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bike around me on the road, but the Calders’ house is right next to the shack where Dad and I get our lobster bait every morning.
    Mom says I should be kind to Eben, because he doesn’t get a lot of attention from his mom and dad. I don’t see why that means I have to be nice all the time and he gets to be a jerk, though.
    “Afternoon, Margery,” Dad says. I hadn’t noticed Margery Poule kneeling in the garden behind her picket fence.
    “Hello, Jacob!” She waves her trowel. “And this must be Aaron?”
    “Aaron’s my new brother!” Libby announces, making him flinch. “Except his last name is Spinney, not Brooks.”
    “How nice!” Mrs. Poule points her trowel at the case in Aaron’s hand. “What instrument do you play, dear?”
    “Trumpet and piano,” he says.
    “And he’s not a hundred feet tall!” Libby continues. “But we don’t know yet if he likes green beans or if he can whistle or play Monopoly.” She plants her hands on her hips. “Or read!”
    Dad holds up his palm to stop her. “That’s enough, Lib. No need to find out everything in the first half hour.”
    As we walk, Libby skips ahead so she can be first to tell Mom we’re here. I match my step to Aaron’s. “Sometimes we have island concerts and sing-alongs.”
    Was that a flicker of interest on his face? “And there’s a talent show every August. Some people play instruments in the show.”
    “I don’t like to play for other people.”
    He says it plainly, but it still feels like a snub.
    “We also have a library,” I say, trying again. “It’s probably not as big as you’re used to on the mainland, but our librarian can get any book you want from another library, as long as you’re not in a hurry.”
    “I don’t read much.”
    “Well, what do you like to —?” I start, but one look at Dad’s lowered eyebrows shuts my mouth. Oh, yeah. I’m not supposed to ask a bunch of questions. But talking to Aaron is like trying to start a campfire with a box of wet matches — it’s near impossible to get anything going.
    I try to remember everything it said on that checklist Mom and Dad got at foster-parent class: “Your First Days at Home with Your Foster Child” had hung on our refrigerator for the past month and suddenly disappeared this morning. Mom probably didn’t want Aaron to know we were new to this whole thing and needed a list to tell us what to do.
    But in all those dos and don’ts about setting up a bedroom, feeding the kid as soon as he arrives in case he hadn’t eaten all day, explaining house rules, giving the child some chores so he’ll feel part of the family faster, and being ready for the new kid to feel sad about leaving his last place behind, it didn’t mention how weird it might feel for us, too.
    “Here’s our house,” Dad says as we turn into our driveway.
    Mom is waiting on the porch. “Hi, Aaron! We’re so excited to meet you. Supper’s about ready, so come right in.”
    “I wanted hamburgers tonight,” Libby says to Aaron. “But Mom said you probably didn’t get to eat ocean stuff all the time like we do. And she told me I have to knock to come visit you in your room. So listen for me, okay?”
    Aaron looks at our three-storied house, gray with green shutters and built tall enough for the attic window to look out over the treetops to the ocean. I watch his gaze slide past the stack of wire lobster traps waiting to be repaired next to the shed, to our clothesline hung with newly painted buoys, gleaming with Dad’s colors: navy blue with yellow stripes.
    “It’s quicker to hang lobster buoys up when you paint them,” I explain. “That way you can paint and dry them all the way around. Each lobsterman paints his own colors and pattern on his buoys, so he’ll know which traps belong to him.”
    Then I follow Aaron’s eyes beyond the clothesline to my new pride and joy: an old wooden skiff, resting on sawhorses. Upside down, the hull is sun-faded white and rounded, like the