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Mary frowned. The name sounded familiar. “Catherine.”

“Yes. Well, the thing is, I think we're related.”

Mary dropped onto one of the kitchen chairs. “Oh,” she said, and her voice came out as a squeak.

“I didn't mean to take you by surprise, but you did write —”

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

“And I'm pretty certain that I'm your half sister.”

“My
half sister
,” Mary repeated. “I thought maybe cousins or …”

Mary remembered the day the previous summer when she'd found the courage to write the letter. She had recently learned the truth about her father — that he had a sister, for one thing, and more important, that he had not died young, as she had believed for most of her life, but instead had left Mary and her mother and started a new life somewhere far from Camden Falls. Mary had been brought up believing that she had no relatives at all, and then she had discovered that her father had had a sister. That sister might have children — they would be Mary's cousins. But
this
— a sister of her own — this was more than Mary had hoped for.

Catherine was speaking again. “I know this must be a shock. Your letter was sent along to me by someone who knew your aunt, our father's sister, decades ago. Probably fifty years ago. I gather you were trying to find out about your aunt's family. I'm sorry to tell you that she died in, I think it was nineteen sixty.”

“Excuse me for interrupting,” said Mary, “but I have to ask you this: Did you know that your father — I mean, our father — had been married before?”

“I didn't find out until after he died,” replied Catherine. “And I had so little information that I didn't know how to find you. But then you found me.”

Mary drew in her breath. “Do we have any other sisters or brothers?” she whispered.

Catherine began to talk again. The minutes ticked by. An hour passed. Mary had a brother. She had nieces and nephews. And she did indeed have cousins as well. The pieces of her life, all the missing pieces, were falling into place. Mary asked questions and Catherine answered them. Catherine asked questions and Mary answered them.

Catherine lived less than an hour away. Two of Mary's nephews lived even closer.

Mary closed her eyes. “Could we meet?” she asked.

“I was hoping you would say that!” exclaimed Catherine. “Yes. Yes, I would very much like to meet.”

“I haven't left Camden Falls in years,” admitted Mary. “I don't even have a car. Do you think you could come here?”

“Not only that, I'll come with my sons, my daughter, and my niece.
And
my granddaughter,” she added proudly. “Ellen Hayley. She's two months old.”

“Goodness!” said Mary.

She had never known such a Thanksgiving. When she finally hung up the phone, she wandered into the kitchen and caught sight of the mysterious basket.

“You brought me luck,” she said to it. “You must be magic.” And for the rest of the day she eyed it both gratefully and suspiciously.

Ruby Northrop woke up on Thanksgiving morning with the uncomfortable feeling that she had forgotten something. Or that she had lost something. She sat up and looked around her room. She didn't see any schoolbooks, but that was okay because she hadn't been given any vacation homework. She saw her tap shoes, which was good because they were very expensive and Min had told her that if she lost them again, Ruby would have to replace them herself.

What could be wrong?

The answer came to her in the next instant and left a sinking feeling in her stomach.

She had forgotten to rehearse her solos (the little one
and
the important one) for the Thanksgiving concert. She had missed the final rehearsal and she had forgotten to rehearse on her own.

“Oh, well,” said Ruby aloud, hopping out of bed. She pulled her sheet music out from under a pile of papers on her desk, unwrapped a piece of bubble gum, popped it in her mouth, and scanned the music. “I know this,” she said. She snapped her gum and dropped the music back on the desk. Nothing to worry about. Not to mention that this was Ruby's
second
Thanksgiving concert with the Children's Chorus.

“Been there, done that,” said Ruby, and she opened her wardrobe to choose an outfit for Thanksgiving dinner at Three Oaks.

 

The concert was to begin at ten o'clock in the morning in order to give everyone plenty of time to tend to their feasts afterward. The members of the Children's Chorus were to arrive at the community center at nine-fifteen sharp, wearing white tops and navy skirts or pants. And they were not to have their sheet music with them. The concerts were traditionally given from memory. No music allowed.

Ruby was just a teensy bit anxious about not having her music. She thought back to the previous Thanksgiving concert, which had been her very first concert with the chorus. She had not had a solo then — none of the brand-new members had been given one. But this concert was different. Ruby was now a second-year member.

Feeling quite responsible and grown-up, Ruby had laid a green velvet dress out on her bed that morning. It was to be her outfit for Three Oaks. Then she had reached for the white blouse and navy skirt that were hanging, freshly pressed by Min, in her wardrobe. She put them on carefully. They remained wrinkle free. And Ruby was quite pleased that she had had the forethought to lay out her dress ahead of time so she wouldn't have to worry about an outfit later.

“I'm all organized,” Ruby announced to Flora and Min when she entered the kitchen that morning. “I'm ready for the concert, and I chose my outfit for this afternoon. So in case we don't have much time after the concert, I can get dressed really fast.”

“That's admirable, Ruby,” said Min. “I'm proud of you.”

“Now, if I can just eat breakfast without spilling anything,” said Ruby.

“Why don't you wear a bib?” suggested Flora.

“Ha-ha,” said Ruby. “Min, who's going to drive Lacey and me to the community center?”

“I am. We should leave at nine o'clock, okay?”

“Okay.”

Min looked at her watch. “It's quarter to eight now. You'll have time to practice your solos before we leave.”

Ruby removed her wad of bubble gum and stuck it on the edge of her plate. “Don't need to. I'm ready.”

“I haven't heard any rehearsing.”

Ruby shrugged. “We're singing these songs from the nineteen forties — I'm not sure why —”

“Didn't Ms. Angelo explain why she chose the songs for the concert?” interrupted Flora.

