It was quiet for a bit, then Dad said, “‘The town’s in a clearing’ kind of sounds like, ‘The town’s disappearing.’”

“Uh, maybe, but it makes no sense,” I said.

Dad thumped the steering wheel. “Wait! I’ve got it. ‘I’m losing my hearing!’ That’s it! Jim’s losing his hearing so he’s stepping down as mayor. See, that does make sense. And that would be a bad surprise.” He grinned at me in the rearview mirror.

Just so you know, Dad’s not a nuddy. He knew we’d heard what we’d heard. He was just trying to do with all of us what I’d tried with Zoe, but I’m not five. I know what I heard, and whatever it meant, I knew it was bad.

• • •

Wham! The smell of toasting corn and frying pork hit me the second I opened The Station House door.

“Pupusas!” Zoe shouted and took off to the back of the restaurant where people were packed around the counter.

“Surprise!” Mom said. “Walter and Azalia made them as a ‘thank-you’ to everyone for helping them get settled.”

In case you’ve never had them, pupusas are like silver dollar pancakes, but they’re made out of corn flour and stuffed with pork or beans or cheese. They’re like breakfast, lunch, and dinner all rolled into one, and Walter has been making them for us since we had teeth.

All the tables were pushed to the sides of the room, and the chairs were lined up in rows in the center. Nobody was sitting yet though. Almost everyone was standing at the counter either waiting for a pupusa or eating one. You could tell who was on line for seconds by their greasy smiles.

“Right foot, yellow!” someone called out.

I turned around, and there, in a corner by the door, was a Twister mat spread on the floor with Dr. C, Josh, and Cal, the kid who works at the Gas Mart, all tangled up across it. Josh’s arms and legs looked almost braided together, and his face was pressed to his knees.

“Hands on the mat at all times!” Harley Turnby called. Harley was balanced on a folding chair—he was too wide for all of him to fit on it—a Twister spinner propped on one watermelon-shaped knee and a paper plate on the other. “You’re up, Dr. C.” Harley took an enormous bite of pupusa and flicked the spinner with his thumb. “Left foot, red!” he called, bits of pupusa raining down on the spinner.

“Left foot, red. Left foot, red.” From a tabletop position, Dr. C straightened a leg and wove it between the arms of the kid from the Gas Mart. “Got it!” he said, touching the toe of a paint-splattered sock to the edge of a red circle.

Cal turned his pimply face away from Dr. C’s bare, hairy thigh. “There should really be a rule about wearing pants for Twister.”

“Sorry, squeezed in a run after my last patient.”

“Man,” Calvin said, stretching out the a. “And you didn’t shower? Shouldn’t doctors be clean freaks?”