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kitchen, which smelled of frying bacon. Zac was sitting at the table drinking a cup of coffee.
    Amelia served Rachel up a plate of blueberry pancakes. “If you want to help Zac at the market this morning, you can keep a dollar from every box of raspberries you sell,” she said as she set the syrup on the table. “The girls bagged some yellow beans yesterday, so they can have the money from those. Raymond gets half the egg money this week. Did you know that a fresh egg will sink but a stale egg floats? Oh, and the lake today, when do you want your hour?”
    Zac stood up and set his cup beside the sink. “It’s going to be a hot day, Amelia. I’ll take the kids swimming later when we get back from the market. Are you ready, Rachel?” He walked out the door without waiting for an answer.
    â€œI’ll take my hour after supper,” Rachel told Amelia. She rolled the last bite of pancake through the syrup left on her plate, finished it, and hurried to put on her orange sneakers.
    Rachel carried the first wooden tray of raspberries to a long table on the veranda of the log building that housed the Kingston Farmers’ Market. People were already waiting at the table and one woman reached for a box as Rachel set the tray down.
    â€œI’ll take three boxes of raspberries,” the woman said. “And two dozen eggs please.”
    Rachel looked at the coins in the coffee can Zac passed her. She counted the change before she put the woman’s money in. Rachel had always kept a bit of the change when Margaret or Bob had sent her to the store. They never seemed to count it and never caught on. But today she was going to keep track of all the money and give every cent back to Amelia. It was too early to take that chance.
    The morning went quickly and by about 11:00 everything had been sold. Zac had let Rachel do all the selling and had spent most of his time walking around and talking to people. He had even brought a few people over to the table to meet Rachel, as if she were some celebrity or something. He knew a lot more about her than she thought he did. He knew her last name, her age, and what grade she was going into. One woman said that her daughter was going into Grade 8, too, and that she would tell her to look out for Rachel when school started. Zac also introduced Rachel to a man named Roger and told her he would be her bus driver. He shook her hand and joked about her always being able to get the back seat since Amelia’s kids were the first kids on the bus in the morning.
    Zac bought a loaf of bread, some doughnuts, and a couple packages of meat before they got in the truck and started for home.
    â€œWhy doesn’t Wart—I mean, Amelia—come to the market herself?” asked Rachel.
    Zac slowed down a bit and turned toward Rachel. “She doesn’t leave home,” he said.
    At first Rachel thought Zac was going to say more, but he didn’t. She wanted to ask about Amelia’s face. Nobody had said a word about it and Rachel wondered how anyone could ignore it or pretend it looked normal.
    â€œThis is Macdonald Consolidated School,” Zac said as he pulled into a driveway in front of the school and shut off the truck’s engine. “It goes up to Grade 8, so you’ll go here for one year, then move on to Hampton High School when you start Grade 9.”
    Rachel looked out at the big building. “Did you go to this school?” she asked.
    â€œYes,” Zac answered.
    â€œAre you Amelia’s son?” Rachel blurted out, realizing she hadn’t even considered before that he could be Amelia’s son. He didn’t call her Mom, though.
    â€œNo. I was a foster kid just like you. I ended up at Amelia’s when I was eleven years old. Let’s get you home. We’re just like a Brinks truck sitting here with all the money you made this morning.” Zac laughed and pulled out of the schoolyard.
    They were turning on