"Happy, happy 4th of July," Barb said to Lloyd coming down the stairs.
"Happy, happy," Lloyd said. "I'm up, at 'em, and ready to grill."
"But before you do, be sure to read this," Pim said, handing Lloyd a book.
"Grilling for Dummies," Lloyd read off the front cover. "Guess I could put this to good use."
"And if you still burn something, I can put this to good use," Pim said, holding up a fire extinguisher. Moments later, the three occupants of the kitchen heard a yell, then running feet down the stairs. They turned to see Curtis running downstairs; carrying some party decorations that Barb had bought the day before. At the bottom of the stairs, he tripped, fell on his face, and lost all the decorations.
"Curtis, where are you going with the decorations"? Lloyd asked.
"Outside, for big party today," Curtis said.
"I'm glad I didn't buy anything breakable," Barb said, picking up some of the mess.
Meanwhile, Phil and Keely were outside setting up some tables and chairs.
"So who all's coming to this anyway"? Keely asked.
"Basically just you, Seth, and whatever family you guys invited," Phil said. "And some of our neighbors will come and go." Curtis brought out the decorations to Phil and Keely for them to put up.
"Come on, let's get started," Keely said. "Grab a tablecloth."
"Like we're gonna spend an hour putting this stuff up," Phil said. He got his Wizrd, zapped the party area, and then it instantly became fully decorated. "There, easy as that. Let's go put these back."
After reading the grilling book, Lloyd was finally figuring out how to set up and start the grill. He put some hamburgers on, and at about eleven o'clock, people started to arrive. First were Keely's mom, dad, sister, and a few of her cousins. The kids went on to swim in the pool, while the adults found a place to sit and talk. Later on, Seth came with some relatives, as did Debbie Berwick and Bradley Benjamin Farmer. Pim got mad at her mother when she saw those two show up.
"Mom, I cannot BELIEVE that you invited them," Pim said to her mother.
"Well, they're your friends," Barb said.
"Friends"? Pim asked. "They're not friends. They're just annoying people that follow me everywhere."
"Well, you'll have to deal with them for the afternoon," Barb said. "They're not that terrible."
"Pim, come on over here and swim with us," Debbie yelled to her in her usual happy way. Pim rolled her eyes and walked over to the pool.
Lloyd finally got the first round of hamburgers cooked in about an hour.
"Who wants a hamburger," he called to the crowd. The people lined up and the burgers were gone in two seconds. There wasn't enough to feed even half of the crowd. "Guess I better make more of these," Lloyd said to himself, as he put the second round on.
Phil and Keely found a place to sit and eat at one of the tables.
"So, Phil, don't forget the fireworks tonight," Keely said to him.
"Yup," Phil said. "At Pickford City Park. The Pickford Penny Pincher says that they're having a band perform before the fireworks."
"Hey, that's cool," Keely said excitedly. "We might meet some rock stars."
"Keel, this is Pickford we're talking about," Phil said with a laugh. "I highly doubt that any really famous people will show up. It's just going to be a local band."
"I heard once that Britney Spears showed up in Pickford," Seth said, overhearing the conversation and sitting down. "But that was because her plane emergency landed here on the way back to Hollywood because it ran out of gas."
"I don't remember that story," Phil said.
"Oh, it was before you moved from 'Kansas,'" Keely said. Phil, Keely, and Seth finished eating and went back to the swimming pool. People continued to eat, talk, swim, and eat some more all afternoon. Lloyd did surprisingly well with the cooking and had yet to set anything on fire. The party was going pretty well. Neighbors came and went throughout the afternoon, some bringing their own stuff to put on the grill. Mr. Hackett had taken a break from pruning his shrubs to come over. Once, Pim got mad when Bradley spit Coke on her by accident, and she 'accidentally on purpose' pushed him into the pool. A soaked Bradley came up from underwater, and pulled Pim into the pool. Pim started splashing him like crazy, with Bradley splashing her right back. Their 'splash fight' ended when Curtis came running out of the garage, and did a belly flop off the diving board into the pool with his clothes on. It felt like half of the pool drained when he made a big splash.
"AAAAHHHH"! he yelled, and began splashing everybody. The occupants of the pool screamed and quickly got out.
"Who's this weirdo"? some of the people demanded.
"This is our very distant cousin," Phil said. "Don't mind him, he has an extreme case of hyperactivity disorder, and he forgot to take his medicine today." Phil got Curtis out of the pool, and Barb gave him new clothes and told him not to disturb the party any more. The pool occupants were able to get back in and swim again. Rebecca decided to try to stir up a diving competition.
"Hey, guess who can do a front flip off the diving board," she shouted. "Yep, that'd be this kid right here." She got on the diving board and did the flip.
