I BOUGHT THE twins a pack of Smarties to share—sugar and coloring; Mom would flip if she found out—and got myself a hot chocolate and a bag of Doritos. Someone had left a copy of the Vancouver Sun on the table, and the headlines were all about wars and people being killed in other countries. I folded it over so the twins wouldn’t see the pictures. My brain felt all twitchy, like it was hopping from one worry to another.
“Yo.”
I turned as a hand landed on my shoulder. Ty. And beside him, clutching his arm like it was a life ring, Violet.
“What are you doing here?” I blurted. I looked at Violet. “Mom said he couldn’t come.”
Ty shrugged. “Your mom doesn’t own the ferry, little man.”
“I know that.” Ty had this way of making me feel stupid. He was seventeen, which was practically an adult, and he had piercings—not just in his ears, but in his bottom lip and one eyebrow and even his tongue. Violet thought this was cool—she wanted to get one in her nose—but I didn’t understand why anyone would want holes in their face.
Violet smirked at me. “She doesn’t own the highway either.”
“Duh,” I said. Violet was only three years older than I was, but she acted like the difference was way more than that. She stared at me, all smug-faced, and I realized I had no idea what she was talking about. “Uh, what do you mean?” I asked. “About the highway?”
“I mean,” she said, “that Jade thinks she can break us up. But she can’t.”
“This trip’s not all about you,” I said. Then I regretted it, because what it was about—the bees vanishing and all that stuff—wasn’t something I wanted the twins thinking about. I stood up, stepped away from the table and beckoned to Violet to come closer.
“What?” She looked annoyed, but she let go of Ty’s arm and followed me. “What is it?”
I lowered my voice. “Saffy says Whisper doesn’t talk anymore. At all.”
“Sure she does.”
“Are you sure? Because I can’t remember her saying anything for a couple of days.”
“So ask her something.”
“Like what?”
Violet rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t matter, doofus. Just see if she answers.”
“You ask her.” I thought back to Whisper’s meltdown on the ferry deck, and my stomach twisted. Sometimes I felt like some little creature was alive in there, squirming around, poking at me from inside, demanding…I didn’t know what. Definitely demanding something though. I wrapped my arms around my middle and squeezed.
Violet walked back over to the table. “Hey, Whisper, can I have a Smartie?”
Whisper nodded and pushed the pack toward her.
Violet gave me a sideways look. I raised my eyebrows, like see?
“Can I have red? Or do you like those best?”
Whisper slid a red Smartie toward Violet’s outstretched hand.
“Thanks, kiddo.” Violet popped it into her mouth. “So, you two ready for tomorrow?”
“What’s tomorrow?” Saffy asked.
“Our first opportunity to make big fools of ourselves in public.”
I shook my head at her. “Violet. Don’t.” The creature in my stomach gave another twist, and I crammed a handful of Doritos into my mouth to pacify it.
“What do you mean?” Saffy asked.
“Uh, downtown? At the art gallery? Right out front somewhere, like on the steps or something?” Violet looked at Ty, who she was totally showing off for. “Jade’s first presentation?”
“It’s not exactly a presentation,” I said. “It’s, like, guerrilla theater.”
Ty laughed. “Gorillas? I thought you were gonna be bees.”
Saffron frowned, her lower lip sticking out. “I am going to be a bee.”
Ty made an ooo-ooo monkey noise and pretended to scratch his armpit.
“Shut up, Ty,” I said. “Guerrilla, like G-U-E. Not gorilla like the monkey. Guerrilla theater’s, like, performance art. But, you know, political.”
“He knows,” Violet said. “I’ve told him.”
Ty was still making monkey noises. Whisper was looking down at the table, sliding her Smarties into same-color groups: red, pink, orange, yellow, green, purple, blue, brown. I’ve always wondered why they make brown Smarties when no one really likes them. Duncan told me once that there used to be two shades of brown. He always knows weird things like that because he reads Wikipedia all the time.
“Ty! Stop it,” Saffron ordered. “You look stupid.”
Ty stopped ooo-oooing and turned to Vi. “You told me about this guerilla thing?”
“Yeah. Don’t you remember?” Violet stole a Dorito from my bag and crunched it loudly. “Like some of the protests back during the Vietnam war. Or in the nineties, when people were trying to get the government to do more to fight aids? They pretended they were dying right there on the streets. They even carried coffins and stuff.”
We’d watched a documentary about it with Mom. Some of the stuff the protesters had done was pretty awesome. And it had worked too—they’d made people pay attention.
“What do bees have to do with aids?” Ty asked.
I rolled my eyes. “Nothing, Ty. That was just an example.”
Violet glared at me. “It can be about anything, Ty. It’s, like, a way to make people listen.”
“There’s this group, Circus something,” I said. “Mom spent a couple years in New York before I was born, and she did some stuff with them. Theater stuff, about poverty and gay rights. But then she got more into the environment.” I shrugged. “And, you know, bees.”
“Right. Bees.” Ty grinned at me. “I guess I’ll see you all in action tomorrow then.” He lifted his arms like he was flying. “Buzz, buzz, buzz.”
I poured the last of the Dorito crumbs into the palm of my hand and stuffed them into my mouth. Mom had made bee costumes for me and the twins, and she was expecting us to wear them. Violet had gotten out of it, partly because she was older and partly because Jade wasn’t really her mom, but mostly because she was better at saying no than I was.
“Let’s go,” Violet said, tugging on Ty’s arm. She looked at me. “You’ve got orange cheese crud all over your face.”
I wiped my mouth with my sleeve and watched them walk away. Then I sat back down at the table with the twins, folded my arms on the newspaper and laid my head on them.
I didn’t want to be here.
“What’s wrong, Wolf?” Saffron asked.
“Nothing.”
“You look sad.”
I straightened up. “I’m okay.” I tried to smile at her. “Are you excited about our trip, Saffy?”
“I guess so,” she said.
Whisper had put her fingertip on top of a green Smartie and was driving it around the table like it was a car. “How about you?” I asked her. “Are you excited?”
She nodded, but she didn’t look up at me.
I bent my head, trying to catch her eye. “Hey. Are you worried about something? You can talk to me, you know.”
Saffron gave a loud, dramatic sigh. “I told you. She can’t talk.”