adoption flyer burned a hole in my pocket, reminding me that someone, or someones, wanted him too.

Needing a distraction, I invited Ava Claire over for the rest of the afternoon, and thankfully, her mother agreed on the condition we didn’t waste the day away watching trashy TV. I told her not to worry. We had important business to attend to, and by business, I meant burial.

We climbed out of the pink Cadillac and, still on a sugar high from the vanilla malts, raced into the house and up the stairs. Only, Ava Claire, two steps ahead of me, stopped at the landing and froze.

“What?” I asked, then looked down the hall. My bedroom door stood wide open, and inside, Leon had parked his sweaty self on top of my little white desk and was biting into an orange Creamsicle.

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