Saturday's clear blue sky saw Wil, Enid, and Sunny in the back yard with Audrey, eating turkey sandwiches with fresh cut tomatoes, lettuce, dill pickles, and mayonnaise, served with a large glass pitcher of ice and fruit punch Kool-Aid. Ruckus was a blur, chasing everything from butterflies to squirrels, with an occasional pause to whine expectantly for scraps.

They were only twenty feet from Sunny's back door, but Audrey had laid out a broad quilt in the grass and filled a picnic basket with food, plates, utensils, and condiments. Her proficiency for cooking was limited to toast, hotdogs, and macaroni and cheese, but her aesthetic and attention to detail would have rivaled Martha Stewart. Their idyllic setting overshadowed the occasional oddity, like the ancient picnic table covered with a clean tablecloth and sporting a vase full of cosmos and pansies from Audrey's garden that remained unused while they sat on the ground.

Though quiet, once he was engaged it was fascinating to hear Wil talk. He had a passion for sports, but despite his confessed lack of interest in his parents' work, he'd absorbed quite a lot of science through their conversations. He had no grasp of chemistry or math but surpassed even Sunny in his comprehension of quantum mechanics and even a bit of biology.

"Nerds," Enid accused, trying to keep up with them. Sunny had always known Enid was crazy smart, but she didn't have the motivation or resources to explore academia beyond the requirements of seventh grade. Audrey just watched the conversation, smiling, and contributed questions that forced Wil to re-evaluate his opinion of her intelligence.

"There's no way I'm a nerd," Wil insisted, making a third sandwich, "I can't help picking up stuff I hear every day."

"Doesn't matter how you get there." Enid countered, but Wil just shook his head.

"I've never seen a single episode of Star Trek." He parried while smearing mayo on a slice of wheat bread.

"I think he's got you, Eenie." Sunny proclaimed. She'd finished her sandwich and sipped at a glass of ice water. Enid considered it and decided not to pursue.

"Eenie?" Wil probed with a grin after a short silence.

"Meenie-Miney-Moe!" Audrey smiled open-mouthed at Enid.

"Only here, and only because Mrs. S is the bomb." Enid's tone was light, but her eyes fired a warning shot over Wil's bow. He got the message.

Sunny's mood couldn't have been warmer or more peaceful than it was that afternoon. Wil seemed to fit in like an old friend, and even began to take Audrey in stride after a few minutes, except when she asked Enid if she and Wil were getting married. Enid just said, "Nope," while Wil's expression suggested he was trying his best to believe in and execute spontaneous teleportation.

"So why here?" Sunny asked after everyone had eaten their fill and were simply taking in warm sunlight and the sweet smells of country air, "I mean I know why your parents moved, but why does Indracorp have a research building in the middle of nowhere?"

"I dunno, cheap land maybe?" Wil offered with a shrug.

"I don't think so," Sunny said, "I looked them up and they're huge. They have offices in New York, Minneapolis, Ontario, Dallas, Los Angeles, Paris, Tokyo..."

"If they're so big why haven't I ever heard of them?" Enid asked, skeptical.

"Have you ever heard of Sinopec?" Sunny asked.

"No."

"There you go," Sunny gave her that haughty-but-not-haughty look.

Audrey scrunched up her nose, "Who is Sinopec?"

"They're the largest oil refining company in the world. They make gas."

"For cars?"

Sunny nodded, and Audrey mirrored her, satisfied.

"How do you even know that?" Enid asked with a sneer.

"I saw it when I was looking up Indracorp. Wil's parents work for a conglomerate that has its hands in a lot of things, but mostly they specialize in developing and licensing technology to power companies." Sunny said then looked at Wil, "That fits with your guess about batteries, but why here?"

Enid huffed, "Maybe they really like corn."

"Or cows," Wil suggested, but Sunny wasn't satisfied with either answer.

"It doesn't make sense. They have better facilities all over the world, and your parents sound like specialists. You were moved out here specifically, I'm just curious why."

Will just shrugged and polished off his sandwich, "Like I said, they don't explain very much of it to me, and I don't really ask."

"Poor Sunny," Enid quipped, "There's a puzzle she can't figure out. It's going to drive her insane for weeks."

"I like puzzles too," said Audrey.

"Oh!" Enid turned to her, "Speaking of that, I have a floor puzzle for you. Aiden doesn't play with it anymore." Audrey beamed at her, then looked up, squinting at the sky.

"Little brother?" Wil guessed and Enid nodded.

"Mom says he was her happy surprise. The brat is almost six now."

"Be nice, Eenie, Aiden's sweet," Sunny reprimanded Enid with eyebrows so bunched they almost met in the middle.

"You don't have to live with him." She sneered.

"Aiden's nice." Audrey said, her head still tipped back, and that settled the matter. Sunny went back to needling Wil.

"Have they said anything about town since you moved here?"

He frowned, "Why is it such a big deal? The last three places we lived were near big cities, but before that we were in the middle of nowhere again, outside Sedona."

"Arizona?" Enid asked, and Sunny cocked her head at her, "What?" Enid replied, offended. "I can know things too."

Sunny smiled and returned her attention to Wil. "You didn't answer my question."

"Dad doesn't like the smell of cows." He frowned at her. "I seriously don't know, why don't you ask my parents?" Sunny pursed her lips, thinking, oblivious to Wil's annoyance.

