The Summer We Saved the Bees by Robin Stevenson

Violet’s taken off.”
    She stared at me. “Taken off?”
    “With her boyfriend. Ty.”
    Hazel was wide-eyed, clutching a bag of dog food to her chest. “Your sister took off with her boyfriend? Do you know where she is?”
    “Nope.” I took can after can of chickpeas out of a shopping bag. “Curtis went back downtown to look for her.”
    “What’s her boyfriend like?” Tess asked. “Is he cute?”
    I made a face. “No. I don’t know. He’s older. Seventeen.”
    Eva’s forehead creased. “Jade must be beside herself.”
    “Uh, I think she’s worried about getting to Hope. We’re supposed to be leaving tomorrow, right?”
    “You can stay here. Is she worried about overstaying her welcome? Because you’re welcome to stay with us as long as you need to.” Eva squeezed my shoulder. “You can’t leave without Violet, obviously.”
    “Right. Obviously.”
    But I wasn’t sure that Mom felt the same way.

Thirteen
    MARY GOT HOME from work around five o’clock, and Curtis showed up shortly after—without Violet. We all had dinner together: veggie burgers and these totally awesome yam fries with some kind of creamy garlic dip, and berry-apple crumble for dessert. The food was great, and Whisper actually ate a few of the yam fries along with her usual bread and peanut butter, but there was a weird tension because of Violet not being there. No one talked about it until the twins and Hazel had gone to play upstairs in Hazel’s room. I was still at the table, having seconds of dessert, and Tess was doing homework in the living room.
    “What are you going to do?” Mary asked.
    “We have to be in Hope in two days,” Mom said. “And we’d planned to do a show in Chilliwack tomorrow.”
    Curtis paused, his spoon halfway to his mouth. “Well, we can’t leave without Violet.”
    Mom frowned. “I’m not letting her sabotage this trip, Curtis. She knows what the plan is. She knows we’re not staying in Vancouver.”
    “She has a phone, right?” Eva said. “Is she not answering?”
    “I’ve left a dozen messages,” Curtis said. He put his spoon back in his bowl and ran his hands through his hair, pushing it away from his face. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he looked kind of gaunt, like he’d lost weight or aged ten years since lunchtime. “Maybe she’ll call.”
    “You don’t know where her boyfriend stayed last night, I suppose? Does he have friends here?” Mary asked. She stood up, unwound a green-and-orange silk scarf from around her neck and folded it neatly. “Maybe his parents could tell us. Do you have a phone number for them?”
    Mom shook her head, and I tried to remember what Ty had said on the ferry. Had he told us anything about where he was going? He seemed like someone who didn’t worry about details like where to stay. Ty says we should live in the moment , Violet had told me once. He says nine-to-five jobs are for losers. He’s not planning on getting old if it means getting boring like his parents.
    “I think we should move on in the morning, like we’d planned,” Mom said.
    “Without Violet?” Curtis shook his head. “We can’t do that.”
    “She has to learn that she can’t just derail everything like this,” Mom said. “She can’t hold us all hostage.”
    “Why do you think she’s doing this?” Eva asked. “I mean, is it just that she wants to be with Ty, or do you think there’s more going on?”
    “What do you mean?” Mom asked. “More like what?”
    Eva looked at Mary, who shrugged. I could tell the two of them had talked about this before. “Well,” Eva said carefully, “I just wonder how Violet feels about this trip. About being away from her friends and missing school…I know Tess is younger, but I can’t imagine she’d want to do something like this. And Violet’s fifteen, right? That’s not an easy age.”
    “Violet understands why we’re doing this,” Mom said. Her voice sounded stiff. “She knows how important it