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Dad!”
    “Where is he?” she asked. “I want to talk to you, too, but can you call him to the phone?”
    The back door opened, and Dad came in carrying a huge watermelon. “He’s here,” I said.
    He rolled the watermelon onto the kitchen counter and raised his eyebrows at me.
    “It’s Mommy!” Tyler yelled. “I think she’s coming home!”
    Dad picked up the phone. “Hello, Roxie.”
    Tyler and I sat on the floor while Dad talked to Mom. “Great!” he kept saying. “Great! Okay to bring a five-year-old?”
    Finally he handed the phone to me. “She says it’s your turn.”
    “Honey,” Mom said. “I’ll see you next week at my concert.”
    My poster picture of Mom holding her guitar flew into my mind. “Cool,” I said.
    “And then we’ll have supper together,” Mom said. “What should I order?”
    “Pizza,” I told her. Beside me, Tyler jiggled up and down. “Don’t get mushrooms,” I said. “Remember? I hate mushrooms.”
    Mom laughed. “I can’t wait to see you.”
    She told me about a boat ride she took on the Mississippi River. “I thought about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer,” she said. “Ask your dad who they are.” She went on about a concert she did in North Carolina the week before. “My agent thinks my next CD will get me an award,” Mom said. “It’s pretty exciting here.” As we hung up, I thought of all the things I should have told her. About my new art book. About tomorrow’s picnic. “Does she know we might have to move?” I asked Dad.
    He shook his head. “We’ll have lots to talk about when we see her.” He picked up the watermelon. “How am I going to fit this into the refrigerator?”
    While Dad was moving things around in the refrigerator, Tyler and I did jumping jacks across the kitchen. “She’s coming. She’s coming,” Tyler sang.
    Dad pulled more things out of a grocery bag. “Napkins and paper plates,” he said. “For the picnic.”
    “Those plates aren’t fancy enough,” I told him.
    He looked surprised, but I didn’t feel like telling him I had decided that Claire’s plans for Ms. Morgan were okay.
    “We can decorate these,” I told Tyler. A moment later, he and I were drawing on the plates with my colored pencils. I drew a beautiful bluebird for Ms. Morgan while Tyler filled a bunch of plates with crawly black ants.

Chapter 12
The Picnic
    W E WERE IN THE driveway, loading things into the car, when Ms. Morgan pedaled up the street. She grinned as she whooshed into our driveway.
    Ms. Morgan at my house! She hugged me, and then Tyler. “Great day for a picnic,” she said.
    Today she was wearing shorts. She pulled off her bike helmet and put on a red ball cap that matched her shirt. She saw me looking at her hiking boots and stuck out her foot. “These are brand new,” she said. “I’m trying to break them in so they’ll feel comfortable when I go on a long hike.”
    She undid the bungee cords that held a large bowl onto the rack of her bike. “I’m so glad this didn’t spill off,” she said as she handed it to me. “I’m afraid I took a chance with our potato salad.”
    Dad took the bowl and put it into our cooler. “It’s safe now,” he said. “Nice bicycle. I’ll have to show you mine sometime.”
    “Dad has so many bicycles, we can’t put the car in the garage anymore,” I said.
    “She’s right,” Dad said. “Isn’t that embarrassing?”
    “Good morning.” Mr. Plummer marched up our driveway, looking as if he’d just stepped out of a store, in white shorts and a bright, flowered shirt. Claire followed in blue tennis shoes, blue shorts, a blue crop top, and even a blue barrette in her blond hair. She smiled sweetly at Ms. Morgan.
    “I put the sandwich fixings into our cooler,” Mr. Plummer said. “And there’s probably room in there for the salad.”
    “We found a place for the salad.” Ms. Morgan waved her hand at Dad’s cooler. “We picked perfect weather, didn’t we?”
    Dad fitted bags full of paper