“He might like that.”

“Everything’s a joke, isn’t it?” Reg said.

“Hey, once upon a time, you would have liked that joke.”

“Well, once upon a time feels like a lifetime ago.”

He had me there.

“Look, Reg. If you’re not in the mood for a parade, I understand, but this is it—our last day in the sun.” I shot the gray sky a dirty look. “Sort of. And you’re already in your awful costume.”

“I just can’t. You have fun though, okay? You’ve earned it. I mean that.”

“But, Reg—”

“I’m fine. I promise.” He popped the ridiculous teeth into his mouth, raised his arms, and in the loudest and most embarrassing way possible, shouted, “I vant to suck your blood!”

I managed a laugh and pushed him away. I watched him weave through the parade lineup, skirting floats and circling a pickup truck full of fat little puppies. The sign on the side of the truck declared the parade entry was for the Northern Iowa Pug Rescue. When I looked up again from the sign, Reg was gone.

Weeks of building a float, hours of sitting around in the staging area, and yet the start of the parade seemed to come all of a sudden. We made the short trek through the village, with most of the freshmen and sophomores desperately propping up gravestones that toppled over with every bump in the road, while the rest of the committee members waved from the edges of the float. Sydney and Poe lounged against a railing, making judgy comments about costumes. No one pointed out that Poe quit the committee and shouldn’t be on the float, because that was the power of Poe and the Carlone twins. Sophia beamed as parade announcers barked over the megaphone that we were the Hope High Halloween Hoopla party and parade planners, and the crowd cheered.

What little crowd there was. It seemed most of Nowhere was in the parade, leaving only a smattering of people to populate the sidelines. In front of us, a float decked out with stained glass and a steeple trailed a banner that proclaimed, “The only path to immortality is through Him and His church.” Behind us, a small tractor pulled an actual bar, with barstools and everything, and the burly group of guys filling the stools all donned shirts that read, “The Bar Drove Me Home.”

I leaned on the back rail of the float, watching the tail of the parade snake down Main Street. One of the bar patrons lifted a mug of beer to me.

“Nice job, kids! Best parade in fifty years!”

I waved back but could not speak, as I was hit with a spasm of nausea. Fifty years.