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the attic’s single, diamond-shaped window. Bordered by stained-glass rectangles — spruce green, bright blue,and thunderstorm gray — that window has the longest view in our whole house. Beyond the treetops, the sea sparkles, summer calm and postcard pretty.
    “Aaron?”
    He spins around, his trumpet against his bottom lip. “Don’t you know how to knock?”
    I feel the blood draining from my cheeks. “I did knock, but you were playing so loud you didn’t hear me.”
    He doesn’t have much stuff. He hasn’t hung a single thing on the walls, and on his bureau is only a collage of photographs in a frame. Beside him is a skinny metal music stand with some sheet music stacked in the tray. The notes are jumping all over the place, like a bunch of paint splatters. His trumpet case is lying open on the new red comforter Mom bought him, and I see the corner of Aaron’s old tan suitcase peeking out from under his bed.
    Framed in the light from the window, Aaron seems only shadow.
    “Eben Calder’s a jerk,” I say. “Don’t listen to him, okay?”
    “Was he telling the truth? Am I only here to keep your school open?”
    I open my mouth to deny it, but he’s bound to hear it sooner or later. “It’s one reason. But we really wanted you, too.”
    He turns away from me, but not before I see him shake his head.
    As I walk down the attic stairs, I pause a few times, hoping he’ll say something. But he doesn’t, and I close his door behind me.
    Back in my room, I stare up at the ceiling. I hear his footsteps above me, pacing.
    When he stops, the silence is as lonely as one bird calling.

T he next morning I shut off my alarm at my usual four A.M . Though the room’s still dark, I snatch my jeans off my bedroom floor and pull a bandanna, T-shirt, and hooded sweatshirt out of my bureau and dress as fast as I can.
    Opening my sock drawer, I scoop my lucky things out of the corner, where I left them last night. Dad says a fisherman without his luck might as well stay ashore. So I always wear pants with pockets when I go fishing. That way I can bring my luck with me.
    Two pennies from the year I was born.
    A teeny plastic lobster, so I’ll never come ashore without any .
    A white quartz heart Amy gave me last Christmas.
    My new circle of blue sea glass.
    And finally, a quarter-sized shard of pottery that washed up on our beach. White on one side, the other hasa blue outline of a sloop sailing on some waves. A long time ago, it was probably part of a whole scene painted on a fancy plate. One day when I was little, Dad and I were walking the shore and he stopped to pick it up. “Here’s your first boat,” he joked when he handed it to me.
    I move my fingers over the objects in my pocket and say what I always say: “Bring me good luck.”
    Mom likes to say, “You make your own luck,” but I don’t think it’s that simple. I believe good luck does float out there in the world, sticking fast to some people and leaving others behind. How else can you explain why some lobstermen — like Dad and Uncle Ned — always seem to know where the best “hot spots” are, while others barely catch enough to cover their costs? Or how I’ve lived in the same house with my own parents my whole life, and Aaron has lived in a string of places and has next to nothing of his own?
    So when Mom says, “You make your own luck,” I think, Why take chances? Especially when it’s so easy to let the universe know what you want by touching blue or turning around three times or crossing your fingers.
    I thought Aaron’d feel his bad luck had changed to have a real home with us, but he seems to feel unlucky to be here. Today, Dad and I are taking Aaronlobstering, though. My fingers are crossed that he’ll like that.
    Hurrying along the upstairs hallway, I pass my parents’ bedroom and peek in to see Mom still sleeping, her brown braid trailing off the side of the bed. Last night I heard her arguing with Dad through my bedroom wall about