Now Piper is doubled over laughing.

I strum an imaginary guitar and sing, “Where, oh where, do the stray arms go? Where oh where-”

“Moose, stop it, okay? We have to talk,” Annie barks.

“Uh-oh. She’s serious.” Piper mimics Annie, waggling her head.

Annie glares at Piper, then her eyes find me.

“Oh by all means talk, then,” Piper says, her voice heavy with sarcasm.

“We don’t need to talk,” I tell Annie.

Annie glowers at me. “Yes, we do.”

Piper’s laugh turns raspy again. “You guys sound like Bea and Darby Trixle when Darby forgot their anniversary. Remember how she locked him out of the apartment and he had to stay in the bachelors’ quarters?”

Annie and I stare at each other, ignoring Piper.

Piper shrugs her shoulders. “Okay, fine, don’t tell me what’s going on, I don’t even care.” She pauses as if she’s waiting for us to fill her in.

Annie and I continue to stare at each other, like we’re in a competition and we lose points if we blink.

Piper flicks at the cement with her skate. “You want to have secrets, go right ahead,” she says as a bullhorn booms across the parade grounds.

“Moose Flanagan! ”

Uh-oh… not Trixle again. He’s got Janet with him too. She’s carrying her own bullhorn-a small one, but it works. There’s no separating either of them from their bullhorns. They probably use them at the dinner table. “PLEASE PASS THE POTATOES! ”

I grasp the ball in my glove and run across the parade grounds. “Yes, sir,” I say. Janet has her hair braided so tightly it gives me a headache to look at her. She stands behind her father, holding the bullhorn at the ready. Theresa says whenever they play together and Janet doesn’t like something, she bellows into her bullhorn and her parents come running.

“You have a friend visiting today?” Darby asks.