Save the Date

We were halfway up to the house when I heard the familiar sound of a bike coming down the street and the whoosh then thwack of a paper flying through the air and landing on a lawn. I turned around, and sure enough, there was Sarah Stephens on her pink bike, throwing papers as she rode down the street.

“What?” Mike asked, clearly wondering why I’d stopped.

“It’s the papergirl,” I said, walking a few steps back to the end of the driveway. “We’re finally early enough to catch her in the act.”

“Of what?”

“She’s been refusing to deliver our paper for months now.”

“That story line was real?”

I turned to Mike, surprised that he’d kept reading it this whole time—that he hadn’t really turned his back on us after all.

Mike nodded to the street. “Here she comes.”

I turned around, ready to catch Sarah skipping our house. I only wished that my hands weren’t full of donuts so that I could record it on my phone and my dad could finally have proof for the Sentinel.

But Sarah rode up to our house, reached into her bag, and a newspaper, tucked inside its plastic sleeve, arced over and landed perfectly, faceup, almost directly at my feet. I stood there, feeling beyond confused, and Sarah rolled to a stop, eyebrows raised beneath her pink helmet. “See?” she said, sounding vindicated as she dropped a foot to the ground and pointed at the paper, like I somehow might have missed it. “I told you I’ve been delivering it.”

“But . . .” I just looked at Mike, then at her. I realized Sarah wouldn’t have seen me until after she’d thrown the paper, so it wasn’t like it was for my benefit. But then what was going on? “You’ve really been delivering them the whole time?”

Sarah threw her arms up in exasperation. “What have I been telling you?”

“So then what’s happening to the paper?” Mike asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I don’t, like, track its progress. I’m just supposed to drop it off. That’s literally my whole job.”

“But somehow we’re not getting it. So . . .” I suddenly had a thought about what might be happening, but dismissed it immediately. Surely nobody was that petty. Right?

We must have heard the sound at the same time—footsteps approaching, twigs and leaves crunching. It was really loud in the quiet of our early-morning street, and it sounded like someone was coming our way fast. And because I wanted to see if it bore out my theory, I hustled, still carrying the donuts, around to hide behind the Where There’s A Will truck that was parked at the end of the driveway, and motioned for Mike and Sarah to come too.

“Come here. Quick!” I hissed.

“What?” Mike asked, even as he ran with the donuts. Sarah hopped off her bike and started to run, and I whisper-yelled, “Take the bike!”

She crouch-ran, holding the bike by the handlebars, then dropped it onto our driveway and knelt down next to us. “What?” she whispered.

“Maybe nothing,” I said, straightening up just enough so that I could see above the bed of the truck. “But maybe something.”

Sarah rolled her eyes hugely. “You know I have other papers to deliver, right? And they’re heavier on Sunday, so they take longer.”

I took a breath to reply when we all saw it, and the three of us simultaneously ducked down again. There, hurrying up the street in his robe and slippers, looking like he was trying very hard—and failing—to seem nonchalant, was Don.

“Who’s that?” Sarah asked, her voice barely a whisper now as we watched him get closer and closer to our driveway.

“Is that Don?”

“Yeah. It’s our neighbor,” I muttered, keeping my eyes on him, not really able to believe this was what had been happening the whole time. “He’s mad about Dad’s garden.”

“What?”

“Shh!” I was fighting every impulse to jump out and yell at Don, but I knew I had to actually see him doing it for it to count or I had no doubt he would just endlessly deny and stonewall later. I held my breath as Don looked around, then bent down, pretending to brush some dirt off his leather slipper before he grabbed our paper, then straightened up and started hustling away with it.

I popped up from behind the truck, and Mike and Sarah did too. “Hey, Don?” He froze, our paper in his hand, looking at me, his eyes wide. “Whatcha got there?”

“Oh.” He looked down at our Stanwich Sentinel, then up at me, and I could practically hear the gears of his mind frantically working as he tried to come up with an explanation. “Um . . .”

“Better think fast,” Mike said.

“You were stealing the Grants’ paper,” Sarah said, stalking out from behind the truck, arms folded across her chest. “I saw it. And as a paper carrier, it offends me.”

Don blinked at her. “Who are you?”

“She’s our papergirl,” I said, coming out to join her. “And we’ve been blaming her this whole time for not delivering it—but you’ve been stealing our paper every day? Since February?”

Don glanced back at our house, then at me. “You don’t have any proof of that,” he said weakly.

Sarah and I scoffed in unison, and Mike let out a short laugh. “Come off it, Don,” I said. I pointed to the paper. “Are you really going to deny it?”

Don looked at me for another second, then dropped our paper on the ground. “You don’t have any proof,” he said, brushing his hands off. “Perhaps I was just coming to deliver it to you in person. But I will just say that I did not appreciate being in your mother’s comic strip.”

“You weren’t in the—” Mike and I started automatically, but he talked over us.

“And I for one am thrilled you all are finally leaving. Your father’s a mediocre gardener at best and didn’t deserve half the praise that was heaped on him.”

It was Mike who spoke, surprising me. “My father is twice the gardener you’ll ever be,” he said.

“Yeah, well,” Don muttered, turning around and starting to walk away.

“I will be contacting the Sentinel about you!” Sarah yelled after him. “Don’t think you’re getting away with this!”

Don hunched his shoulders, but he didn’t turn around as he continued walking back toward his house, and I waited until he was gone before I let out a breath. “Jeez,” I said, shaking my head.

“Your lives are really interesting,” Sarah said, picking up her bike and wheeling it down to the end of the driveway. “My parents don’t have feuds with anyone.”

“I’m sorry we doubted you,” I said to Sarah, thinking of all the times she’d insisted she was delivering our paper and I’d basically called her a liar to her face.

“It’s okay,” she said stoically, straightening her helmet. She reached down and picked up our Sunday paper—the one that, I realized with a start, contained the very last Grant Central Station ever—and held it out to me. “Here.”

I took it from her. “Thanks.”

She nodded and got back on her bike, already reaching into her bag for the next paper as she started to pick up speed. “See you tomorrow!” she called as she headed down the street, the paper for the house across from ours already sailing through the air.

Mike turned to me. “Can you believe that?”

I smiled. “Never a dull moment.” I watched Sarah bike up the street, papers arcing out and landing on stoops and driveways. “Thanks for sticking up for Dad.”

“You mess with one Grant, you mess with us all.” I smiled at him, and after a second, he gave me a tiny smile in return. We started walking up the driveway together, just as Bill came out of the house.

He was heading to the truck, with two huge canvas bags—WHERE THERE’S A WILL was printed on them—over each shoulder. He was back in his jeans and his fleece, and despite that it was just a little after seven, he looked as cheerful as ever. Halfway down the driveway, he must have seen me, and he smiled.