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Parker kicked him in the shin and he yelped. And then she squeezed herself in between me and Scarlett. “What are we doing?” She peered at Scarlett’s phone. “Oh! Online dating?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “These guys are catfishing.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s when you pretend to be someone else online,” I said. “If it’s innocent it’s usually to score a hot date when you’re a little uglier than your profile picture. And if it’s not innocent, it’s to scam someone out of thousands of dollars.”

Parker’s eyes lit up. “That sounds fun. Can I play too?”

Axel gave me a dirty look and picked Parker up off the couch. “How about you go play tag with Alora?”

“I don’t want to play tag. I want to catfish.”

Axel groaned.

Parker was the coolest kid I knew. But I didn’t want anyone to be catfishing anyone.

“Better idea,” I said. “Let’s try to open every door in Mr. Tanner’s house.” His hallway was endlessly long and so many of the doors were locked. I’d always been very curious. It felt like a sex thing, even though I’d found no evidence of that.

“Skadi! Thorin!” Parker called over to Mr. Tanner’s twins.

Skadi walked over and Thorin tried to. But he tripped. He grabbed onto one of the branches of the Christmas tree.

Mr. Nigel ran over. Righted him. And then breathed a sigh of relief. “That was close. We can’t have another fire.” He shook his head and hurried back to the kitchen.

“What are you guys up to, nephew?” Skadi asked and sat down next to Jacob.

Jacob laughed. When he was little, he’d called Mr. Tanner his grandfather and it kind of just stuck. And if he was technically Mr. Tanner’s grandson, that meant Mr. Tanner’s daughter was his aunt. In a weird way. And Skadi liked teasing him about it.

“We have a question for you guys,” Parker said. She stared at Thorin.

But Thorin just stood there like he was scared to move. Or maybe he was pretending he was invisible? Hoping we hadn’t seen what he’d just almost done?

Parker turned to Skadi, letting Thorin keep doing whatever Thorin was doing. “What is behind all the closed doors of that hallway?”

“Oh.” She shrugged. “Just things.”

“What kind of things?”

“Memorabilia and stuff from my parents travels.”

“Why isn’t it on display?” I asked.

“It is,” Skadi said. “In the locked rooms. Obviously.”

That was very weird. Why wasn’t it out here for everyone to see? But I didn’t get to question her, because she tagged Jacob.

“You’re it!” Skadi jumped to her feet and started running.

Tag sounded better than catfishing someone who I didn’t want to catfish. I leapt to my feet and started running too.

We played with our little cousins until Mr. Nigel came out with the turkey. Trying to avoid being it had been a very good distraction.

Everyone started heading into the dining room.

And just like that, I was thinking of Mr. Halifax again. Would he like my family? Would he feel at home here too? I smiled to myself picturing him playing tag with my little cousins. I think he would. Fit in.

“Hurry up,” Mr. Nigel said. “Before the fish gets cold.” He walked by with two trays full of a weird assortment of fish. I wasn’t sure why he always served so much fish on Thanksgiving.