“It’s Al!” said Charlie, happily leaping up and running to the front door.

Al, who was dressed in his usual dirty T-shirt and ragged pants, came in and stood a second in the doorway looking at the table and the remains of food sitting on people’s plates.

“Oh!” he said.

“Come in,” said Fiona graciously. “We didn’t think you were coming but there’s lots of food left.”

“Didn’t know, uh, time,” said Al, stumbling slightly as he came into the room.

Miss Webster frowned. She looked at Mr. Pettinger. He rose and in the guise of shaking Al’s hand, steadied him, brought him to his chair, and passed him chopsticks and some cartons. Al shrugged, filled his plate, and began eating voraciously.

“You make this?” he asked Marlin.

“It’s in Chinese takeout cartons!” said Marlin in disgust.

“We were just having announcements,” said Miss Webster before Marlin could say something ruder.

“Yeah, okay, don’t mind me,” said Al, shoveling food in.

Charlie moved her chair next to Al’s and put his party favor in front of him.

“What’s this?” he asked with chow mein noodles hanging out of his mouth.

“It’s a picture I made for you of Billy Bear,” she said.

He opened it and looked at it in astonishment. “Wow, that’s…” He sat looking at it as if he didn’t know quite what to say.

“Announcements?” interrupted Marlin.

“It looks just like Billy,” said Charlie happily, bouncing in her chair.

“Exactly,” agreed Al, and went back to shoveling food into his mouth.

“Ahem,” said Miss Webster, hitting the side of her water glass with her knife to make a chiming sound. “Okay, well, Mr. Pettinger and I have two big, big announcements. First of all, you can finally call us Diana and Don.”

“Because you’re FAMILY!” squealed Charlie.

“I hope you will always think of us as family, Charlie, yes,” said Miss Webster, not understanding Charlie’s implication. “Our announcement, as I say, has two parts. The first part is that Don and I are getting married!”

“I knew it. I knew it. But Fiona said that couldn’t be it because you’ve only just met!” said Charlie, bouncing up and down in her chair.

Miss Webster burst into laughter. “You’ve been in charge too long, Fiona,” she said. “You’re turning into a mother.”

Fiona blushed. “She means congratulations,” she said, throwing Charlie a look.

“Thank you.”

“I guess you’re going to have your big happy ending,” said Fiona, trying to remember the type of thing her mother would say on such an occasion and remembering Mrs. Weatherspoon had said this when she thought they’d landed safely with Martha.

“Well, I don’t think of it as an end—more as a beginning, and anyhow, I don’t believe in one big happy ending.” Miss Webster smiled at Mr. Pettinger. “I’ll settle for a lot of little happy middles.”

“A lot of little happy middles,” repeated Fiona dazedly. This was it, the second part of the announcement, what they had been waiting for was coming. A lot of little happy middles? One for each McCready?