I thought my head was going to explode.

“Tommy Sullivan may be a lot of things,” I shrieked at my brother. “But he is not a liar!”

Unlike me.

“Oh, right!” Liam snorted in disgust. “Give it up, Katie. Tommy Sullivan was just jealous because he knew he’d never be a Quahog, so he—”

“Oh my God,” I burst out. “You’ve drunk the Kool-Aid!”

“I drank Gatorade,” Liam shouted back. “Not Kool-Aid! I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I ignored him. It was time to seek help from a higher power. Or two. “Mom,” I said. “Dad. Liam’s drunk the Kool-Aid.”

“Stop saying that!” Liam screamed.

“Katie,” my mom said, stabbing the Pause button on the answering machine and cutting off a Brittany, mid-giggle. “Please. Don’t be so dramatic. And Liam, stop screaming. I can’t hear our messages.”

“And I can’t hear the TV,” Dad said, turning up the volume on his golf tournament.

“Mom,” I said, trying hard not to be dramatic. “Would you please tell Liam that Tommy Sullivan did not make up the story about Jake Turner and those guys cheating on their SATs?”

“Yes, he did!” Liam cried. “Coach Hayes told us all about it! He said the press is full of members of intelligentsia, who will stop at nothing to make Quahogs look like fools, because they’re jealous of their athletic prowess—”

“Coach Hayes obviously hasn’t seen Tommy Sullivan lately,” I muttered.

“—and that the year the Quahogs had to forfeit the state championship will forever be a black mark on the history of Eastport because of the act of one envious person—”

“That is ridiculous!” I yelled, knowing I was being dramatic again, but unable to help myself. “Tommy didn’t write that story because he was jealous! He wrote it because it wasn’t fair that the Quahogs got special treatment from the proctor of that exam! I mean, they’re just a bunch of football players! Why should they get to cheat on the SATs if nobody else does?”

“I told you,” Liam said angrily. “They didn’t cheat! It was a conspiracy! Coach Hayes told us so. And that’s a nice way for the girlfriend of this year’s team kicker to talk, by the way. I wonder how Seth would feel if he knew you think his brother’s a cheater.”

“Oh, bite me,” I snarled at him.

Which is exactly when Tommy Sullivan’s voice filled the kitchen. At first I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. I thought he was actually there, in the room with us.

Then I realized it was a message he’d left on the answering machine, which Mom was playing back.

“Hi, Katie,”Tommy said, his deep voice solemn.“It’s me, Tom. Tom Sullivan. Look…about last night — I still don’t understand exactly what happened. I — look, just call me, would you?” Then he gave his cell number.“We need to talk.”

Then he hung up.

And I realized the gaze of every member of my family was on my face. Well, except my dad’s, since he was still watching golf.

Liam was the first to speak.

“TommySullivan?” He was sneering. He was most definitely sneering. “You andTommy Sullivan? Oh my God! Mwa ha ha ha!”

That’s when I went for him.

I managed to grab a nice handful of leg hair, and was tugging mercilessly — Liam screaming shrilly in pain — when suddenly I was seized by the waist from behind, and lifted straight up into the air by my father.

“The updo,” I shrieked. “Watch the updo!”

“That isenough!” my father roared, setting me down again on the opposite side of the bar separating the kitchen from the family room, so that Liam and I were in different rooms. “I have had it with the both of you! I am trying to watch GOLF!”

“She started it,” Liam said sulkily, rubbing his leg.

“Youstarted it!” I yelled at him. “You’re the one who told Tommy Sullivan where I work! If you had just kept your big fat mouth shut about my private business—”

“That’s it.” Mom had on her One More Word and You’re Grounded face. “Liam. Katie. Go to your rooms.”

“I can’t go to my room,” I declared. “I have my Quahog Princess pageant in—” I threw a glance at the clock. “Oh, great. Half an hour. Now I’m going to be late.” I glared at Liam. “Thanks a lot, nimrod.”

“Why bother going?” Liam shot back. “You’re not going to win. Not when everybody finds out who you were hanging out with last night—”

“SHUT UP!” I shrieked.

And stormed from the house.

Sixteen

I don’t know how my parents can be so casual about this whole thing. I mean, this thing with my brother, becoming one ofthem.

Although, now that I think about it, that’s exactly what Tommy accused me of being. Right? I mean, didn’t he express wonder at how I’d assimilated?

