The Islanders by Katherine Applegate

morning?” Aisha demanded, pressing her hand over her beating heart.
    â€œI’m starting on the garden,” he said.
    â€œThe sun is barely up,” Aisha said, outraged.
    He shrugged. “I have to start early. Mr. Passmore wants me to come in and cook the lunch shift today. Besides,” he said with his all-too-familiar grin, “I’ve been up a long time. They bring the newspapers over on the water taxi at one a.m. the night before and drop them at the dock. I have to pick them up andhave them bundled and ready to go before five so the fishermen can have theirs to take out with them for the day.”
    â€œWait a minute, you also deliver the papers? Since when?”
    â€œI just started two weeks ago.”
    â€œExactly how many jobs do you have?”
    â€œJust what I told you: I cook part time at Passmores’, I deliver the morning papers, I do a little work around my apartment building, and now I’m starting to do yard work. Also, sometimes I do shopping on the mainland for some of the older folks.”
    â€œAre you involved in working with telephones at all?” Aisha asked sourly.
    â€œNo. Why?”
    Aisha waved off his question. “Never mind. Are you going to school?”
    â€œThat’s what I’m working for,” Christopher said. “I’m accepted for U Mass next year. I have some scholarship money, but I need to save some up, too.”
    Aisha nodded and started to walk back to the house. On the steps she looked back over her shoulder. “Business major, right?”
    â€œHow’d you guess?”
    Zoey woke up late and hungry. The day before she had worked straight through what should have been dinnertime. After thatshe’d had the chance encounter with Lucas at the breakwater and since then, she hadn’t really thought about food at all.
    She trudged toward the shower, scratching her head and trying to pry open her left eye. She brushed her teeth and started running the water in the shower. It always took a good minute for the hot water to come.
    This time, however, it didn’t come at all.
    â€œOh, man,” she groaned through a foam of Crest. The hot-water heater must have gone out again, a regular occurrence. Either that, or Benjamin had taken one of his half-hour showers.
    She rinsed and stomped barefoot down the stairs, feeling grumpy and sleepy and a little dopey. “Four more and I’d have the seven dwarfs,” she muttered.
    â€œThe damned hot water is out again!” she yelled as she reached the kitchen.
    â€œI’m sorry to hear that,” a voice said calmly.
    Zoey jumped, and spun around. She clapped her hand over her heart.
    It was Lucas.
    Her brother was nowhere to be seen. Neither was her mother. Only Lucas, who was sitting in the breakfast nook and sipping a cup of coffee. A plate of sweet rolls was on the table, two left.
    â€œYour mom invited me to wait for you,” Lucas said. “She had to go to the restaurant, then catch the eleven-ten ferry. Ben went with her. Something about school clothes.”
    â€œOh, Lord,” Zoey muttered under her breath. She reached for her tangled mess of hair and tried to shove and pat it into something human-looking. But then she realized that with her hands over her head, her Bruins T-shirt rode perilously up toward her cotton panties. She slapped her arms down to her sides and tugged the shirt hem downward, which had the effect of drawing the fabric taut over her breasts. She released the hem and started on her hair again, then crossed her arms over her chest and tried her best to look nonchalant.
    â€œYou did invite me for breakfast,” Lucas pointed out.
    Zoey nodded. “Yes. Yes, of course, because I hoped you’d bring some of those delicious sweet rolls and I see you did so I guess I was right in inviting you . . . not that that was the only reason, I mean it’s not like you’re the baker or something I mean I . . . we, I