“There’s nothing wrong with dresses,” said Fiona. “I just prefer pants. You know, nice pants.”

“Wow,” said another girl. “I guess I never thought about it.”

“The Bloom Boutique in Shoreline gets in dresses every May for the June Summer Fling,” said another girl. “I don’t think they get in any pants.”

“Well,” said Fiona musingly. “Maybe they should.”

“Wow,” said the girl again. “Right.”

Then they all went inside. Mission accomplished, thought Fiona. And, after all, she reminded herself as she rode home on the school bus that day looking at the trees and bushes laden and heavy with blossoms, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater as her father used to say. Lots of good things were happening. It was beautiful end-of-spring weather. Miss Webster would make her announcement soon—the one that would save them. They were all together—social services hadn’t gotten them yet—and Davy had invited her to the dance. So what if she had to wear pants? She had gotten talk started and she bet by the time the dance came around she wouldn’t be the only one wearing pants and if she was, the talk about her pants would hopefully be that she was merely following the chicest new trend from London. That those in the know wore pants. It was both a fashion-forward and a feminist statement. She was covered. She should just get on with planning Marlin’s party.

As it turned out Miss Webster had her own idea about that when she and Mr. Pettinger came on Sunday and Marlin invited them to the party.

“It’s not a big party, you know, with balloons,” Fiona explained. “More of a quiet family affair.” She had heard her mother use this expression many times.

“You don’t have to bring presents,” chimed in Charlie even though Fiona had told her not to say this.

“When you say to people ‘don’t bring presents’ it always sounds like you expect them to,” Fiona had told her.

“What if they want to bring presents?” Natasha had asked.

“You just don’t say anything about presents,” said Fiona.

“And hope maybe then they’ll bring them,” agreed Charlie knowingly.

“No, Charlie, you don’t think about them one way or the other. It’s about having your friends with you to celebrate. Not what you get,” said Fiona but privately thinking Charlie had it about right. Sometimes she got weary of being the keeper of the moral code.

But now, as usual, Charlie had forgotten.

“Well, you must let us bring the cake,” said Miss Webster. “You can’t make your own birthday cake, Marlin.”

“Yes, I can,” said Marlin excitedly. “I want to. I have this really fancy cake I want to try out and tweak. It’s got seven thin layers and they’re all different colors. It’s called a rainbow cake. Only I want to make each layer also a different flavor. The only problem is Martha only has two kinds of extract in her cupboard. Vanilla and almond. I’m thinking maybe I can strain fruit and make some kind of extract on my own but it could be a mess. And I have no food coloring but—”