“No! Come on, folks; no, we’re not. Say it with me.”

“No,” some of us said like we were in first-period health class: Do we have potato chips for breakfast? Uh, no?

“Do we want to be like the dinosaurs?” Jim shouted.

“Yes! The flying kind,” Zoe yelled.

“No!” Jim yelled back. “We’re going to fight!”

A second later, the song from that old boxing movie my Grandma Esme loves was pouring out of the speakers, and someone shadowboxed out of the stockroom in a ladies’ bathrobe and red boxing gloves. You couldn’t see his face behind the gloves, but whoever it was had very white, very skinny arms and legs.

Jim took the boxer’s arm and threw it in the air like the guy was a prizefighter, only now we could see he wasn’t. He was Riley Carter, our dairy guy, though it did take me a second to recognize him without his Stinky Cheese Farm baseball cap.

Jim pumped Riley’s fist in the air. “Petersville, we are going to fight, and we will survive! Want to know how?”

People mumbled to each other.

Jim dropped Riley’s arm. “I said, ‘Do you want to know how?’”

Some peopled “yeah-ed.” Others “okay-ed.” Nobody really seemed all that interested, but I guess it was good enough because that’s when Jim said, “Okay, Riley, show ’em!”

Riley threw off the robe and let it fall to the floor. Underneath, he wore shiny, white shorts and a white T-shirt that read in big black letters: PETERSVILLE, THE PLACE TO EAT.

Jim reached behind his back, pulled a magazine from his jeans pocket, unrolled it, and held it up high. “This is how we’re going to survive.”

“What is it?” Mr. Jennings said.

“Our future.” Jim winked.

“Uh, okay. But really?” Mr. Jennings said.

“It’s Destination Eating’s Guide to the Best Small Towns in America,” Riley said.

“Was this Stinky Cheese’s idea?” Harley asked.

“You be quiet,” Jim said. “This was Riley’s idea, and it’s a darn good one. Petersville is going to become one of the best small towns in America.”

“Oh, yeah,” Winnie said. “How?”

Riley knocked his gloved hands together. “Food! Food is in! Like, in in. I’m talking big-time. And like, fresh stuff—everything homemade from real, whole ingredients, like my cheese and Mr. Jennings’s turkey, and what The Doughnut Stop and The Station House sell. Food is like, majorly big right now, and people will travel and spend all kinds of money for a super-special food experience.”

“A food experience?” Renny said. “You mean eating. Eating is just eating.” This wasn’t surprising coming from a man who sells Hostess cupcakes that are older than I am.

“Eating is just eating? Renny, man, that makes me sad.” Riley put a boxing glove over his heart. “I’m coming to the Gas Mart tomorrow with my Ooey Gooey Camembert. You experience that stinky perfection and then tell me that eating is just eating.”

“Can someone tell me why this boy thinks stinky is something that you want from your food?” Renny asked.