“If you promise to come home and visit me a lot,” said Dad, grinning.

“Deal!” I said.

“I love you,” said Dad.

“I love you back,” I said.

“Okay, kiddo, let’s go in for dinner. Nans goes mad when we’re late.”

“Dad, isn’t it correct to say that Nans gets angry? Because, like, animals go mad but people get angry.”

“In that definition, Lindsay, I think that is an entirely correct way to categorize your grandmother when you are late for dinner. She gets mad!”

I giggled and opened the car door.

“Ready, set, run to the warden!” said Dad, and we raced up to the house, bursting with laughter.

Chapter Two First Day of Work

The plan was that I’d start working at Donut Dreams two weeks before school started. That way I’d get into my regular routine and not have to adjust to a job at the Park and a new school at the same time. For the school year, I’ll work after school two days a week and one day on the weekends.

But since much of the waitstaff take vacations at the end of the summer, it was all hands on deck, according to Grandpa, and the whole family was taking full-day shifts at the restaurant.

Mornings were always way complicated because things start early in the restaurant business. Even if the Park didn’t open until six thirty in the morning, that meant everyone, including the cooks, the busboys, and the waitresses, got there by five o’clock to start prepping the food, brewing coffee, sorting the daily bread deliveries, and making sure the ovens were on.

Since we own Donut Dreams, everyone just assumes that we eat donuts at every meal, and that they’re stacked everywhere in our house. But we actually eat like everyone else, and Nans only lets us have donuts on the weekends, just like Mom did.

So Monday morning I put on my Dream Team T-shirt and got downstairs early. Nans already had my fruit and juice at my place at the table. Since she got up early to make the donuts, by the time Skylar and I got up, she joked that she should be making lunch. Dad had to be at the restaurant early in the morning, so after Mom died, Nans was the one who came back home from the restaurant to stay with us when Dad had to leave.

Nans was making me scrambled eggs and I was surprised to see Skylar, still in his pj’s, eating his cereal.

“What are you doing up?” I asked. “It’s not like you have to go to work today.”

“Nans woke me up,” he whined. “We have to drive you to work. So even if I don’t have to go to work, I still have to get up.”