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looooooove Founder’s Day. The whole town comes out to celebrate Sandpiper Beach with a morning fishing competition, followed by a town-wide yard sale, followed by an afternoon sailboat race, followed by yet another fish fry (obligatory at every major and minor holiday around here), followed by a dance.
    I got up early for the yard sale. Anything with the word “sale” in it—count me in! I mean, c’mon, it’s shopping . . . on the cheap (even if some people drag the same stuff back out year after year and try to foist it on the rest of us!). But I live next door to a bookstore, and you should just see what they put out. The best.
    This year I decided all interesting people have collections and therefore I need one ASAP. Lauren has a really cool shell one, so I can’t steal that idea. Instead I bought three old-timey brooches from Mrs. Atwater (who called them costume jewelry) and a cloudy purple glass bottle that Mr. Vinton told me washed up on the shore with a message in it. He winked when he said it, though, so I don’t believe him. But a beach-bottle collection could be cool. Or brooches. I haven’t decided yet. A girl would do well to keep her options open (which is a saying of my mother’s I’m totes adopting as my own).
    Zero chance I was going to the fishing competition because . . . eww, fishing. Even though squishing hooks through worm guts and out of fishy mouths is totally horrendous, I will be hitting up the fish fry, because fried fish = super yummy and because Daddy gives the Founder’s Day toast.
    And of course I’ll be at the dance, too. With my friends. NOT with a boy.
    I’ve sworn off boys.
    Which, omigosh, is sooooooo completely freeing. I have, like, 137 percent more brain space now that I’m not thinking about cute-boy things, such as the way they flip their hair when they come out of the ocean with their surfboards tucked under their arms. Who even wants to spend time thinking about that ?
    My entire existence is worlds better now that I’ve realized I don’t need boys—or, more specifically, a boy—to write awesomesauce song lyrics about (songwriting is kind of my thing) because I can just write songs about different kinds of love. Like my mad love for my music, or for Sadie, Vi, and Lauren, or for shuffleboard.
    Oh, no, wait. No one has mad love for shuffleboard. Except Shuffleboard Dan. And possibly Lance.
    I spy him over by the sticks. (Sorry, Shuffleboard Dan. They might be called “tangs” officially, but that is sooo not catching on.) He’s picking each one up and carefully inspecting it. Lance is totally convinced that this is the year he will beat Shuffleboard Dan. I should mention that Lance was also positive he would take down Shuffleboard Dan last year and the year before that and probably the year before that, too. If I were a betting girl (which I so totally would be if Daddy would let me), my money would be on Shuffleboard Dan.
    Vi’s money would be on Lance.
    She glides up on her bike, all cool in her shorts and bathing-suit top, with her hair twisted into a soggy bun that lets me know she got out of the ocean for this.
    â€œArrrrr,” she says.
    â€œHardy-har. Talk Like a Pirate Day isn’t for another week.” (These are things you know when you live in Sandpiper Beach and most of your tourist money comes from all things pirate-y. We’re always looking for stuff to turn into holidays, and TLAPD is another one. Ahoy, matey.)
    â€œWell, if the pleather pants fit . . . ,” Vi says, hiding a smile as she stares pointedly at my legs.
    â€œIf they fit, they would be even more uncomfortable. Baggy pleather is bad enough. But tight pleather?” I shudder. “Hey, did you see Lance?”
    â€œWho? Oh, Lance is here?”
    Vi is fooling exactly no one. We both know full well he is, and we also know full well it’s the reason she ’s