“Hey, young lady,” said Grandpa. “You should consider yourself lucky to have a job!”

“Grandpa, I am!” she said, pouting. “But it’s the last few days before school starts!”

“And then what happens?” Grandpa teased. “The big bad school monster comes out?”

Kelsey laughed. “Grandpa! We will have homework and we have to sit in school all day and not do fun things like swim in the lake and stay up late!”

“Oh, my poor, poor granddaughter,” said Grandpa. “Are you allergic to work? Because if you are, we may need to kick you out of the family!”

“Dad!” said Aunt Melissa. “You can never kick anyone out of this family!”

“Especially not me!” said Kelsey.

She was right. Kelsey was always Grandpa’s favorite. It wasn’t like he didn’t love all of us, but there was something about Kelsey that allowed her to act in a way that would have made Grandpa very prickly with the rest of us.

Nans said that it was because Kelsey was named after Grandpa’s mother Katherine, and that Kelsey was very much like her.

“I’m taking the girls home,” said Dad. “Melissa is waiting for Molly to finish her shift. I’ll be back soon.”

Kelsey and I followed him out to the car. We had been inside for most of the day, so the sun felt especially hot and bright. We blinked as we walked.

“Melissa said I could drop you at the lake if you wanted, Kels,” said Dad.

“I can’t go like this!” Kelsey said. “I’m in my work clothes.”

“But it’s just the lake,” Dad said.

“Uncle Mike, you can’t go to the lake in work clothes,” said Kelsey. “Besides, everyone is probably headed home now anyway.”

Dad shrugged. Our town isn’t that big, but it’s kind of spread out in parts, so there are a bunch of us who live five minutes away and then there are people like Kelsey, who live on the other side of the lake.

Some people have boats and just row or drive across the lake instead of taking a car. There have been a lot of stories about kids taking boats out at night, and Dad has already hammered it into our heads that it’s too dangerous to do that.

At Kelsey’s house, Uncle Chris opened the door when he heard the car pull up and waved to us.

“See you tomorrow,” I said to Kelsey as she opened the car door, and she sighed.

It was still pretty sticky and hot. I guess a lot of people were on vacation, because the town seemed quiet, which was kind of nice.

“So how was your first day?” asked Dad as we drove away from Kelsey’s house.

“Pretty good,” I said. “A little slow.”

“Yeah,” said Dad. “Time of year. You’ll see, it will speed up. That’s when the days go a lot faster.”