“It is interesting,” Stevie said loudly, and I could tell that she was trying to shift the conversation, move it to something less contentious. I’d told her, over and over again, that we liked to argue in my family—but she never seemed to believe that this wasn’t stressful for me like it was for her. “Because I was reading this article about how the things that used to be there to help in the olden days from when people didn’t have phones have all disappeared because of technology. Like there’s no more pay phones, or maps, or anything.”

“I don’t know if I would call them the olden days,” my dad said, looking pained. “I mean, there are still maps… and some pay phones… probably…” His voice trailed off, and he looked so consternated, I relented and held out the candy bag to him.

“Thanks,” he said, a little grudgingly, helping himself to some sour cherries. “So how are you, Stevie? How’s the museum?”

She smiled. “It’s good, thanks.”

Stevie’s grandmother, Mary Anne Pearce, was a legendary art collector. She’d donated her art collection to the town, along with a grant to build a museum—the Pearce, which I’d been going to since I was little for drawing classes and craft workshops. The museum had kept acquiring since her death, and Stevie’s mom was now the curator.

“Good afternoon.” I looked over and saw Grady, my ten-year-old brother, standing in the doorway, a book tucked under his arm. Grady tended to dress—and act—like he was a middle-aged stockbroker, and not a fifth grader, for no reason we’d ever been able to figure out. His eyes went wide behind his round-framed glasses. “Kat, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at rehearsal?”

“List isn’t up yet,” my dad said, reaching over to ruffle Grady’s hair, but Grady quickly sidestepped him. He carefully combed it every morning, in his preferred look of divorced bank manager.

“What are you reading?” Stevie asked, nodding toward Grady’s book. “What day are we diving into now?”

“April 14, 1912,” he said, and Stevie squinted at the cover. My brother was obsessed with a book series, Today’s the Day, that all took place over a single day during different historical time periods. I didn’t get the appeal. How exciting could a single day really be? He’d insisted that I just hadn’t read the right one yet; I very much doubted this.

“What happened then?” Stevie asked.

“Titanic sank,” Grady and I said at the same time. He looked at me with raised eyebrows, and I raised mine back at him. Honestly, if our teachers really wanted dates to stick with us, they should just make epic action-romance movies about all major world events.