box. While Dad and Gordon Lightfoot and I rolled slowly past the all-too-familiar sights of Olyn, I planted myself in the desk chair and opened to a blank page in the Book of In-Betweens. On it, I fast-noodled a fitting tribute, a skull and crossbones made out of a leaf and two twigs. I was just fixing to wonder if a Castanea dentata tree was even capable of growing stately and strong at all, when my dad turned in to the gas station so dramatically, my pencils rolled right off the desk and onto the floor with all manner of The Roast’s loose doodads joining them there. As he backed up and inched forward at least five times to line up with the gas pump, Dad said, “Cass, I have a feeling it’s time to establish some Rules of The Roast.” When we finally squeaked to a stop, he said, “Ever hear of holding down the fort?” Well, of course I had. All the times Mom had gone rescuing, it was the last thing she would say to me. All but this last time, that is. She’d say, “Be my little fort-holder, Castanea.”