"She gets like this," Enid muttered knowingly to him, "You get used to it."

Sunny shot her a glare, "Nobody else thinks it's weird that a high-tech company has a major research facility in a corn field in Carford?"

"No weirder than you getting worked up about it. Who said it was major?" Enid asked, and Sunny pointed to Wil who looked startled.

"He said his dad is a quantum biologist. I looked that up too, and it's seriously advanced, like still mostly theory. They paid to move him and his family here, and they're paying him enough money to make him want to come to a town with smelly cows, so they've got to be working on something that's really important to them, some technology that doesn't exist yet."

"You got all of that from a five-minute conversation over Oreos?" Will seemed incredulous.

"No, I got all that from thinking," she answered, and Wil's eyes narrowed. Enid caught his expression and headed off the argument.

"She didn't mean it like it sounded. She grew up around two people who are honest to a fault." Enid jerked her head toward Audrey. Ruckus had given up the chase and lay with his head in her lap.

"There's nothing faulty about being honest." Sunny protested but stopped when her eyes fell on Audrey. "Mom?" She didn't answer, but kept looking into the sky, eyes wandering back and forth through hooded lids.

"Mom, what's wrong?"

Wil opened his mouth again, but Enid held up a finger to shush him. Something was bothering Audrey, and only someone who knew her would have noticed.

"The sky." She said simply.

Sunny prompted her, "What about the sky?"

"It's wrong. The sun is wrong."

"How can the sun be wrong?" Wil asked, confused, and Enid rolled her eyes at him.

"Can you take a hint?"

Wil held up his hands, "What?"

"Shh!" Sunny hissed, and turned back to her mother, "What's wrong with the sun, mom?"

"Wrong place."

"Where should it be?"

Audrey pointed upward, drawing a line back and forth with her finger. Sunny looked up for a moment, squinting, then scanned the ground around them.

"What time is it?" she asked nobody in particular.

Enid looked at her watch and replied seriously, "Two-thirteen," while Wil attempted to keep up.

Sunny stood and picked up a short stick and jammed it into the ground near the picnic table, then joined the others again with a satisfied smile. "We'll check again tomorrow, mom, okay? Maybe it'll be back where it belongs."

"Okay," said Audrey, and beamed proudly at her daughter.

"What's that about?" asked Wil finally.

Enid replied, "You heard her, there's something wrong with the sky."

"No there isn't," he said.

"It's wrong!" Audrey hit the quilt with her fist, suddenly angry, sending Ruckus scampering away with his ears back and tail low. Sunny moved quickly to her side, throwing an arm around her shoulders.

"Shh, it's okay mom, he doesn't know what he's talking about."

"But I..." Wil began, and Enid threw her empty cup at him.

"You idiot. Can't you just shut up?"

"You're not helping." Sunny scolded Enid who looked away. "Wil, you don't know mom," she said coolly, "so I'll cut you some slack this time, but don't ever contradict her again."

He opened and closed his mouth several times, not sure how to respond, then settled it by standing up, "I should go," he said with a grimace, "I shouldn't have come," then he stormed around the house to where he'd left his bike.

Enid caught up to him seconds later, "Stop, you idiot, you don't have to run off."

"Look, Eenie," he said, snarling an emphasis on her nickname, "I was invited for lunch, not to be interrogated and yelled at. There's nothing wrong with the sun; it's still right where it always is, and the sky is still blue, and the clouds are still white."

"And you still have no idea what you're talking about." She said through bared teeth, "Mrs. S isn't like you or me, she doesn't pretend, she doesn't make up stories, and she doesn't lie."

Wil was dumbfounded by Enid's vehement defense of Sunny's mom, "I was just asking questions," he said.

"No," she corrected, "You called her a liar."

"I did not!"

"That's how she sees it!" Enid shouted back, then she took a deep breath, "Listen, Mrs. S has Down's Syndrome,"

"I know, I'm not stupid."

"You'll be smarter if you let me finish," Enid growled, then threw up her hands. "How many windows are on the front of the school?" she asked.

"What? I don't know! Twenty?"

"What color are Mrs. Kolas' eyes?"

"I have no..."

"What color are my socks?" He tried to check, but the cuff of her jeans hid them from view.

"I don't know. What does this have to..."

"Come on," she said, then took one of his hands and he allowed her to drag him back to the yard where Audrey was rocking back and forth while Sunny whispered gently to her. "First things first," Enid said, "you need to apologize."

"I don't..." he began, then followed with, "OW!" because Enid had stomped on his foot.

"Nothing else, just say you're sorry."

He glowered, then approached Audrey, "Mrs. Summers, I'm sorry."

She didn't look up, but she stopped rocking and pouted a quiet, "Okay." Sunny glanced up at him and smiled her gratitude, then Enid knelt on the blanket next to her.

"Mrs. S," she said, ducking her head to catch one of Audrey's eyes, "How many windows are on the front of the school?"

"Fourteen." She said without hesitation.

"What color are Mrs. Kolas' eyes?"

"Brown."

"What color are my socks?"

"You're not wearing any."

Enid looked into Wil's astonished face and stuck out her leg, revealing bare ankles, "I think Sunny's mom has been to the school one time a couple years ago and she knows more about it than you do. I know you think you're pretty smart, but if it comes down to the two of you, we're going to go with Mrs. S."