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“I know,” Winnie said. “But it’ll be super easy and super quick. Plus, it has the potential to be a big moneymaker, and I have a fairly large budget to manage, so I didn’t see the harm in changing the plan for a few weeks.”

Money always made Dad more accepting of something.

Sure enough, his frown lessened. “Still,” he continued, “that was hardly fair of Arthur. Maybe I should talk to him.”

“No, Dad,” Winnie protested at once, leaning forward on the bench and peering intently into her phone screen. “Really, it’s fine. I can handle it. Plus, it’s giving me extra time and insight into what the estate needs, so it’s killing two birds with one stone.”

To her relief, Dad seemed to relent, though she knew this would not be the last she heard about it.

“So what exactly is at a faire, then?” Mom asked, her eyes straying down to her lap, no doubt where her phone lay. She’d never had a very good attention span.

Winnie shrugged. “It’s just an event that has medieval activities and food and stuff like that. There’s not much to write home about now, but I have big plans for it. Apparently, it’s super important to the Wintours’ son.”

Mom nodded absentmindedly.

“So does it have rides and stuff?” Sarah, Winnie’s closest sibling in age, asked.

“No, but I’m planning on bringing them in,” Winnie said.

“That’s the only way to entertain kids,” Scott piped in. His wife next to him nodded vigorously. “That and food.”

Winnie logged the information away.

“So if they don’t have rides, what do they have?” Dad asked, still skeptical.

“Um…” she winced inwardly, knowing what would happen the moment she continued. “Jousting is their main event.”

Sure enough, a few of her siblings laughed.

“Wait,” Spencer said, holding his newborn over his shoulder, gently patting his back as he bounced up and down. “Like, what they did in high school, LARPing and stuff?”

“Yep. In full armor and everything.”

Spencer laughed. “Those kids were so weird.”

“Seriously though,” Samantha agreed.

Winnie looked away, frowning at her family’s lack of decorum. She’d seen those kids in high school cosplaying and LARPing to their hearts’ content. They weren’t weird. Just different.

And what was so bad about being different? She couldn’t help but envy those kids who’d been able to throw social norms to the wind and do what they’d wanted. They had been some of the happiest, most genuine, most kind people at the school.

Of course, she couldn’t say the same thing about Matthew, as he was bordering on being the rudest person she’d ever met. But she would never stoop to calling him weird for following a passion that brought him joy.

And yet, hadn’t she called him that very thing when he’d ridden toward her in the rain in full armor the night they’d met? Her exact words used to describe him had been “crazy-pants,” had they not?

She groaned inwardly at her cruelty. It was time to make up for it, even if no one knew what she’d done but herself.

“Actually,” she began, interrupting her family’s laughter, “it’s pretty cool what these knights do. They ride toward each other with these huge lances and try to knock each other off their horses. It’s pretty crazy.”

“Crazy is right,” Spencer said, shaking his head again.

Winnie frowned. She’d meant crazy-cool, not crazy-weird.

“Yeah, good luck dealing with that, Winnie,” Scott said next.

“And good luck trying to make the event actually worth seeing,” Spencer joked.

Winnie clamped her mouth shut. This was only making things worse, as was evident by Dad’s face. With each new joke from his sons’ mouths, he’d frowned deeper and deeper.