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example is Dawn, who’s circling the classroom with her parents following her. She’s trying to find some of her work to show them. The trouble is, none of her work is pinned up, because she hasn’t finished one single thing since school started over three weeks ago.
    “Over here?” Mrs. Barker asks, pointing.
    “Nope,” Dawn says.
    “Over here?” Mr. Barker asks.
    “Nope,” Dawn says. Round and round while the rest of us sit here, waiting for Miss Gallagher to get started.
    Finally Miss Gallagher says, “Pilgrims and—?” We’re supposed to say “Indians!” to show that we’repaying attention, but this doesn’t feel like school, since we’re sitting with our parents, so we don’t say anything.
    “PILGRIMS AND—?” She tries again, louder.
    “INDIANS!!!” Dawn yells, and her parents smile and rub her back.
    “Welcome,” Miss Gallagher says. “Let’s begin by having the adults introduce themselves and say one thing that they’re looking forward to in this new school year.”
    Maybe no one told her that in the off-season this is a tiny town and all of us kids have been in school together since kindergarten, except Joey, and the parents are always bumping into each other at Flanagan’s Market and at the Savings and Loan. Claire’s dad, Mr. DeLuca, even took Debbie’s mom, Mrs. Leland, out for a fancy dinner at the Oyster Bar and Grille, and they clinked wineglasses and touched each other’s hands, because they didn’t think anyone would see them at such a snazzy place on a Tuesday night a few miles out of town, but somebody did. Lots of families have lived here for
generations
, which is why Mom and Dad say it’s a hard community to break into and maybe they would have given up and headed back to New York if Dad hadn’t absolutely fallen in love with the Cape way back when he was an intern at the Thorne Clinic and dreamed of meeting a woman who’d love it like he did. Then he met Mom at a party in Boston and brought her to the dunesin Truro on their third date and she did love it; she loved it so much.
    Mrs. Barker says, “I’m Gloria Barker, Dawn’s mother, and I’m looking forward to Dawn improving her reading skills and really, well, reading,” and Mr. Barker says, “Ditto,” and most of the moms and a couple of the dads smile and nod, and if I were Dawn, I’d be embarrassed, but she waves her hand above her head, all happy.
    Joey’s sitting next to Dawn, and there’s a long silence and no grown-ups jump in to save him, so he says, “Joey Morell. Field trips, like to the P-town lighthouse. My brother dropped me off tonight, because my parents couldn’t come. He just got his license.”
    Then Lisa B.’s parents. Then Lisa R.’s parents.
    Mr. Paganelli says, “I’ll leave this to my wife,” and Mrs. Paganelli starts a speech about how pleased she is that Miss Gallagher has joined our community and how we all wish her great success in leading our children forward in their educational pursuits. Whenever Mrs. Paganelli decides to wrap it up is when it will be Mom’s turn, so I look over at her next to me and her eye is flicking side to side, like she’s reading at supersonic speed. I don’t think she notices. She’s just looking calmly at Mrs. Paganelli with her other eye. I don’t know what to do. I poke Dad, and I guess I look scared, so he leans in front of me and sees what’s going on. He whispers in Mom’s ear, and she covers her supersonic eye with her hand. Then Dadsays, “Excuse me. I hate to interrupt, but we need to leave right now.” When we stand up, our chairs squeak,
eeeeeeee
, and Mom wobbles, so Dad holds one arm and I hold the elbow of the arm with the hand that’s covering her supersonic eye. Joey jumps up,
eeeeeeee
, like he wants to help, but Dad and I, we’ve got it covered, and that’s the end of back-to-school night for us.

    Twinkies, Yodels, Ring Dings, potato chips, and Screaming Yellow Zonkers! At Sally’s house, you can just open up the