Mrs. Bateson was a full-time busybody and the part-time PTO president. Penny wasn't surprised to see her standing proudly at the steps to her veranda like a captain stands at the wheel of his ship. She looked the part of a Sugar Hills PTO mom — like she'd been vomited on by a Lilly Pulitzer catalog and her home, a white Victorian with a row of fluffy white hydrangeas around its base, looked fit for the cover of Midwest Living.

The Batesons lived not a mile down the road from the Hales but this was the first they'd ever been invited. Penny and Mrs. Hale were welcomed inside with a cordial greeting, though Penny caught Mrs. Bateson giving her temporarily pink hair and the matching flamingo print on her white silk sundress a look of shocked disapproval. The invitation said hats and gloves were required, and Penny had obliged with a pair of white gloves and a pink floppy hat. There was, however, no ban on bearing the image of tacky lawn ornaments.

The interior of the Bateson's was decorated with equal polish to the home's Victorian exterior. It was an old home like the most of the other homes in Sugar Falls. Mrs. Bateson has filled the space with a mixture sleek new pieces and antiques to pay homage to the home's architecture and history. Penny tried to spot something that looked like it was from Pier One, but she didn't have much luck.

Mrs. Hale did most of the mingling. Her fiery, red hair was done up into a swirled knot, and she looked the part of a smalltown housewife. Only Penny knew she'd have rather been in the berry patch wearing overalls and her hair in a ponytail. That's what Penny liked best about her; her step-mom had never shied away from a role she wasn't familiar with. She hadn't been afraid to step in and be the mother of a young troubled girl and her grieving older brother.

Penny watched her step-mom move through the room with impeccable grace before a body sank into the overly frilly couch cushion next to her.

"Nice dress," Anna Finch said as she took a sip of lemonade. "Nice hair."

"Very funny," Penny replied. "It's mostly washed out now with no thanks to you."
"Are you being a sore loser?" she pushed out her lower lip.

"No way! I'm just really glad you're here." The girls from their class only seemed interested in comparing their highlighter-colored patterns of their dresses and who had a date to ride the Ferris wheel with at the carnival.

Anna Finch worked a twist-out with a plaid printed, fit and flare dress that was every bit as vogue as Penny had come to expect from her best friend. She gave Penny an appraising sweep of her gaze. "Are you okay? You might want to put some powder on those dark circles."

"Today has been a day and it's not even noon. I need a caffeine drip and all they're serving is lemonade and tea."

"A day? You sound like your Gammy. Is this about your Dad's forecast? I don't think I remember a single year where it rained on the Honey Parade," Anna declared.

"That's part of it." It was the rest of it that Penny wasn't sure how to begin to explain without sounding unhinged—it wasn't like she'd told anyone outside her family about Leander. She was saved by Mrs. Bateson's announcement for the mothers and daughters to sit down to tea in the formal dining room.

Tea was served by Mrs. Bateson's younger daughters, all equally clad in floral neon prints. Penny didn't touch hers; she hated the stuff. She'd been drinking black coffee with her parents since she entered the seventh grade and she hadn't gotten the urge to switch anytime soon.

Once everyone had their fill of cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches and mini quiche cups, Mrs. Bateson launched into a diatribe on what an honor and privilege it was to be selected as the Honey Queen. All Penny could think about was Leander and the wards protecting Sugar Falls. Had something gone so wrong that it would bring rain on the day of the Honey Parade? And could fixing the wards really stop the rain and save her father from the town's misguided anger?

"Of course," Mrs. Bateson said. "The Honey Queen will still be crowned whether the parade is canceled or not."

"Canceled?" a few anxious voices asked.

Penny could have sworn she and her mother received more than one pointed glare. What did they think? That the entire Hale family had the power to control the weather?

Mrs. Bateson continued on with an exaggerated sigh. "The weather is the weather I suppose. There's not much we can do about the forecast now."

Penny felt a heat rise to her cheeks. Embarrassment. Anger. She felt like a scolded child at the end of Mrs. Bateson's gaze. Her father would likely suffer even more for this, but Penny wasn't going to take it. It was decided. She'd do anything if it meant she could spare her father, the great weatherman her town didn't deserve, the ill treatment of its citizens.

No sooner had this thought crossed Penny's mind, did a knock sound at the door. The room quieted as all heads turned towards the sound. Penny turned and nearly fell out of her seat as she saw Leander wave from the other side of the Bateson's screen door.

Panicked, she looked between the faces of her classmates and the mothers gathered at the dining table. It was unusual to see new faces around Sugar Falls, but perhaps it wasn't so strange with the opening of the Festival so soon. No one seemed to think the boy's arrival strange, but a few girls did sit straighter, flipping their hair and grooming in that way girls do when they see a guy they think is cute.

"Can I help you?" Mrs. Bateson asked from the head of the table. She pursed her lips with apparent displeasure at having her party interrupted.

The prince let himself in and held aloft a mason jar filled with liquid gold. That's when Penny noticed the white t-shirt he wore. The logo for "Grandma Hale's Happy Honey" was emblazoned across his chest. "I have a delivery for you miss," he said with a smile that elicited several giggles from around the room.

