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Fenniman's idea of good weather.
    Michael and I managed to escape the house without anyone else tagging along, although Dad insisted that we each shoulder a backpack filled with several pounds of survival gear that we might need if we got lost for a few weeks. And Aunt Phoebe gave us a long list of errands she wanted us to run down in the village.
    "You'd think the village was in Siberia," I complained as we finally escaped down the lane. "It's not as if it would take them ten minutes to walk down here themselves."
    "If it keeps them happy," Michael said. He looked a lot more rested than I felt, and when he shook the water out of his hair, he resembled a hunk from a commercial for deodorant soap. I could feel my hair, initially frizzy from the damp, being matted down by the rain; no doubt I'd soon resemble a drowned rat.
    "How did you sleep?" I asked.
    "Your brother snores," he said.
    "So does Spike."
    "Spike doesn't talk in his sleep."
    "Did Rob say anything interesting?"
    "No, and if I hear another word about Lawyers from Hell…"
    "I'm really sorry," I said. "It's all my fault; I should never have suggested coming here."
    "Let's make a deal," Michael said. "I won't blame you for anything that goes wrong if you promise to stop apologizing for bringing me here. After all, if my damned car hadn't had those two flats, we might have spotted them before boarding the ferry the day before yesterday, and we could have changed our plans and found a bed-and-breakfast on the mainland."
    "It's a deal," I said.
    "So let's go down to the grocery store and see if they still have any of the things your aunt wants."
    "We should probably hit both grocery stores," I said as we squelched down the road.
    "Both grocery stores? How can an island this small possibly support two grocery stores?"
    "The two of them together are smaller than a Seven-Eleven back home. And they serve slightly different clientele. There's the upscale grocery store--in that salmon pink building with the turquoise trim," I said, pointing down the road. "Caters more to the artists and the summer people; probably does a lot less business this time of year. Sells Brie and whole-grain bread from an organic bakery on the mainland. Nice selection of wines. The place that looks like a bait shop is the other grocery. More like a general store, really. Bologna and Wonder Bread, and a good variety of beers. They do a lot more steady year-round business, I should think."
    "Let's start with the down-to-earth place," Michael said. "There's something obscenely decadent about eating Brie in the eye of a hurricane."
    Decadent or not, it sounded perfectly lovely to me, but Michael was obviously getting into the spirit of things, roughing it here on the island, so I didn't argue.
    "Actually, since we already have more food than we'll ever eat, I thought we could leave the grocery store till later." I said. "Maybe we should start with our other mission."
    "Other mission?"
    "Finding you a room of your own. One without a roommate."
    "One where I might possibly entertain a friend without being interrupted every five minutes to drink another cup of herbal tea?" he said, raising one eyebrow.
    "You've got the idea."
    "I like the way you think," he said.

Chapter 5

These Puffins Were Made for Walking

    We tried. We really did. The Monhegan House's three dozen rooms were filled with birders. The Island Inn was full, as well. Overflowing, in fact. I'd forgotten about the oversupply of birders.
    "We've called up everyone on the island, trying to find rooms for them all," the owner of the Island Inn explained. "We even have a bunch of birders camping out down in the church."
    "Well, so much for peace and quiet and privacy," Michael said. "I assume on an island this size, everyone has a pretty good idea who has a vacancy and who doesn't?"
    "On an island this size, everyone has a pretty good idea who's running low on corn flakes and toilet paper," I said. "I think we can take it as a given that there's