Chapter 12: Thirty-One Dishes

There were thirty-one dishes on the folding tables in Elspeth's driveway, and every one of them had a strip of masking tape.

Elspeth had designed the tape.

Each strip carried four lines: what it was, who made it, how to reheat it, and what was in it that could hurt someone.

I read all thirty-one.

I will say that it was the best-organized document I had seen on Birch Street, and I had seen the homeowners' bylaws.

"Walnuts," said Lucy, pointing. "Shellfish. That one just says SURPRISE."

"That's the family from number nine," said Elspeth. "It's a chili."

"It says SURPRISE."

"It's a surprise that it's chili," said Elspeth.

Seven of the fourteen houses on Birch Street were dark.

Seven cars were gone from the curbs, and a row of porch lights had been left off, one after another, down the street.

I noticed it when we set the tables up.

Lucy noticed it first, because she counts.

"Seven," she said quietly.

"I see them," I said.

"Maybe they're at Neil's."

"Maybe."

But Neil's house was dark too.

The rest of us ate anyway.

Number Nine stood at the end of the street with a full tank and a cardboard sign in the windshield: BIRCH, DELL, LODGE.

Twelve families came over from Dell Street on foot, with their kids and their bags.

Lucy had told them there would be food and a bus.

The old woman with the machine sat in a lawn chair beside an extension cord that ran back into Elspeth's kitchen.

The man with the goat tied it to a mailbox, and the goat ate a hosta.

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