Everybody’s at my house, he thought. He couldn’t quite believe it. He felt weak, having spent his energy on not acting dumb. Right and wrong were so close together in the same house, for the first time. My house!

Smalls and Darrows, Pluto. Mayhew had left town to go back to his work after Thanksgiving, after settling Pluto in. Thomas didn’t know whose idea it had been to invite Darrows over for this Sunday dinner. Probably his mama’s. Both his mama and his papa had agreed on it.

Love thy neighbor! Thomas thought scornfully.

Darrows dared accept the invitation and had driven up in cars.

Thomas could hardly believe it. I mean, River Lewis Darrow and his boys and Macky, and Pesty, of course, and Mrs. Darrow, Thomas thought. And Mama and Papa, Billy and Buster and Great-grandmother. Plus Mr. Pluto. In the kitchen. In the parlor. All fourteen of us.

And Mr. Pluto living with us and settled in, Thomas went on. Well, it had taken awhile to convince him. But it’s something to hear him on the stairs in the morning! He and Great-grandmother Jeffers talking all the time, busy at things. The twins get a buggy ride each day. And I bet Pesty will just move in one day. She sleeps over some of the time already.

Look at it snow! Thomas sat there in the parlor in a straight chair next to the fireplace, facing Darrows. He had been looking out the long windows to calm himself. He thought about the only one who was missing: Mayhew Skinner. Mayhew had refused to come back to eat with Darrows. He’d be civil to them from a distance, he’d said over the phone, but he wasn’t going out of his way. Thank you anyhow.

Glad he hasn’t changed, Thomas thought. Maybe it’s good that somebody remembers what Darrows were once and might still be.

“About ten da-grees above,” he heard River Lewis Darrows tell Great-grandmother Jeffers, concerning the weather. Her voice tinkled back at him.

River Lewis Darrow’s tone was deep and bold, like formal bell rings, talking to his sons or Great-grandmother or Mattie. His was a cold sound to match his pearl gray Sunday suit. He was formal and stiff, just barely on the decent side of unfriendly the whole time he was in the house. Gruff out of habit. He couldn’t sit down but stood, a barrier to all concerned.

Mattie Darrow had refused sitting at the table that had been set. She had become agitated when anybody else tried to sit down. “She wants that set-up table to stay like a picture right where it is,” River Lewis said. He did not apologize for Mattie. He reached out with one hand and let his fingers touch her hair. “Miz Small, Mistah Small,” he said, looking down at the floor. “Mattie, glad ta be here. All us, too.”

Well, you sure don’t act like it, Thomas thought.

“We are certainly glad you all could come, and welcome!” Mrs. Small said, smiling warmly. “Come on, everybody, let’s all have a good time.”

Mattie then chose by herself where she would sit. “It doesn’t make a bit of difference where we eat,” Mrs. Small murmured.

Who knows the reason why Mattie Darrow is the way she is? Thomas thought.

His mama set the dinner as a buffet. Chicken and stuffing, potatoes, coleslaw, gravy. There were two baked ducks the Darrows had brought, which seemed out of place on an ordinary Sunday.

When was the last time I tasted duck? Thomas thought.

They all served themselves from the kitchen table. River Lewis kept his clumsy sons in line. When they filled their plates to heaping, he gave them a look, and they walked away from the table. When it was time for seconds, he stood by, staring hard at them. Wilbur, Russell, and River Ross Darrow were as meek as little lambs, pouring themselves milk or sparkling cider.

Whenever Thomas’s papa walked into the room to offer River Lewis some extra main course or fill his glass, Darrow backed up a pace or two. Now he was straight against the wall across from the parlor fireplace. Mattie sat on a cushioned footrest next to him. And beside her sat Great-grandmother, with the two little fellows in their rocking chairs right by their knees. Great-grandmother and Mattie were feeding the twins expertly. Billy and Buster didn’t find it odd that River Lewis was guarding the wall. Or that Mattie Darrow sometimes stared fiercely around, cackling.

All of them were in the parlor now. Thomas, Pesty, and Macky had fixed their plates right after the grownups. Pesty, Mrs. Small, and Mr. Pluto shared the parlor couch. Pesty was closest to Thomas. Mr. Small leaned against the wall next to River Lewis. Darrow’s sons moved away to make room for him. Once the sons were over being scared, they looked only halfway uncomfortable. But they ate everything in sight, Thomas noted, amused.

Thomas had a full plate of dinner in one hand and a warm roll in a yellow linen napkin on his knees. A glass of sparkling cider was next to his feet. His polished Sunday shoes weren’t scuffed yet. He had a fork in the other hand. Thomas could eat, chew. But he probably wouldn’t enjoy eating until he could eat the leftovers out of the refrigerator, after everybody strange had gone home.

“Macky, you bagged the ducks?” Mr. Small asked, commenting how good they were.

“Yes.”

“Yes, sir.” River Lewis corrected him, not unkindly, it seemed to Thomas.

“Yes … sir.” Macky looked surprised that his father had spoken to him. And he answered carefully to Mr. Small. “I brought them down as they went over— ducks like to fly from pond to pond around here.”

“He shot ’em clean,” River Lewis said. And Macky looked as if he would go through the ceiling from happiness.

All of us, looking nice, Thomas commented to himself. First time I’ve seen Pesty’s hair combed since the last Sunday at church, he thought. He told her it looked nice.

“Macky combed it. Mama told him how,” she told Thomas.

“Oh, girl!” Macky muttered.

Thomas smiled at him, to show him he understood how his mama’s hands might not always work right.

Macky sat on the other side of the hot fireplace from Thomas. “Looks like a department store in here,” Macky commented, talking about how dressed up they all were. That had broken the ice between him and Thomas. Made Thomas almost choke with the giggles. The two of them, big guys together. He unbuttoned his jacket and vest just the way Macky had. This was some Sunday! All dressed up together and nowhere to go.

Mr. Small made conversation as best he could. Rumors about Darrows were all over town and the college. Not just about the ten thousand dollars River Lewis and Mr. Pluto, too, had gotten. Rumor said that River Lewis had been hired by the foundation to show them the underground, all of it that he knew and his family had known over time.

As if on cue, River Lewis spoke. “Foundation given me a good job.” And partly unwillingly, he added, “I be thanking you for that, Mr. Small.”

Later Thomas and his papa found themselves in the kitchen alone, preparing coffee and coffee cake. Thomas waited for the dessert to warm up in a slow oven. He and his papa talked privately. “When the contents of the great cavern and the underground rooms are removed,” his papa said, “the cavern and the rooms are to be replicated. There is to be a museum for the Drear collections.”

“What does ‘replicated’ mean?” Thomas asked.

“It means to re-create,” his papa said. “The foundation will reproduce the cavern and the rooms on a smaller scale. And it will put back some of the treasure and the other things in the display.”

“Wow!” whispered Thomas.

“Yes, and the whole lot will look like a real underground, like the originals,” his papa said. “They might even have a figure of Drear at the desk, if they want to hoke it up a little. Then the museum will open to the public.”

“They’ll probably hire Pesty to play an orphan child,” Thomas said, half joking and half angry.

“Thomas, that isn’t nice.”