Lucy Castor Finds Her Sparkle


LUCY CASTOR DID NOT LIKE change. It made her queasy and uncomfortable, and she tried to avoid it at all costs. Luckily, she had lived her whole life in the little western Massachusetts town of Hawthorne, in the same clapboard house on the same street with the same set of parents, so change was not something Lucy had to deal with very often. And when it did come along, she could usually cope with it, like the time her mother decided to make chicken on Monday instead of spaghetti, or insisted Lucy wear a skirt and not her usual sweatpants when they went out for dinner. Or the time her parents replaced their old green sofa (the one Lucy felt certain could fly if she knew the right magic words) without asking her first. These things were mildly upsetting (well, the sofa was heartbreaking) but Lucy generally recovered quite quickly, and life would go on in its familiar, comfortable groove.

At least until the weekend before she entered fourth grade, when a series of monumental events shook Lucy’s world, and everything began to change.