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Yulia didn’t bring up what they spoke about on the bus. She just slid down her front stairs in Cole Haan and fox fur, and handed them both wicker baskets.

“We can get things for each other tomorrow if we go by ourselves,” she said. “That way we don’t have to guard any secrets. Remember, Hollis: you’re on holding duty when my basket gets too heavy.”

There were more people on the first day anyway, and way more this year than the past year, because it wasn’t as wet.

As always, they stopped and got candied nuts at the entrance. Hollis could see his ma and pa’s booth farther down, and they had a very long line.

Don’t get a big head about that. I’m still better at cooking than you.

Didn’t say a thing.

But Hollis could feel how proud he was anyway.

Annie wanted to focus on getting food first, so they cut across from the crafts and headed to get those German sausages she liked that Yulia thought were too salty. Pino’s had come out and had fair food too, and Annie mocked him for choosing to get mozzarella sticks again instead of something more festive.

Yulia managed to snag more of Walt’s gingerbread.

“You will make this every year and mail me some if I can’t come home from college,” she announced.

“That’s fine. Happy to.” Walt used Hollis’s face to blush like he always did, and Hollis was just glad he no longer had to explain why.

They got a cow-bone hair stick for Mrs. Brown, ’cause her hair ties were all over the house, and some menthol tallow cream for Mr. Brown’s bad back. Hollis got a set of pencils for Timothy, who always asked him for one, and hand chalk for James, because he’d always be in need of more.

Hollis thought for a fleeting second about getting something for Jorge but decided against it because that meant they’d have to talk to him again at some point.

He got Yulia’s pa a “just add water” bread-making kit, and Yulia’s ma some honey soap and hand cream. Annie’s ma a book of poetry the school library was going to throw out and Annie’s pa some jars of pickled radishes and hot peppers.

Yulia’s basket was twice as heavy as theirs because she kept buying things in glass containers. But Hollis and Walt gritted their teeth and hefted it on their shoulder so that it wouldn’t cut into their hands.

“You should get something for the principal,” Annie said. “Or would that look like bribery?”

“It would probably look like bribery,” Walt replied, but Hollis threw a small bottle of cherry moonshine in his basket and thanked God no one ever cared to card around here.