“That would be amazing. And it’s Abby,” I told him. “Just Abby.”

The thing about lasagna is that you always eat more than you mean to. Pasta in general, really. You can’t just eat a normal-person amount; you have to eat, like, three helpings. I wished I had leggings on.

“Ugh,” Simone groaned, clearing the table. “Carb overload.”

“It was delicious, though,” Mom said.

“There’s ice cream, too, but I can’t eat another bite,” said Simone. “Anyone need some sugar?”

“I’m stuffed,” I admitted. “I don’t think I could fit it in.”

“Coffee?” she asked my parents.

“I think I’m okay,” said Mom, and Dad nodded in agreement.

“Abby? No, what am I saying. You’re twelve.”

“My best friend Sophie drinks coffee,” I said. “But it’s mainly flavored creamer.” My best friend. Ha. She was about as much my best friend as the bus driver was now.

“Well then,” said Dr. Lacamoire, “let’s make ourselves more comfortable, shall we?” The guy was being weird. He was jittery, asking us questions with wide eyes and then interrupting with new ones halfway through. He wanted to know when my parents moved here, when they opened up the resort, when the library was built . . . it was like his mind was constantly sparking off in new directions. He was never fully paying attention to what anyone was saying. And he’d barely touched his food, but the rest of us had eaten enough to make up for it.

We went into the living room. My parents and I sat on the leather couch, which my mom had spent months picking out from Crafting the Woods, and Dr. Lacamoire delicately slid into the armchair. Dad kept glancing around, and I could tell it made him feel weird to be in one of his own cabins as a guest instead of there to fix a toilet.

The office cell phone suddenly rang.

“Sorry,” Mom sighed, pulling it out. “We’re completely booked this month, so things have been a little crazy. I should take this.”

She stepped back toward the kitchen, murmuring into the phone, while Dad and Simone chatted about the best places to grab breakfast in town. Dr. Lacamoire and I sat there awkwardly.

“I’ve been trying to get that fireplace going,” he said, nodding to it, “but I can’t find the switch. I wouldn’t think we’d even need a fireplace in August, but goodness, that nighttime air can bite through the windows.”

“The switch?”

“To turn it on. Do you know where it is? It’s one of your houses, after all.”

“Um . . .” Making stupid people not feel stupid was one of my specialties. Trevor King had been my lab partner last year, and let’s just say he wasn’t the reason we got an A-. “There is no switch, sir. Although it’d be great if there were. You have to take wood from out back and set it on fire.”

“Oh my goodness, really? I assumed all fireplaces were electric now. This is a quaint little town, isn’t it?”