Then one lunch while she was in the middle of a story about her teacher he interrupted her midsentence as if he hadn’t been listening to a word she’d been saying and said, “There’s a dance toward the end of June.”

“I know,” she said in surprise. “The Summer Fling. There’s posters all over the school.”

“It’s mostly the older grades who go to it but anyone can. Do you want to go with me?”

Fiona was so surprised she just sat silently. Then her mind raced. Could she? Could she leave Marlin with Charlie and Natasha at night?

“Yes,” she said before she’d even decided the babysitting issue. Yes, just because she wanted to. Yes, yes, work out everything else later, yes.

She realized as she watched his face that while she worried about logistics, he had been frightened she would say no to this invitation too.

He smiled.

“Okay,” he said. “It’s not until the Saturday after the last day of school. But I wanted to know.”

She wondered if he would have asked someone else if she said no but then she thought, no. He didn’t want to take just any girl to a dance. He wanted to take her. She tried not to look too pleased. She didn’t want to frighten him by being too enthusiastic.

“Okay,” she repeated.

Then the bell rang and they went back to class.

The Summer Fling sang in her head for the next week. So much so that she almost forgot that Marlin’s birthday was on the horizon. When she remembered, she mentioned it one night at dinner. “Marlin, you’ve got a birthday coming.”

“I know, don’t worry,” said Marlin, “we can’t afford it.”

“Marlin,” said Fiona, shocked. “We can always afford birthdays. We can have some kind of a party. I mean we can have a cake. Your birthday’s on Sunday, so Miss Webster and Mr. Pettinger could come too.”

They all cheered up at the thought of a party. Fiona got together with Natasha and Charlie and they made birthday banners and presents for Marlin. Natasha made her a book of birds she might find in her own backyard. She drew pictures and wrote down what she’d observed about them. Fiona helped her with the writing. Charlie drew a picture of their family and another of Mrs. Weatherspoon for some reason. And they found some old frames in the attic for them. Fiona, who noticed that Marlin was out of hair elastics for her long hair, which she liked to keep in a ponytail, bought some at the grocery store and wrapped them in Aunt Martha’s printer paper, which Charlie crayoned on to make wrapping paper. All in all it looked to be a splendid party. At least Fiona hoped Marlin would find it festive enough. Their family had never had a lot of money and parties had never been very elaborate but at least there used to be a small pile of presents for the birthday girl.