Trouble in Tupelo Landing
- Our scrappy narrator—rising sixth grader Moses "Mo" LoBeau—informs us that trouble comes to Tupelo Landing right after noon on the third of June.
- But before any of that happens, Mo is completely unaware. She starts off her day by peeking into her best friend Dale's house at 6:00AM and tells him that she can't just play today; she has to open up the café because her guardians, Miss Lana and the Colonel, are gone.
- Miss Rose, Dale's pretty mama, comes in to see what the fuss is all about, and Dale informs her that he's going to help Mo open up the café.
- They scamper on over to the café parking lot, where the Colonel's new car, a '58 Thunderbird, is parked. Dale admires it since he loves cars. In fact, his big brother Lavender (weird name, huh?) races cars and works as an auto mechanic.
- Dale tries to convince Mo not to open up the café so that they can go fishing instead. She asks him where he found a boat, and he says that he "borrowed" Mr. Jesse's boat… meaning that he stole it for the time being.
- They get inside the café and Mr. Jesse comes in for breakfast. Since Mo's too young to use the grill, she's offering all their customers a "special" of peanut butter sandwiches and Mountain Dew today. How fancy.
- Pretty much everyone in town trickles into the café over the next few hours. Mo and Dale work hard to make plenty of peanut butter sandwiches, spoon out cold bowls of Miss Lana's premade soup, and pour glasses of Mountain Dew.
- Then at lunchtime, a stranger walks into the café. And everything gets interesting.