"Jack?"
"Most of them." I grinned at her. "I'm supporting the local economy."
At the hot dog stand, the husband and wife running it, whose names I didn't remember, perked up to see me coming.
"Six more, Jack?" The woman asked cheerfully.
Tess pinned me with an accusing stare. "Sixmore?"
"I shared them with Rooster!"
She just rolled her eyes. "One for me, with fries, please."
"And four more for me," I said, from behind her. "I'll share her fries."
"No, you will not," Tess told me. "Get your own fries."
I gave the couple a sorrowful look and pulled out my wallet. "Married life can be hard."
The woman burst out laughing. "You never had it so good."
Because she was right, I left a ten in the tip jar.
When we finished eating, I was ready to go stretch out somewhere on the grass and take a nap, but Tess had other ideas.
"We should go see Cletus and make sure everything's all right."
I stared at her. "Why would we do that? He has been nothing but trouble."
"Exactly. The last thing Aunt Ruby needs is more trouble in Dead End. Especially at the Fourth Fest. Let's just go see if he's okay."
But when we got to the fireworks area, carefully cordoned off to keep the kids away from Cletus's van and the tent he'd set up, we heard shouting coming from inside the tent.
"That's Bubba," I said.
"And Lola," Tess said. Then she smacked her forehead. "Why didn't I listen to you?"
"I often ask myself that."
"Oh, hush. Let's rescue Cletus from his family."
Sure enough, when we walked into the tent, we were confronted with the sight of Cletus backed up against the canvas wall by Lola, Bubba, and the giant boa constrictor wrapped around Bubba's neck.
"Why is it always snakes?" I muttered.
Lola never stopped shouting at Cletus, but Bubba whirled around and tossed the snake to Tess.
Things went downhill from there.
20
Tess
"This is why I'm going to stop offering to help people, Snake Hissken," I told the boa constrictor. (Yes, I knew his name.) "Here I am in this tent, where it has to be a hundred and twenty degrees, with an armful of snake."
The snake looked at me, and I imagined I saw agreement in its eyes.
Luckily, I was not afraid of snakes. I actually kind of liked them, except for the part where you had to feed them live prey.
