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me?”
    Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick,
I could have said, since that image was going through my mind. Instead I asked, “Where’s Eugene?”
    “Making water,” she said, eyes rolling toward a line of Porta Pottis down the street.
    Um, okay, then. “Well, tell him I say hi,” I said.
    “If I remember,” Aggie said.
    After that, the applecart my mother had been concerned about almost overturned.
    Because Tom Stocke was barreling toward us. And he didn’t look one bit happy.

Three

    What can I say about Tom?
    He isn’t homespun like many of us. In fact if he has a past, he didn’t bring it with him. In the five years he’s lived in Moraine and operated his antique shop, uninspiredly called “Antiques,” we haven’t even found out where he originally came from. Presumably he was married once, since he wears a plain gold wedding ring, which sort of implies that he’s a widower. Or divorced and unwilling to face the truth. Or… anyway, we just don’t know.
    The most exciting thing about Tom was that right after he moved here, he won the Wisconsin lottery and walked away with a chunk of change amounting to three million dollars (although I’m sure taxes sucked off a good part of it). That made for some awfully good gossip, but nothing really seemed to change with him personally. He still runs his antique business by himself, still lives in a small apartment attached to the back of his store, drives a used car with a lot of miles on it like the rest of us, and pretty muchblends into the woodwork, which is where he seems to feel most comfortable.
    Tom never answers a personal question directly, preferring to weave around sensitive subjects with unrelated anecdotes until people tend to forget what they asked him in the first place. Makes me think he’d be a really good politician and a potential candidate for next spring’s election. Grant Spandle has got to go.
    Anyway, Tom minds his own business, and we used to try to mind his, too. Until we realized it was useless, and since we didn’t have a choice, we decided to take him at face value.
    Which isn’t saying much on the physical side. Tom looks like a post office wanted poster. He has a big broad face with a flat crooked nose that looks as though it’s been rearranged a time or two. Nobody is born with a nose like that. But he doesn’t cause trouble in the community, didn’t even shown up to defend himself when we went to bat for him at the town meetings regarding competition from Aggie Petrie.
    Gruff, quiet, polite in a sort of reserved yet friendly way.
    Usually.
    Except now he looked mad as a hornet (not to be confused with a honeybee).
    “Aggie Petrie.” He rolled to a stop. “Rumor has it you are bad-mouthing me to some of my regular customers.”
    “Not you personally, Tom. It’s that junk you’re pawning off as antiques.”
    I couldn’t believe my ears. Had Aggie really just said that? She had to be kidding, right?
    Tom’s eyes darted across one of Aggie’s tables. “Junk? Who’s calling whose wares junk?”
    Aggie came up to about Tom’s armpits, but she wielded that cane like a club and had a hyena’s cackling nerve. “Your stuff is pure garbage!” she said.
    Tom’s face turned bright red from internal heat getting ready to combust.
    Suddenly, I remembered that according to my mother, my job was to make sure the festival ran smoothly, keep that applecart from tipping over. Darn. Today was my day for wading into conflicts, and I really, really hate conflicts.
    “Please, you two,” I reluctantly joined in. “There’s room here for everybody.” That wasn’t a bit true, but what else could I say?
    “No, there isn’t,” Aggie said, agreeing with my unspoken opinion about how much room we really had. “And get your patronizing mug out of our business.”
    “Me?” I said. “Are you talking to me?”
    Tom had a finger in Aggie’s face. “I’m warning you…”
    “What’s going on here?” Eugene Petrie