“The blonde? She’s your sister, right?” asked Simone, confused.

“Oh. Jade. Yes. She actually had to work,” Mom said. “At the movie theater in town?”

“That’s too bad. The movie theater, huh? I worked at one of those in high school. Always came home smelling like popcorn,” she said, leading us into the dining room.

“Abigail McCourt!” a voice crowed. It was Dr. Leo Lacamoire, descending the staircase two steps at a time and lowering the volume on the speakers with his phone. “There she is. Astronomer, seventh grader, avid library aficionado.”

“Eighth grader in the fall,” I said.

He waved a hand, as if such a detail couldn’t matter less to him. “Yes, yes. Welcome. What can Simone get you all to drink? Water, soda, iced tea? Wine for those of us old enough to partake? I wasn’t sure what you liked. . . .”

Simone opened the fridge to every kind of juice and soda imaginable. Bottles of Coke and orange juice and lemonade and Mountain Dew all clinked together in the door.

“Water’s actually fine for me,” I said.

“Sparkling? Berry flavored?” The doctor bounced on his toes. Where had he gotten all this stuff? You definitely couldn’t buy berry-flavored water at Coontail’s.

“Um . . . tap?”

“You’re freaking them out,” hissed Simone, grabbing a cup from the cupboard and filling it at the sink. “Relax.”

Mom and Dad glanced at each other, and I could read their minds: What in the world?

“Yes! Everything is grand,” Dr. Lacamoire assured me, pouring two glasses of dark red wine and handing them to my parents. “Simone has whipped up a feast fit for kings.”

Dr. Lacamoire took my dad and me upstairs to check out his telescopes while Simone finished getting dinner ready and chatted with my mom. He had five of them, all on tripods, pointed outside at different angles.

“Whoa,” I breathed, running my hand over the largest one. “This is a Tyler-Weimer. They’re like, eight bajillion dollars.”

“Abigail,” Dad hissed.

Dr. Lacamoire smirked. “Not quite eight bajillion. But close.”

“Wow,” Dad said, admiring his setup. “This is amazing.”

“You’re all set for the eclipse, huh?” I asked him. “Did you get your glasses already? I’ve had mine for weeks.”

He snorted and pulled out what looked like binoculars. “These are sunoculars. Specifically designed for eclipse viewing. They’re what I always use.”

“You’ve seen a total eclipse before?” I asked, my jaw dropping. “That’s, like, a once-in-a-lifetime thing!”

“Nonsense. They happen once every two years or so. I usually just need to travel. I’ve observed total eclipses in Bangladesh, Auckland, and Tokyo—but never here in the U.S.”

“Careful with those,” Dad warned me as Dr. Lacamoire handed over the sunoculars.

I turned them over in my hand. “These are sweet.”

“And expensive,” he said, plucking them back out from my hands. Then he looked nervous. “But—if you’d like to see them— I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

“Dinner!” hollered Simone.

Dr. Lacamoire looked thankful for our interruption. “Come then, Abigail, Gary. Dinner is served. After, when it’s darker, you can look through the Tyler-Weimer if you’d like.”