"Oh, yeah," Pim retorted. "Well, guess who can do a back flip. That'd be me." She did a back flip, and Pim and Rebecca continued the diving contest for a while. Twenty minutes later, they were still at it, each trying to do better than the other. Pim was on the diving board again, but when she got to the end, she tripped in a wet spot and slipped off the board and ended up doing a belly flop into the water. She didn't think much of it, until she looked up and saw Candida and her friends standing at the edge of the pool with a picture phone. She walked over to them.
"What the heck are you doing here"? she asked them angrily.
"Oh, just getting a perfect blog moment on camera," Candida said. "Oh, and some hot dogs."
"Who invited you"? Pim demanded.
"Your mom let us in," Candida said. "Just thought we'd drop by and tell you that you're not invited to my big 4th of July party tonight. I thought it would be rude to tell you over the phone, so we came by! Well, that's all I want to say, except see you on the cover of the Pickford Penny Pincher." The fashion zombies walked off, laughing.
"Someday, I'm gonna get you all back," Pim said to herself.
"Get who back"? Debbie asked, coming up behind her.
"Berwick, stop doin' that"! Pim said angrily, and walked over to find her mother. Turns out her mom didn't know that Candida and her crew were the 'fashion zombies', because they'd told her that they were friends of Pim's just to get into the party.
Meanwhile, Phil, Keely, and Seth were in the pool playing 3-on-3 water basketball with some of Keely's cousins. Phil, Keely, and Seth had won all but one of the games. They were on their fifth game when Barb came over and said that they should all get ready to leave for the fireworks. After the party guests left, Phil's family cleaned up the yard a little, then put on their best patriotic attire. They went over to meet Keely's family because they were all riding together in Keely's mom's van.
They showed up at the city park to see that the band was already playing. About 5,000 people scattered the park in lawn chairs. They finally found a place to spread out and sit down. Phil went off to get food for the group, and he ran into Ms. Levy, the school music teacher, in the midst of the crowd.
"Hi Phil," she
said. "Is Keely here"?
"Yeah, she's over with our
families," Phil said.
"Great, I was wondering if she might want to sing the national anthem before the fireworks later," Ms. Levy said. "Tara Schrader was supposed to, but she's come down with laryngitis, so I really would like another student to do it, and I know she's a great singer."
"I'm sure I can talk her into it," Phil said.
"Great," Ms. Levy said. "Tell her to come to the front tent by the stage at 9:30." Phil got some food and went back to where his family was sitting.
"Hey Keel, guess what," Phil said. "You're singing the national anthem tonight."
"How'd you manage that"? Keely asked.
"I saw Ms. Levy," Phil said. "The person who was supposed to do it has laryngitis."
"I don't know Phil," Keely said. "I mean there's five thousand people here."
"It doesn't matter how many people there are," Phil said. "I know you can do it. And did I mention that this can be your chance to outshine Tara."
"How so"? Keely asked.
"Tara was supposed to sing, but got laryngitis," Phil said. "But she's somewhere in the audience watching. If you do this, you can show her once and for all that the puking story is a thing of the past."
"Maybe you're right," Keely said. "I'll do it." They all watched the rest of the concert, and at 9:30, Keely went over to the tent.
"Just think that I'm the only one here," Phil said to her as she got ready to go up. Keely went up to sing, and when she was singing, some military guys came in front of the stage with the flag. When she finished singing, the crowd of 5,000 broke out in applause. Keely stepped down and went to hug Phil, who was standing a little ways from the stage taping the whole thing on his mom's video camera.
"Keel, you did awesome"! Phil said to her.
"Thanks, Phil," she said with a smile. "I can't believe that I actually sang in front of 5,000 people."
"Keel, like I said, it doesn't matter how many people there are," Phil said. "All that matters is that you have someone out there who's cheering you on every step of the way."
"And that would be you," Keely said and Phil smiled.
"Come on, let's go back and sit down," Phil said. "The fireworks will start soon." The were walking back when they saw Tara. She just shot them an angry look, seeing as she couldn't talk, and Phil and Keely continued back to their seats. They got back and Keely was congratulated by her parents and Phil's parents. Rebecca was blabbering about something to Pim. A few minutes later, the band stopped playing and the fireworks started. They lasted for about twenty minutes, and afterwards, they had to wait forever to be able to escape the crowd. They finally did, and made it back to the van. Mandy had parked in the worst possible area in the park, and it took 30 minutes just to get out of there. By the time they got out, Lloyd, Barb, and Keely's dad had drifted off to sleep squeezed together in one backseat. Pim and Rebecca were snoring away, taking up an entire backseat. Phil was half asleep when he felt a THUD on the back of his seat. Pim had kicked the seat in her sleep. Phil noticed that Keely was also asleep, leaning over onto him. Phil smiled and slid an arm around her, then going back to sleep the rest of the way home.
(Here's the long awaited update! These past few weeks, I've either been busy or lazy, and have been slow working on this. I might have put too many things going on and not enough Pheely in this chapter, but there will be more Pheely later on. I'll try to get the next chapter up sooner. Thanks for the reviews, keep 'em coming!)