“Please, just tell me,” I said.

“I don’t know.” Josh’s eyes dropped to the floor. “A couple every week?”

“Every week!”

“See, this is why I didn’t tell you. It’s the internet. People say all kinds of stuff on the internet. According to the internet, dinosaurs helped build the pyramids. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“But this is true! We can’t make enough doughnuts, and I have no idea how to make more.”

Right then, Dad came bopping through the door smiling ear to ear. You’d think if you’d just spent the last hour counting cans in a closet, you might be a little grouchy, but Dad doesn’t do grouchy. If he hadn’t become a banker, he’d have made a great kindergarten teacher.

“Ready? If we’re going to make it back here for the meeting, we gotta leave now,” he said.

“Oh, right.” I’d completely forgotten about the town meeting that night. It would be Petersville’s first ever. Jim, the mayor, had some big surprise he was unveiling, and it was all anybody had talked about for weeks.

“I’ll take out the trash and clean the rest of the guns,” Josh said.

“Okay, the ones I haven’t done are still in the sink.” I went back to the ticket office to get my backpack.

“Wait for you in the car,” Dad called.

Josh hurdled over the ticket counter and sat down in front of the computer. “Hey, don’t worry about the comments. I’ll delete them now.” He tapped away at the keyboard.

“Great. Thanks. And if there are any—”

“I swear, from now on, I will tell you every single horrible thing anybody ever says about you or The Doughnut Stop until the end of time. Sound good?” He was smiling under his hair.

“Perfect. I can’t wait.”

• • •

The second Dad turned on the car, Hello!…Salam! blared out of the speakers.

“Sorry.” He lowered the volume, then waved at me. “Salam!”

“Can we please just turn it off?” I needed to think.

“Sorry, got to listen to the whole lesson twice a day.”

Good morning! Sabah el kheer! The woman sounded like a cheerful robot.

“Sabah el kheer!” Dad repeated, imitating not just the accent but all her cheerful robot-ness too.

When Dad’s not working on restaurant stuff, he’s teaching himself Arabic—or at least, that’s what he’s doing this month. Last month, he was watching YouTube videos to learn how to tap the trees around our house so we could make our own maple syrup. That was until Jeanine figured out that the trees he thought were maples were actually sycamores. Turns out, we don’t have any maple trees. Ever heard of sycamore syrup? Yeah, there’s a good reason for that.

Thank you. Shukran.

“Shukran. SHUkran? ShuKRAN?” Dad’s eyebrows waggled as he tried out the word.

Every second of this car ride was going to be painful, but I would never forget my earphones ever again.

• • •

“I found it!” Jeanine shook a bunch of papers in Dad’s face as she slid into the back of the station wagon.