“Yes. I mean, she must have,” said Ruby dubiously. “Well, anyway, both of my solos are in ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.' That's a song made famous by the Andrews Sisters. First I have just one line, but at the end I have —”

“I still didn't hear you rehearsing,” said Min.

Ruby squirmed in her seat. “These are really tasty sticky buns,” she remarked.

Min sighed. “Be ready by nine.”

 

At exactly nine-fifteen, Ruby and Lacey arrived at the community center. The outside air, which was very cold, smelled of fallen leaves and wood smoke and pine needles. The sky was clear and blue.

“Remember last year?” said Ruby. “Remember how beautiful the community center looked during the concert?”

Ruby hadn't known, when she'd entered the center the previous Thanksgiving, that the spare wooden hall, which was vast and dim, would be decorated for the holiday, or that the room would be infused with color and warmth. Now she opened the door eagerly and peered inside.

“Yes!” she exclaimed under her breath. She was pleased to see that pots of live chrysanthemums had been placed at the ends of the first four rows of seats and that large gourds tumbled from a bushel basket at each side of the risers, on which the members of the chorus would stand. Around the windows were looped ropes of greens, and bouquets of lush red and orange and yellow flowers stood at either side of the doors. The room once again felt warm and cozy and festive.

Ms. Angelo, the chorus director, clapped her hands. “Good morning, everyone!” she called. “Happy Thanksgiving. I know you're excited, but please take your places on the risers for one quick rehearsal before the concert begins.”

Ruby and her friends warmed up, rehearsed the two most difficult pieces (which did not include “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”), and practiced filing into and out of the hall and finding their spots on the risers.

“Remember,” said Ms. Angelo, smiling, “we are not elephants. Please enter as quietly as possible. Without actually tiptoeing, of course.”

By ten o'clock, when Ms. Angelo and the chorus were waiting patiently outside the great hall, almost every seat had been filled. Ruby could hear hushed, happy voices, and she tried to picture Min and Flora and Mr. Pennington sitting in a row near the front, dressed in their best clothes. The Morrises would be there, too, and maybe Olivia and her family. She wished Aunt Allie could hear her solos, but then she thought of the baby (please be a boy, please be a boy) and felt a shiver of plea sure run along her back.

“Children,” said Ms. Angelo, after peeking through the doors, “it's time. Are you ready?”

The members of the chorus fell into place behind the director and followed her into the assembly room, which was now silent. Ruby breathed in the scent of the flowers and thought about “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.” When she was standing in her spot on the risers, she looked out at the expectant faces and almost immediately found Mr. Pennington, her grandmother, and her sister. They smiled discreetly at her. She looked around and spotted Lacey's family, Olivia and her family, and then saw Nikki, Tobias, Mae, and their mother. She caught sight of Frank, the owner of Frank's Beans, and Jackie from the post office, and other people from stores and businesses up and down Main Street.

This was great, thought Ruby. The whole town had turned out to hear her solos.

Ms. Angelo faced the audience, smiled warmly at them, and said, “Welcome to our Thanksgiving concert. We're pleased that so many of you are here this morning, celebrating our day for giving thanks. The Camden Falls Children's Chorus has been working hard this fall, and we're eager to share our music with you. We thank you for coming and hope you enjoy the program.”

Ms. Angelo turned back to the chorus. She nodded once, played a single note on the piano, and raised her hands. This was when Ruby suddenly recalled that not only was no sheet music allowed, but the singers were to have memorized the order of the songs to be performed. So she was a beat late getting started since she couldn't remember whether the first song was “When the Lights Go On Again” or “Sentimental Journey.” Lacey, who was standing to her left, glanced curiously at her, but once the song was under way, Ruby was fine.

She felt so fine, in fact, that she couldn't help but notice that others were not quite fine. The altos, for example, seemed just the teeniest bit off-key. And Germaine Lasley, who was standing behind Ruby, kept saying “No Peeking” instead of “Topeka” when they sang the song about the railroads. Germaine had a loud, although lovely, voice, and Ruby found it disconcerting to hear “On the Atchison, No Peeking, and the Santa Fe!” bleating into her ears.

The chorus took a brief break after the fourth song. Ruby glanced at Lacey. “Did you hear the altos?” she whispered.

Lacey frowned. “
I'm
an alto,” she reminded her.

“Well,
you
weren't flat,” said Ruby hastily.

“You thought the altos were flat?”

“Um,” said Ruby. And then she couldn't help herself. She turned around and hissed to Germaine, “It's To-pe-ka. Not No Peeking. To. Pe. Ka.”

“Sor-
ry
,” said Germaine.

“Some people just can't take criticism,” Ruby whispered to Lacey.

Ms. Angelo raised her arm for attention then, and the members of the chorus as well as everyone in the audience fell silent.

Ruby realized that once again she didn't know which song came next, so she kept her mouth closed for the first few notes. She was surprised to discover that her friends were singing “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.” Here would be not only her solo line but many others, since the kids were to take turns singing. It was a song full of solos. Ruby drew in her breath and then caught up. The kids sang the first verse as a group. Then suddenly Lacey was singing alone next to Ruby. Germaine had the next line, followed by a sixth-grade boy, and then a girl whose name Ruby could never remember. What on earth was it? Either Jenny or Jeanie, Ruby decided. Or possibly Penny.

Ruby was just thinking that perhaps the girl's name was Janice when she realized the room was silent. The entire room. Not a single voice was to be heard. The song couldn't be over, could it? Ruby hadn't sung her solo line. Then she saw that Ms. Angelo was looking sternly in her direction. At the same time, she felt Lacey pinch her side. “It's your turn!” whispered Lacey as loudly as she dared.