“Totally,” Amelie said, although she wasn’t bored.
Willa made a clicking sound in the back of her throat. “When do you think they’ll let us be in charge of the Christmas Festival Committee?”
“Us?” Amelie was taken aback. Being in charge of the fudge shop for a day was one thing, but being adult enough to take on the Christmas Festival Committee felt like entirely another.
“Sure. We’re twelve. We’ll be adults in six years,” Willa said.
Amelie felt a surge of fear. Adults? Would it really happen for them?
“What would you do for it?” Willa asked. “I think we should try to get a Ferris wheel. Or maybe like a wooden roller coaster.”
They’d gone to Michigan’s Adventure theme park two summers ago and ridden roller coasters until they’d almost thrown up. They talked about going back, but it was rare to ever get off the island during the summer, since someone always had to be at the fudge shop. It was the time of the year when they made most of their money, the time that had to be lucrative if they were to survive the rest of the year. It meant summers were intense. Beautiful but stressful.
“That would be cool,” Amelie said. “Or maybe we could bring a ton of huskies and have dog sled races.”
Willa’s eyes lit up. “That would be perfect. Yes! Imagine hundreds of huskies on Mackinac! It would be a big event! Everyone would come!”
Amelie laughed, pleased that she’d made Willa excited about something. “Where could we race?”
“Across the ice, maybe. Around the island?” Willa suggested.
“I hope we can keep some of the huskies for ourselves,” Amelie said, suddenly sad. She’d always wanted a puppy growing up, and now, Willa had just told her that they were actually almost grown up. It was over! Did Amelie need to mourn her childhood already?
Suddenly, Willa opened the glass case and removed the slab of chocolate-peanut butter fudge. “Just a little bit more,” she said. “It’s helping me imagine our Christmas Festival.”
“Better creativity?” Amelie said.
“Yeah. Don’t you feel it?”
Willa sliced two pieces of chocolate-peanut butter, and the twins ate them in silence, rolling with sugar. Suddenly, they were off to the races, talking about their visions for their Mackinac Island Christmas Festival. Each fresh version became more ridiculous than the last, until they were suggesting that their favorite actors and actresses come and be the “Mackinac Island Christmas King and Christmas Queen.” It was 2000, and they were obsessed with Leonardo DiCaprio, as was every girl their age. They liked Brad Pitt, too. Who didn’t? Their favorite actresses were Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, and Nicole Kidman, although they loved the redhead Julianne Moore as well, just because her hair was the same shade as theirs. Redheads had to stick together, they thought.
Nobody else in their family had had red hair since their mother’s grandmother, also named Georgia, whom they’d never met. Genes were weird, they always said.
As they discussed the future of the Christmas Festival, the future of Mackinac Island, and their own futures as Willa and Amelie, in charge of the Caraway Fudge Shoppe, they continued to slice off pieces of fudge from the counter, sampling every single available flavor. Their sugar rush mounted, then crashed, and mounted again.
It was around four thirty, long after they’d skipped lunch in honor of more fudge, that Amelie’s stomach sloshed with nausea. Outside, the light was dimming fast, casting an indigo gleam to the snow.
Willa touched her gut. Her face was turning green, although Amelie knew better than to point that out.
“When did Mom and Dad say they’d come back?” Amelie asked quietly.
Willa shrugged and sat on the floor with her head between her knees. Amelie looked hard at the glass case, trying to find a way to hide the fact that they’d eaten so much fudge today. But it was clear: a lot of the fudge was gone, and nobody had paid for it.
They were going to be in big trouble. Stress pounded in her chest.
Amelie went to the kitchen to check on the fudge they’d made that morning, pleased that at least that had worked out. She pressed her face against the cold counter and took a deep breath, her legs shaking hard beneath her.
Suddenly, the front of the fudge shop opened, and their parents’ laughter filled the space. Amelie winced. She’d hoped that they could heal up over the next hour. There wasn’t time.
“Hi, honey,” their mother said to Willa. “Are you all right?”
Amelie crept to the door between the kitchen and shop, watching as Willa clambered to her feet, clutching her stomach. Rather than look twelve, she looked like eight or nine. Like Amelie, she was shaking.
It was obvious what they’d done. Georgia closed her eyes and tried to suppress a smile. “Frank,” she said to their father, “I think we have a situation.”
Their father had been reading something on his notepad, not looking up. When he did, his eyes went to his wife’s face, down to Willa’s, and then over to Amelie’s in the kitchen doorway.
“Oh dear,” he said, shaking his head.