And I’d told him he was wrong, that there is nous versusthem.

But according to what Liam says, Coach Hayes obviously thinks there is. And if Coach Hayes thinks that—

Oh, God, what’swrong with me? I’ve let Tommy Sullivan into my head! It’s bad enough he seems to be setting up permanent occupancy in my heart (if that is the correct place for someone you can’t stop thinking about kissing, and not somewhere a little more southerly). Now I’ve got him in my subconscious, too!

It was with dark thoughts such as these that I arrived at the pageant tent. It wasn’t as easy to get there today as it had been yesterday, because the park was open to the public now, and the place was packed with locals and tourists alike, enjoying the Taste of Eastport. Every restaurant in town (except the chains) had booths set up. I had to get off my bike and walk it at the park’s entrance, because there were too many people milling around for me to bike through.

I spied Shaniqua and Jill working at the Gull ’n Gulp booth, and gave them a wave as I pushed my bike past. They waved back and each mouthedGood luck! but didn’t have time to chat. The line for quahog fritters was about a mile long, and Peggy was keeping an eagle eye on the staff, to make sure they didn’t give the customers more than the single fritter (and dollop of sauce) their food ticket allotted.

I walked my bike toward the pageant stage and saw that a few people had already taken seats in the folding chairs in front of it. One of those people was Mr. Gatch from theGazette. He was smoking a cigar and playing solitaire on one of those electronic games you can get at Kmart. So I knew better than to go over and ask him, again, what Tommy Sullivan had been doing in his office.

Instead, I wheeled my bike around to the back of the changing tent behind the stage and locked it to a small sapling. I knew the workers from the parks department wouldn’t like that, but there were no bike racks, and all the park benches were taken by tourists digging into their quahog fritters. My bike secured, I grabbed my garment bag and lifted one of the flaps of the changing tent.

Behind it, I found bedlam. Ms. Hayes was screaming at the sound guys, because apparently the hand mikes weren’t working, and we were going to have to use clipons, which wouldn’t work because there was no place near enough to Sidney’s mouth to clip a mike, thanks to her gown’s plunging neckline. Sidney was screaming at Dave, who’d apparently ordered the wrong color tux from Eastport Formal Wear, and the powder blue of his jacket was going to clash with the red of Sidney’s dress. Morgan was freaking out because she’d forgotten her rosin and was going to break her neck on the stage if her toe shoes didn’t stick to it well enough.

And Jenna. Well, something hadhappened to Jenna. I didn’t even recognize her at first. Her piercings were gone, as were the purple streaks in her black hair…which was now a pretty auburn color and was sitting on top of her head in a gorgeous updo, with baby’s breath tucked into it. She’d been stuffed into an empire-waisted lacy dress from Bebe (Sidney had the exact same one, but for day, not pageant, wear) that accentuated her long, pale limbs, and on her feet were a pair of stilettos so shockingly high, they were sinking into the dirt and grass beneath the chair she was sitting on. On her face, she wore an expression not unlike the one hostages tend to wear after being liberated from days of captivity — she looked dazed.

I couldn’t help going up to her and being all, “Jenna? Whathappened?”

Jenna blinked up at me. “Oh,” she said. “Hi, Katie. Yeah. Ambush makeover.”

Shocked, I sank down onto a nearby folding chair. “Your mom?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “My friends. They think if I win, I’ll be in a position to promote their social platform.”

“Running through the streets naked covered in green Jell-O?”

“No,” Jenna said. “Liberating the quahog. They want all quahogs to be able to live free, without fear of being dug up and eaten.”

I said, “Jenna. Quahogs are bivalves. They aren’t capable of feeling fear.”

Jenna shrugged. “I know. But I didn’t want to upset them. And whatever. I want my car back. So maybe this way, I’ll place after all.”

I thought this was still pretty unlikely, given her talent. (Her speech includes the line,I’ve SEEN the future. Do you know what it is? It’s a forty-seven-year-old virgin sitting around in his beige pajamas, drinking a banana-broccoli shake, singing, “I’m an Oscar Mayer Wiener.” Pageant judges don’t like it when you mention the V word in your speech.)

“Wow,” I said instead. “Does this mean you found an escort?”

Jenna rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Mydad.”

Still, I stood back up and laid a hand on her bare shoulder to show my solidarity with her plight. “Fight the power, Jenna,” I said. “Fight the power.”