Candy almost blushed. “Not for all the tea in Boston Harbor.”

Amanda handled herself well, to Maggie’s delight, but so did most of the other girls. Haley Pruitt obviously had been studying up on blueberries. But the surprise of the evening was Sapphire Vine, who not only answered each question properly but also did so in a way that clearly distinguished her from the other contestants.

“Ooh, I hate that woman,” Maggie seethed as Sapphire answered one question concerning acid rain’s affect on blueberries in a particularly canny way.

“She’s overdoing it,” Candy whispered. “Don’t worry-the judges notice things like that.”

“They do?”

“Sure, I think so.”

Maggie looked mildly relieved. “You’re a good friend.”

Then came the talent portion of the show. “Rather than appearing in alphabetical order, as they were introduced,” Bertha announced, “our contestants have drawn numbers to determine the order in which they will perform. This portion of the pageant will account for thirty percent of each contestant’s final score. First up is”-she paused as she glanced down at her index cards-“Amanda Tremont!”

Maggie’s hands flew to her mouth. “I think I’m going to faint.”

“Hang in there,” said Candy, patting her friend on the back.

“She’s been practicing this for weeks. I just hope…”

Her words faded as piped-in music blared from speakers at the front of the auditorium. Amanda appeared onstage wearing a workout outfit-snug-fitting white polyester-and-spandex pants with navy stripes down the sides and a matching cotton tank top. She launched into an athletic routine that included moves she had learned as a cheer-leader, gymnast, and dancer. She bounced and tumbled about, did handstands and splits, and even worked a few hip-hop moves into the three-minute routine. An appreciative ovation rewarded her as she finished.

The music struck up again, a different tune this time, for Mollie MacKay, who sang a heartfelt if slightly off-key version of “Memories” from the musical Cats. Jennifer Croft came next, playing an acoustic guitar and singing a familiar old tune by Simon and Garfunkel. Emily Fitzsimmons followed, twirling batons.

Then came Haley Pruitt. She walked down off the stage to a piano at the left side of the main floor, opposite the judges’ table, and sat gracefully on the bench. Turning toward the audience, she said in a soft, lilting voice, “I’d like to perform for you now the Prelude in C Sharp, opus three, number two, by Sergey Rachmaninoff.”

“Sergey who?” Maggie whispered hoarsely.

“Rachmaninoff.”

“So she’s playing a rock song?”

“It’s a classical piece, silly. Shut up and listen.”

As Haley took a moment to breathe deeply and compose herself, a buzz of whispers arose from the audience. Many of them seemed as confused as Maggie by Haley’s introduction, but once she played the first few commanding chords of the piece-dumm, da, dumm, da, dummmm-recognition dawned on many of the faces in the audience.

As Haley moved through the piece, Maggie leaned over. “Hey, I’ve heard this before,” she whispered. “I think that Sergey guy wrote it for a Chevy car commercial.”

Candy gave her a quieting glance. “Shh.”

The hall hushed as Haley moved into the intricate fingerings that made up the middle portion of the piece, the notes sounding sharp and clear, played with a practiced hand. The audience sat mesmerized, transfixed by Haley’s skill and the grandeur and beauty of her performance. As she neared the end, echoing the majestic opening chords, the audience held its collective breath, hands poised to applause, anticipating the ending.

Not being familiar with the piece, some clapped prematurely at awkward silent places, but Haley ignored those, playing the piece as it was meant to be played, until the final quiet notes.

When she rested her fingers upon the keys, bowed her head forward, and finally rose with a slight smile, the hall erupted in applause.

“Lovely, just lovely,” Bertha said into the microphone. “My, we have such a talented group of contestants here tonight! I don’t envy the judges their job one bit. It will be a very difficult task to select a winner from these remarkable girls, I can tell you that. Now, for our final performance of the evening… the moment you’ve all been waiting for… Miss Sapphire Vine.”

As the lights went down and the hall quieted, Candy whispered, “Do you think she’ll do a striptease?”

“That’s about the only talent she has, honey. Unless she plans to drag a typewriter onstage and write a newspaper column right before our very eyes.”

“Now that would be exciting.”

“About as exciting as painting toenails.”

“Hey, careful. That’s the highlight of my week.”

“Mine too.”

“Shh. Here she comes.”

A pause. Then, “Oh… my… God. She looks like… a giant blueberry?”

A wave of gasps, chuckles, and whispered conversations swept through the audience as Sapphire Vine appeared on stage wearing one of the most outlandish outfits Candy had ever seen. It looked as though it could have been a Halloween costume, except it was worn by a woman in her midthirties instead of a six-year-old child. It was blue-lots and lots of blue-and bulged widely in the middle, approximating the look of a giant blueberry. She wore shimmering blue tights on her arms and legs, and had woven blueberry stems into her hair, many of them bearing clumps of the small blue fruit.

Oblivious to the crowd’s reaction, Sapphire stepped up to the microphone as the spotlight centered on her. She nodded at the judges and then addressed the audience.

“I would like to begin by telling you,” she said, “what an honor it is for me to be here on this stage tonight. I know my decision to appear in this pageant with these other wonderful girls has been controversial and that many of you believe I shouldn’t be here at all. But there is one reason I’m here: I love this community, I love the people who live here, and I love this country. But most of all, I love the blueberry.”

“That’s about four reasons,” Maggie hissed.

“Shh!”

“So tonight,” Sapphire continued, “I would like to perform an original poem that I’ve written expressly for this momentous occasion. It’s called ‘Ode to Blueberries.’” She lowered her head and took a deep breath to center herself, standing still and silent until the brief applause and scattered whispers died down. Then, raising her right arm and curling it inward in a dramatic pose, she began to recite in a loud, clear tone:

The blueness of a blueberry, a beautiful fruit

That hangs from a stem throughout the times of

warmth,

A wonderful love.

And we cherish this fruit, lying on a hill, in the grass,

Eating the delicious berries,

Tasting the sweetness in our mouths,

Devouring all of the berry at once,

Enjoying it so that it lasts forever.

Then, eating yet another again,

And still more, so that you seem to spend all eternity

Resting lazily in the succulence of a blueberry.

Loved are these summer fruits,

And, indeed, they are the season’s best.

She paused, her gaze sweeping over the audience before alighting on the judges. When she continued, her voice took on a deeper, darker tone:

But too soon the love for the berries is betrayed.

The summer grasses in which you once ate

To your heart’s content are frosted over in cold hate.

The one you have loved hits you hard,

And, all at once, it is gone from you.

And you are alone.

Her gaze turned skyward, and anger crept into her voice as the next words came out hurried, sharp, and accusatory, her tone rising in volume and intensity:

It is then when I feel a deep hatred for this time,