Penny squirmed in her seat as she felt something a little too close to jealousy for comfort.

"Oh," Mrs. Bateson said with more cordiality than before. "I must have forgot I ordered some honey for the party. She sent one of her giggling daughters back into the kitchen to fetch her purse to pay him.

As they waited for Mrs. Bateson's daughter to return, Leander finally made eye contact with Penny. He winked and the air whooshed out of her lungs and she didn't know how to get it back. He looked pleased with himself, his lips pulled up only on one side. Penny knew that look—he always got it when he thought he was being sneaky. So what was he doing here?

Mrs. Bateson cut Charlotte Hale a check for the honey and handed it to Leander. He thanked her graciously and then headed back out. Mrs. Bateson recollected herself and then resumed her speech from the head of the table. She didn't get far before another knock came at the door.

Heads snapped towards the door, but no one moved faster than Penny.

Leander hesitantly opened the screen door, sticking only the top half of his gangly frame through the door. "If you don't mind," he said. "I need to borrow Penny for a few minutes. I seem to have stalled her Grandmother's car out front."

"Oh," Mrs. Bateson said imperiously. She gave a shake of her head as if to say, "This is disappointing."

"It's okay," Penny said, standing too abruptly from her chair. "That happens all the time. I'll be right back." But she got the suspicion she wouldn't be.

She practically ran to the door. She'd already made it through the vast majority of the luncheon; it's not like they could fault her for making an early exit.

"I can fill her in if she missed anything," Mrs. Hale chimed in with a smile to her step-daughter.

Penny smiled and it was thanks enough. Her mom tapped her cell with a finger—a simple, subtle gesture that meant "text me if your plans change."

Mrs. Bateson's mouth flapped open and closed as she fumbled for an excuse but she'd already wrapped up her speech and she couldn't leave Leander stranded in front of her house. "I guess that's fine," she finally choked out.

"Thanks for the tea," Penny said before Leander grabbed her by the hand and pulled her through the door.

Outside the air was heavy with the promise of a storm and fat thunderheads over the tree line threatened to make good on that promise. Penny hadn't forgotten her dad's forecast; rain was coming at one o'clock whether they were ready or not. Leander released her hand once they reached Gammy's lime green Volkswagon Beetle where it sat parked in the street.

The prince of bees tossed her the keys. "This is a rescue, in case you didn't realize," he said with a skip towards the driver's side door that gave Penny a laugh.

"How did you know I wanted to be rescued?"

"Gammy told me what a luncheon was—and how much you hate tea."

She couldn't be mad about that, but she was mad he'd gotten a smile out of her when the ache in her chest he'd opened last night was still so fresh.

"It looked awful in there," he added.

Penny shook her head and fixed a proper scowl into her face. "I'm still mad at you."

She slid into the front seat and tossed her floppy pink hat into the back. Upon examining the underside of the dash she expected to find the clutch still engaged, but there wasn't a clutch at all. "This car is automatic," she said, as Leander hopped into the seat beside her.

"Automatic? I just told you what Gammy told me to say."

Penny sighed and dropped her head to rest it against the steering wheel. "Wow. You two are just BFFs now, aren't you?"

"What is so great about a scholarship that you would sit through a tea party for?" he asked incredulously.

"Don't change the subject!"

"Why? It's not just me that needs your help. Surely Gammy has taught you about beekeeping. Bees are easy enough to keep, but they're sensitive. If someone were to upset the balance of magic and nature in Sugar Falls it could have catastrophic effects on her colonies. And you're the daughter of farmers! The berries are just about ready for harvest so an errant hail storm could all but devastate a year's worth of work—"

"I know!" Penny exclaimed, slamming her head against the soft back of her seat. "I already decided to help you, okay?"
"Oh."

"Yeah," she said with a sigh. "And to answer your question, the scholarship is everything. I'm going to study atmospheric sciences to be a meteorologist like my dad. I've already got into the best school for it, but it's expensive."

Leander's eyes widened with excitement and he tried to turn in his cramped little seat to face Penny. "You're going to be a weatherwoman like your dad?"

Penny shrugged bashfully. "Not a weatherwoman. I want to be a storm chaser."

Leander bit down a grin. "A storm chaser. So you'll chase storms?"

"Yeah," Penny said. She felt suddenly self-conscious under his awed gaze; she stuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. There were only a select few people outside of Anna and her step-mom that she'd told this to. "But I've saved up everything I've ever made working at the Dairy Bar so if I can get this scholarship then I can use part of that money to buy a van."

"A van?"

"I very well can't be a storm chaser without a storm chasing van, and there's this van for sale at the garage in town. It's perfect—all fixed up and ready to chase tornadoes when I get back from college next summer."

"So you'll go off to college, become a meteorologist, that chase storms in your van. That sounds like a very fine plan, but what will you do if you catch one?" His brows waggled.
"Very funny," she said as she started the car. "Where are we off to first? There's a storm coming in and I don't want to get caught in it."

"We'll start at the town marker and then we'll head east."

"Now that," Penny said, while she put the car in drive and pulled away from the curb, "is a very fine plan."