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finished.”
    â€œIsn’t having to live out here every summer punishment enough?”
    Sullivan laughs. “Nah. I don’t mind it. I like dogs. I like Dr. Fred. I like...”
    â€œHanging out with the juvies?” I offer.
    â€œThe volunteers, you mean,” Sullivan says.
    â€œWouldn’t you rather have a real summer job?”
    Sullivan’s neck glows pink. I realize what a stupid question that was. “Dr. Fred pays you for your work here, doesn’t he?”
    â€œWell...yeah.”
    And why wouldn’t he? It’s not like Sullivan has ever done anything really bad in his life.
    Or maybe he has. Maybe he isn’t Saint Sullivan after all.
    â€œWhat did you do to get grounded?” I ask.
    Sullivan sits up, swinging his legs off the bed and planting his gigantic feet on the belly of the tiger. His big hairy toes dig into the plush, making me wonder if someday Sullivan will grow into his feet the way big-breed puppies do.
    â€œRemember yesterday? Mom sent me over to town in the boat to pick up the mail?”
    Please. All I remember about yesterday were the hours and hours I’d spent washing and brushing and cutting the mats and burrs out of Judy’s fur after she went rolling around in dog ecstasy through a big pile of brush compost. I hadn’t even made it to the lodge for lunch. Take it from me: it might be easier to groom a temperamental gorilla than a St. Bernard-Newfie who keeps wiggling over onto her back for belly rubs and won’t stop trying to wash your face with her tongue.
    Sullivan continues. “Well...anyway...I didn’t come back for five hours.”
    Is that really the worst thing Sullivan’s ever done?
    â€œSee...I ran into some guys I knew from last summer. We went to the 7-Eleven for a while, got Slurpees, played some video games.”
    â€œThen what? You robbed the place?” I ask, joking. Sort of.
    â€œNooooo.”
    â€œSo what’s the big deal?”
    Sullivan cracks his knuckles one at a time. “Well...the main dock was full when I got to town, so I tied the boat a ways down the shoreline. Near the park. Some joker must have come along, untied it and let it drift into the river. Remember how choppy the water was yesterday? The coast guard found the boat drifting out near the shipping lanes. They looked up the registration number and towed it back to Moose Island. Mom thought I’d drowned. I’m not a very strong swimmer.”
    â€œDon’t you have a cell phone?” He has everything else, I think, peering around the messy room. Nice clothes, lots of sports equipment, books, a laptop, more colored high-tops than I’ve seen anywhere outside a shoe store. The Batman quilts need to go, but overall—
    â€œI forgot to charge it last night,” Sullivan says. “She couldn’t reach me.”
    â€œOops,” I say, borrowing Johanna’s favorite expression.
    â€œMom gave the coast guard my description. The coast guard gave the town cops my description. They spotted me walking back to the park to get the boat—of course I didn’t even know it was gone—and told me that Victoria was freaking out.”
    â€œWasn’t she happy just to hear you were alive?”
    Sullivan shrugged. “You’d think she would be, you know? But after she charged across to town in the boat to bring me home, she chewed me out the whole way back. About keeping my cell phone charged. About making sure I tie up the boat at a supervised dock. About losing track of time—”
    â€œLots of chewing. Bet you felt like a piece of rawhide,” I interrupt, wondering if Sullivan has any inkling that his so-called problems are the stuff of a family sit-com. Or that my problems are—by comparison—the stuff of horror movies.
    â€œSo now the punishment,” Sullivan explains. “I’m not allowed off-island until the puzzle is done. Mom believes in ‘creative