“Like hell we are.”

It took half an hour to set up the tents. After Honey finished, she turned to the Texans and said, “I have one son, the boy you saw in the pictures back at the lodge. I’ve tried to teach him to be a decent, positive person-these days they get so cynical, you know, it breaks your heart. We watch the news together every night because it’s important for young people to be aware of what’s happening, but sometimes, I swear, I want to heave a brick through the television. Don’t you ever feel that way?”

Eugenie said, “Not Boyd. He loves his TV.”

“Except the news,” he cut in. “I don’t ever watch the damn news, not even Fox. By the way, we’re leaving now.”

Eugenie said, “Let her finish, Boyd. Obviously she’s gone to a lot of trouble.”

Honey thanked her, and continued: “I always tell my son, ‘The world is crawling with creeps and greedheads. Don’t you dare grow up to be one of them.’ And what I mean is: Be a responsible and caring person. Is that so hard? To be generous, not greedy. Compassionate, not indifferent. My God, is there a worse sin than indifference?”

Shreave hoisted a water jug and glugged noisily. He wiped his lips on his sleeve and grumbled, “Would you get to the point, if you’ve got one.”

“I do. I do have a point.” Honey paused to sort out the tunes in her head. One was “Yellow Submarine,” which she’d often sung to Fry when he was a baby. Even Perry Skinner, who preferred Merle or Waylon, knew all the words.

She said, “I tend to get overexcited, I admit. Obsessed about certain things, though in a non-clinical way. ‘Hyperfocused,’ my son calls it. The dinner hour is important to me. It’s the only time we really get to talk anymore.”

“You and your boy?” Eugenie said.

“Right. That part of the day is ours, you understand? Fry’s growing up so fast-he’s got track practice and homework and his skateboarding. Plus he sees his ex-father a couple of times a week, which is strictly his choice. Anyhow…where was I?”

“Dinner,” Eugenie prompted gently.

“Yes. Practically every night the phone rings in the middle of dinner and it’s some stranger, hundreds of miles away, trying to sell me something I don’t need, don’t want and can’t afford. The name of your company is Relentless, right? Like they’re proud of how they never let up from pestering people.” Honey felt her arms flapping. She heard her voice rise. “You call up my house, Mr. Boyd Shreave, and do not even have the honor, or spine, to give your true name!”

Shreave snorted. “Strictly SOP.”

“Standard operating procedure,” Eugenie explained. “We don’t ever use our real last names. None of us do.”

Honey Santana was crestfallen. “You work there, too?”

“Next time just hang up the phone. End of story,” Eugenie said. “They won’t call back. The list of numbers we got, it’s a mile long.”

“This is awful.” Honey pressed her knuckles to her temples. “I’m talking about basic old-fashioned civility and respect. The man told me to go screw myself. He called me a dried-up skank.”

Shreave stiffened. “After you insulted my mother.”

“I did no such thing!” Honey discarded the apology she’d rehearsed. Shreave didn’t deserve it. “All I did was ask a simple, very reasonable question: Did your mom raise you to be a professional pest? Did she bleed and suffer through your birth, Boyd, so that you could grow up to be a nag and a sneak? My guess would be no. My guess is that your folks had higher hopes for you. And what about Lily?”

Shreave wobbled, exposed once more.

“The real Mrs. Shreave,” Honey went on. “Tell me she’s happy that this is how your career has peaked. Tell me she’s proud and content to be married to a telephone solicitor.”

Eugenie Fonda broke in. “Okay, sweetie, we’re all on board. Boyd’s real sorry he called and bothered you. He’ll never do it again. Now can you please get us outta here?”

“No, I don’t believe he cares one bit.” Honey scrutinized Shreave for a shadow of remorse. “He definitely does not get the point.”

Shreave confirmed this by saying, “I get it, all right: You’re as crazy as a shithouse rat.”

Eugenie glowered at him. “Very smooth.”

“She fucking kidnapped us!”

Honey said, “I thought you’d enjoy it out here. Be honest-did you ever see any place so amazing?”

Shreave hooted. “Only every week on Survivor.”

“His favorite show,” Eugenie said, whacking a spider on her ankle. “That and Maury Povich.”

Honey was lost. She felt like a sap.

“You can go now,” she said, digging into the stash of Cheerios.

Boyd hopped up and plumped his Indiana Jones hat. Eugenie Fonda said, “Don’t be ridiculous. We’ll get lost in five minutes without her.” She turned to Honey. “Come on. You’ve had your fun.”

“Keep heading east and you’ll be fine.”

“We won’t be fine. We definitely will not be fine.”

“Then stay with me.”

Shreave growled, “Fuck that. Let’s go.”

Honey watched them hustle down the path toward the creek. She rested her head on one of the duffels and hoped, against all odds, that they’d find their own way back to Everglades City. She truly didn’t wish to see them again. Her speech had bombed, and now the whole plan seemed depressingly misguided. She hated to give up, but it appeared that Boyd Shreave was a hopeless cause.

The sky had changed color, and Honey felt a cooling shift in the wind. She didn’t mind spending the night alone; poachers typically operated in secret, and the ones with the gun were probably long gone. She’d make a fire and, before sunset, go for a skinny-dip in the creek. In the morning she would return to the mainland and then wait for Fry after school. She planned on finding her way back using Perry Skinner’s GPS, into which she had programmed several waypoints while leading the Texans through the islands.

Far away she heard an airplane, and soon the drone of its engine turned into a light chorus of humming. The tune, though pleasant, was unfamiliar. She tried to hum along but couldn’t nail the key. There was a rustle nearby and Boyd Shreave reappeared, silky strands of spiderwebs trailing from both earlobes. He stomped into the clearing and said, “Okay. Get your ass in gear.”

Honey sat up. Genie emerged from the trees and said, “You win. The joke’s on us.”

“What joke? You said you were going back.”

Shreave said, “Oh, and I guess we’re supposed to swim.”

Honey got a knot in her gut. “The kayaks are gone?”

“Surprise, surprise,” Eugenie said thinly.

Boyd Shreave whipped out a stubby pistol and leveled it at Honey’s heart. “Don’t just sit there all innocent. Tell your pals to bring back our goddamn boats.”

Honey said she didn’t have any pals on the island. “I don’t know who stole the kayaks. Honest to God.”

Eugenie Fonda skeptically eyed the gun in Shreave’s hand. “I don’t know, Boyd. In the daylight it sure looks like a toy.”

He laid it flat in his palm for examination. “It’s not a toy,” he said, with no abundance of confidence.

“Whatever. Put the damn thing away,” Eugenie told him. “She’s tellin’ the truth.”

“Great. Now you’re takin’ sides against me.”

“I know where he got it-from under my bed,” Honey Santana said. “And he’s right, it’s not a toy.”

Shreave smirked at Eugenie. “Told you. Ha!”

Defiantly he shoved the weapon back into his pants, which lit up with a dull crackle. Shreave yowled and pitched backward as if he’d been clipped by a freight train. For what seemed like half a minute he flopped and shuddered on the ground, clutching his groin with curled, bone-white fingers.

Eugenie Fonda watched the spectacle without comment. Honey explained, “Actually it’s not a gun, either. It’s an electric Taser.”

With a sigh Eugenie said, “What a fucking pinhead.”

“I wouldn’t touch him just yet.”

“Oh, don’t worry.”