He glanced uneasily toward the hives. Fifteen of them sat on the edge of their yard not too far from the border of Mr. Wentzel’s orchard. Gram had loved the bees, but Toby hated getting stung, so he stayed far away from them. At first when Gram had gotten sick, Mr. Wentzel had taken care of the hives, but then he’d gotten sick, too, and he’d had to go live at this nursing home on the mainland. His son was in charge of the orchard now, and he didn’t even live on the island—he just hired people to take care of the fruit. Nobody had checked the hives since Mr. Wentzel left, and if they got too crowded, the bees would start to swarm, something Toby didn’t even want to think about.

He didn’t want to think about a lot of things.

The lady crossed her legs and took a deep drag on her cigarette, holding the smoke in her lungs like she didn’t know how bad it was for her. She had long red hair, and she was tall and real skinny with sharp bones that looked like they could cut you. She didn’t ask him where he’d been. Probably hadn’t even noticed he was gone. He was like Gram. He hated having strangers around. And now there was also the new lady at the Remington house. She told him her name was Viper. He didn’t really think that could be her name, but he didn’t know.

All morning he’d been spying on the Remington house in case Panda, the guy who owned it, showed up, too. Toby’d never met Panda, but he was pretty sure he’d stop sending the money if he knew it was Toby instead of Gram who’d been taking care of the house ever since Gram got sick in January. Toby needed that money or his plan to live here by himself wouldn’t work. The last time Panda had been here was two months ago, and he hadn’t called Gram to complain about anything, so Toby figured he’d been doing an okay cleaning job.

She stubbed out the cigarette in a saucer she left on the steps. “Do you want me to fix you something to eat?”

“I ain’t hungry.” Gram didn’t let him say ain’t, but Gram wasn’t alive now, and he had to make sure this lady knew he could take care of himself so she’d go away and leave him alone.

She stretched out her legs and rubbed her knee. Even for a white lady, her skin was really white, and she had little freckles on her arms. He didn’t believe she really knew how to cook because all she’d done since she got here was heat up stuff Gram had left in the big freezer. Like he couldn’t do that himself.