Pretty soon my mind was occupied pouring water and taking away dirty plates, but thoughts of the doomed raccoon guy and Gunnar never entirely faded into the background.

By 6 P.M., we were already into our second seating, and I was a bit grumpy, because I kept taking away all these plates of food, but I couldn’t eat any of it myself. Both Mom and Dad had come up with great Thanksgiving recipes that fit the French/Italian theme of the restaurant. Pumpkin Parmesan Quiche, and Turkey Rollatini au Vin—stuff like that. I got so hungry I would pick at some of the leftovers I took away from the tables, and that got me a whack on the head from Mom. While the skeleton crew of regular staff had breaks every few hours, family members were slaves today, and I resented it.

So I’m moving plates and pouring water, and I can’t help thinking that here are all these people stuffing their fat faces, while some poor slob died simply because he got stuck holding on to a balloon—and then there was Gunnar. How could these people eat when he was suffering from pulmowhachamacallit?

That’s when it happened. The glass of ice water I was pouring overflowed. The moment I realized it, I jerked the pitcher back, but that only succeeded in sloshing ice cubes onto the woman’s dinner plate.

“Oops!” Then I reached onto her plate like an idiot and started plucking ice cubes out of her Garlique Yam Puree with my bare fingers.

“ANTSY!”

Like I said, my dad saw everything all at once in the restaurant, and I had been caught red-handed—or orange-handed, as it were.

“What do you think you’re doing?!”

“I... I spilled. I was just—"

“It’s all right,” said the woman. “No harm done.”

But she was wrong about that. “We’ll get you a new plate right away,” my father said. “I’m sorry for the trouble. Your meal is on the house.”