Chapter 24

The Petersville Gazette

Vol. 1, Issue 52

Town Happenings

Celebrate the opening of The Petersville Inn (the town’s very first!) with doughnuts, Saturday at 2:00 p.m.! Party at The Station House with tours of the cottages running every thirty minutes.

Harry Potter Marathon at the Watch, Cut, and Quilt this weekend. Watch all eight Harry Potter movies while you get the “Harry,” “Ron,” “Hermione,” or “Bellatrix” haircut, then make a quilted portrait of your favorite character.

Featured Series

Things Most People Get Wrong and How YOU Can Get Them Right

By Jeanine Levin

This will probably come as a shock to many of you so you may want to sit down. Ready?

The Earth is not perfectly round. Never was. Never will be.

It’s kind of squashed at the poles and swollen around the equator.

I know. It blew me away too.

You’re welcome!

Join The Doughnut Stop Team!

Wanted: drivers to deliver doughnuts to Albany three mornings per week. Interested? Send email to [email protected].

The morning after the Can You Cut It? East Coast finals aired, I jerked awake.

It was here, the day I’d been dreading since I’d walked off the set.

My room was still dark, and the house was quiet, but I got out of bed and pulled on some clothes. There was no going back to sleep. I’d head into town and get to work early. The sooner I started this day, the sooner I’d have it behind me.

Going back to school would be rough too, but at least kids had a whole month to forget what they’d seen on TV.

Who was I kidding? What they’d seen wouldn’t have been forgotten. The best I could hope for was that it had faded a bit.

By the time I made it outside, the birds were up, and an orange glow was beginning to ooze over the mountains.

I grabbed my bike from the shed and walked it across the grass to the dirt road that zigzags through the woods down the mountainside. I don’t care how good a BMX-er you are. Riding a bike down Terror Mountain is not an option.

Even though the sun was barely up, the air was already thick and wet. By the second zag, my hands were slick on the handlebars, and I stopped to wipe them on my shorts.

At least there were no clouds. Nobody would show up for Dad’s big opening if it rained.

As I rode to town, my brain replayed clips from the night before.

In case you didn’t catch it, the answer to your question is, yes, everything that happened at the Killer Cupcake Competition was captured on film. Everything.

And, yes, it did all end up in the final episode, on television screens all over America, probably all over the world, possibly even the universe. This very second, an alien family on Mars could be chuckling as they watch Mom karate chop Marco away from me, a move I somehow missed in the moment.