Tess and Libby join the crowd at the wharf, which includes their aunt Barb, their uncle Ned, and local bully Eben Calder. Tess overhears some adults discussing how the State of Maine threatened to shut down the island’s only school unless they raised enrollment over the summer. Tess’s mother teaches at the school, and the Brooks family would have been forced to move to the mainland. Reverend Beal proposed that the islanders restore the school’s enrollment to its previous numbers by fostering children. Four families, including the Brooks, agreed. Tess’s father had some ethical qualms about the situation, but his wife persuaded him: “We have a strong, loving home […] How can it be wrong to share that with a child who needs one—even if he brings us something in return?” (7). Tess explains to Libby why Aaron needs a new family. The State took him away from his mother when he was five, and his grandmother, who was his legal guardian for six years, died when he was 11. He was placed in two different foster homes for a year each.

At the wharf, Tess sees Jenna Ross, a classmate who is friendly toward her but didn’t get along with her best friend. The Rosses are fostering a girl named Grace, and Jenna has baked a cake to welcome her. Jenna explains that the Rosses will need to bring Grace to the mainland for weekly meetings with her mother, who is trying to regain custody, and will need to gain permission for the girl to have a haircut. Tess’s excitement turns to trepidation when she sees that Aaron is a redheaded boy because the islanders believe that it’s unlucky for people with red hair to be on boats. She greets him with her “widest, welcomest smile” and is disappointed by his flat greeting, inwardly wondering, “Why’d Natalie pick this boy for us?” (13).

As Tess, Libby, Aaron, and the girls’ father, a lobsterman named Jacob, walk home, they’re greeted by other inhabitants of the island. Eben rides past on his bike, and Tess thinks about how frequent encounters with her bully are part of the “bad luck” of living on a small island. However, she also believes that the situation has its share of “good luck,” such as neighbors’ willingness to help one another.

Tess cringes when an elderly woman calls Aaron a “foster boy,” and the more people they encounter, the more he withdraws into himself. After learning that he plays the piano and trumpet, Tess shares that the island sometimes has concerts, but he says that he doesn’t like to play in front of an audience. She recalls the advice that the family received about how to help Aaron adjust to his new placement and wishes that she’d been warned about “how weird” the change would feel for her, too. Mrs. Brooks welcomes Aaron to his new home. Tess tries to anticipate his questions about his new environment and quietly assures him that he’s welcome there.

Aaron goes to bed early during his first night at the Brooks’s home, so they have the family movie night they planned for him without him. Mr. Brooks suggests that Tess show him around the island the next day. In private, she asks if they can foster a different child if Aaron is unhappy on Bethsaida, but her father says, “We’re not gonna keep borrowing other people’s children just so we don’t have to leave this place” (24).

Hoping to endear Aaron to the island so that he’ll want to stay, Tess shows him her favorite places the next day, including Chandler’s Cove and Strout’s Hill, but he shows little interest. She also shows him the houses where people who only live on the island during the summer stay and the island’s small schoolhouse, where her mother is the only teacher. The boy is disappointed that he had to leave his previous school’s jazz band, but Tess recalls that he would have had to relocate anyway because his prior foster mother had decided to stop fostering children. She sees how happy the other foster children look and envies the apparent ease with which other families are adjusting.

When Tess and Aaron visit Phipps’s Gas and Groceries, Aaron chooses a small purchase even though he is hungry, and he expresses his discomfort with all the attention he receives from the islanders. He pauses to listen to the organ music emanating from the church and snaps at Tess to be quiet. She worries that her family has made “a big mistake” by fostering Aaron.

Aaron breaks the sullen silence between him and Tess to ask what people do for fun on Bethsaida, and she defensively says that she’s repairing a boat on top of the usual summer activities like baseball games, picnics, and movie nights. The children stop at the post office, and Tess opens an envelope addressed to her parents because she hopes it contains news about the school. Instead, she finds a letter from Aaron’s biological mother accompanied by a note from Natalie’s assistant advising Mrs. Brooks to give him the letter “when [she] think[s] he’s ready for it” (38).

Aaron sees the letter and reads it. He hasn’t heard from his mother in four years, and the message expresses her regret at their separation and her hope that they can be reunited. Aaron asks Tess not to tell her parents about the letter because he thinks Natalie would disapprove of some of its contents, and he’s afraid that his caseworker would sever their communication. She reluctantly agrees to keep his secret.

Eben accosts Aaron, spouts harmful stereotypes about foster children, and says that the Brooks family took Aaron in to keep the school open. When Eben suggests that Aaron is in foster care because he did something “really bad,” Aaron punches him in the face and runs away. Tess hurries home, where she finds Libby, Grace, and Jenna happily playing Monopoly together. She tries to use the radio to tell her father what happened, but word has already spread. Tess hears Aaron playing the trumpet in his attic room and tries to comfort him, but he’s hurt to learn that there is some truth to what the bully said about the school.