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flying wedge formation. The yodeling one, the one in the middle, was wearing a flowery dress and hiking boots. Smiling and laughing, she stretched her arms out wide.
    “Oh, Georgie! Let me look at you. You’re a sight for sore eyes!”
    “You too, Aunt Ginny!” They hugged. Zack smelled petunias. Aunt Ginny must like flowery perfume.
    “Hello, Zachary,” said the tall aunt on the left. She looked as brittle as stick candy and had more wrinkles on her face than Zack had in his pajamas.
    “Oh me, oh my,” giggled the chubby one on the right, who had bazoombas the size of Paproski’s prizewinning pumpkins. “Hello, Zachary, hello!” She squeezed his cheeks. “You’re so cute, I could gobble you up.”
    Zack smiled even though she looked like she might actually eat children for breakfast. With syrup and lots of butter.
    “You’ve certainly grown since the wedding,” said the tall one very matter-of-factly.
    “He sure has, Aunt Hannah,” said Zack’s dad.
    “Must be eating right,” said the pudgy one with the pillow chest.
    “Zack, you remember Aunt Ginny, Aunt Sophie, and Aunt Hannah?”
    “Uh, yeah. Hi.”
    “And how’s Judy?” gushed Aunt Ginny.
    “Great. She’s at home.”
    “Is she fixing breakfast?” asked Aunt Sophie, eagerly fluttering her eyelids behind her gigantically round glasses. “They only fed us sugar cookies and peanuts on the plane. Will there be snacks in the car, Georgie?”
    “First things first,” said Aunt Hannah, who Zack figured was the boss. “Where is our luggage?” She glared at the unmoving baggage conveyor belt. “We had to pay to check our bags. Having paid, you’d think—”
    An air horn blared three times and an alarm bell rang.
    The conveyor belt started up. Suitcases immediately slid down the chute.
    “Oh, goody!” said Sophie. “Here come our trunks.”
    “Come on, Zack,” said his dad. “Give me a hand here.”
    Zack and his dad stepped up to the conveyor belt. Three antique footlockers, the kind magicians and cruise passengers pack their gear in, trundled down the chute.
    “Those are ours,” decreed Hannah.
    “And those, too,” said Aunt Ginny, gesturing toward three hefty satchels made out of paisley-swirled carpet and clasped at the top with fancy brass hardware.
    “You sure you ladies packed enough?” Zack’s dad asked as he heaved the first trunk off the carousel.
    “Well,” said Ginny, “we didn’t know exactly what we might need, so we packed everything.”
    “What Virginia meant to say,” said Aunt Hannah, “is that your weather up here is rather unpredictable, much different from what we enjoy down in Florida.”
    “Oh, yes,” Aunt Sophie chimed in. “That’s what Virginia meant to say. It’s the weather. We brought several different wardrobes.”
    “By wardrobes, do you mean furniture?” Zack’s dad joked. “These things are heavier than a chest of drawers!”
    Zack helped his dad lug the second trunk onto a rolling cart.
    “And here comes our most precious cargo!” chirped Aunt Ginny as an airline porter rolled a wagon carrying three pet carriers toward them. “Our kitties!”
    “So you brought all your cats?” said Zack’s dad.
    “Heavens, no,” sniffed Hannah. “Just the three who aren’t afraid to fly.”

Once the trunks and bags and cats were loaded into the back of the family van, Zack and his dad helped the elderly aunts step up into the vehicle.
    Aunt Hannah, claiming seniority, would be riding shotgun.
    Zack sat in the back on the bench seat, sandwiched between ginormous Aunt Sophie and smiling Aunt Ginny. Actually, Sophie was so wide-bottomed, Zack and Ginny were basically sharing the right half of the bench.
    “ ‘Bradley Airport,’ ” said Aunt Ginny, reading the big road sign as they drove past it. “ ‘Welcome to Connecticut. The Constitution State. Enjoy Your Visit.’ Do you read billboards, Zack?”
    “Well, not out loud …”
    “Oh, it’s an excellent way to sharpen one’s