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grandmas and grandpas just turned their heads and stared at us or didn’t even bother turning their heads at all and just sat there stirring their cups of joe 4 or chewing on timber 5 or twirling a red checker on the table like Grandpa Milton was, or how Grandma Ida was twisting her dishrag around one of her fingers and Grandma Mabel was sitting there like a statue with her chef hat off.
    We could tell something was wrong—we just didn’t know what. We thought it might have something to do with the weather report. So we walked over quiet to our booth and slid on in and put
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6 down next to the napkin dispenser and the greasy bottles of ketchup and mustard and the bottle of relish none of us ever touched. We were still antsy as a picnic but sat there all the same, just twiddling our thumbs and swatting at a fly that must’ve snuck its way in through the back kitchen door. 7
    We were glad when Grandma Ida finally got up off her chair and walked over our way. We couldn’t wait to tell her the news. But it turned out she had news for us instead. She said, “You better order somethin’ real good because you ain’t gonna have many chances left.”
    That was strange talk coming from her. And we noticed she wasn’t cracking her gum like usual. That made us suspicious as a sheriff. “Whaddaya mean by that, Grandma Ida?” we asked.
    And Grandma Ida said, “Mabel’s is closing, kids. Come the end of summer.”
    That was all she said, too, because her jaw started to quiver and her nose started to twitch and then tears rolled down her cheeks, just like always happened whenever she served a dish with raw onions.
    And we said, “Mabel’s is
what?
” Because she might just as well have told us that snow was in the forecast or one of our grandpas had grown a ponytail.
    She took the dishrag off her shoulder and blew her nose in it and stuffed it in her apron pocket and sat down at our booth and talked turkey to us. And the only thing we were able to say the whole time was, “Yeah, but . . .” Like when she said that Mabel’s just didn’t do enough business, we said, “Yeah, but . . .” And when she said that it ain’t no use and that they’d seen this day coming from miles away, we said, “Yeah, but . . .” The only time we didn’t say “Yeah, but . . .” was when she left to go get us each a belch water 8 and a bucket of mud. 9
    Nine hours later, up in our room and in our PJs, we still couldn’t believe it. Then the phone sprang to life and it was Mom calling.
    â€œMabel’s is closing!” we shouted.
    And Mom said, “I know.”
    â€œWhat? How could you know? You’re not even here.”
    And that’s how we found out that she and Pops knew, and everybody in Wymore knew, and they all had been discussing the matter for quite some time without ever bothering to tell us.
    Well, that didn’t sit square with us, and so we asked, “Why didn’t you tell us nothing, Mom?”
    â€œAnything,” Mom corrected us. Then she said, “We didn’t want to worry you about things you have no control over.”
    No control over . . . ? Well, we’d show her! Though at the time, alls we managed to say was, “Yeah, but . . . Where we gonna eat, then?”
    That was when things turned serious and grave and made us feel that “serious and grave” should’ve been in that list of good diction in
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.
    Because Mom said, “In McFall.”
    And we said, “McFall? Is Mr. Buzzard gonna be driving us to McFall three times a day just so we can get our grub?”
    And Mom said, “Well, no . . .”
    â€œThen how are we gonna get there? By boat?”
    Mom finally spit out the bone. “We’ll just have to move there, is