Free Green Boy by Susan Cooper

development until she could look more closely at the whole case.
    â€œBut these people got good lawyers, and powerful arguments,” Grand said. “Now we have to work even harder.”
    So the collecting of signatures went on, and there were more meetings, and posters began appearing all over the island, on walls and doors and tree trunks, saying, SAVE LONG POND CAY! Grand was spending all day and every day in town, or at his computer, organizing the protest. He did arrange for a couple of men to come in and clear up the damage at the farm, and Lou and I hung out with them to help, and watch them burn the trash, making a great plume of grey-white smoke.
    Grand was leaving the running of his bonefishing business to other people too, for the time being, but all his bonefish guides were good men, and his chief guide, Will Torris, was one of his oldest friends. Besides, this was summer, and most of the visitors came to fish later in the year.
    We liked Will; he was a tall, stooped man with a big quick smile and enormous hands and feet. But those big hands could tie the smallest fly onto a bonefish line, and he and Grand had been teaching us all we knew about fish and the sea and the islands, ever since we were babies. Lou and I kept our little dinghy down at an old jetty alongside the bonefish hut, with its smart little marina for the nine boats, and Grand and Will’s office under the neatly painted sign, JAMES PEEL: BONEFISHING.
    Lou was restless; I knew he wanted to go out in the dinghy. We both missed the water if we hadn’t been out there for more than a few days, or gone over on Long Pond Cay. But on the day I intended to go, Will Torris turned up at the door early in the morning, just as we were having breakfast.
    I said, “Hi, Will!” through a mouthful of cereal, but he didn’t hear me; he was looking at Grand, very serious.
    â€œJames,” he said.
    Grand offered him a mug of coffee.
    Will shook his head, holding up his big hand. “James,” he said again, and stopped.
    â€œWhat is it?” said Grand. He put down the coffee mug.
    Will said unhappily, “Four of the boats are gone.”
    â€œGone?”
    â€œChains cut. Completely gone. All nine of them were there last night, tied up, chained up, batteries clipped down. I checked them myself. Somebody took four. Must have had good tools—the chains were cut through like butter. I sorry, sorry, James!”
    â€œGood grief, it’s not your fault,” Grand said. He put his arm over Will’s broad shoulders, and they went out, down to the bonefish hut, followed by Grammie and me, and Lou hopping about like an agitated frog. Lou ran to our dinghy the moment we got there; I think he was more worried about that than about Grand’s fine boats, which were all a special design he’d bought the year before. They were all fiberglass, flat-bottomed, specially made for the slow quiet business of stalking bonefish.
    Grand stood looking down at the four empty berths, and the cut chains. He played with his beard, frowning. “Makes no sense,” he said. “Why steal boats no good for anything but fishing on the flats—boats anyone can recognize?”
    â€œFor the motors?” Will said. “Batteries?”
    â€œThen why not just take those?” He shook his head, and glanced up at us. “Anyone hear any noises last night?”
    But we hadn’t, and when they asked us the same question at the police station, later, we had nothing helpful to say. Constable Morgan wasn’t on duty; there was another policeman, who didn’t know Grand. He wrote down all the details of the theft on a big pad, very carefully,but he didn’t seem to think there was much anyone could do. Grand gave him the identification numbers of the boats’ motors, and even a photograph of one of the boats.
    â€œYou got insurance, of course,” the policeman said.
    â€œThousand-dollar deductible,”