Sharks & Boys (14 page)

“Okay,” Wick says. “But let’s keep your head up and out of that water.”

“Sure thing,” Skate says. He sits down and leans his head back on the raft’s side. His head touches my leg. I can see pus escaping through the crease of the green bandage. “I think I’m going to rest some more,” he says again.

“Good idea,” I say. But I do not know if it really is a good idea. I wonder what he thinks about when he sleeps? I wonder if he dreams about his parents? Now that they’re dead, I wonder where he thinks they are?

I look into the sky. There are no clouds. It’s blank. Back when my father and I used to talk, he told me that when you skydive, you want to avoid clouds. They contain hidden dangers. I imagine my father falling out of the empty sky right now. A speck tumbling toward me. But then I blink and he’s not there anymore. It’s just the sky. My grandmother used to call the sky the heavens. In my head, I repeat that word over and over.
Heaven. Heaven. Heaven.

“There is so much goddamned water in the world,” Wick says.

“I was just thinking that,” Landon says.

“I was thinking about heaven,” I say.

“You were?” Landon asks.

“Yeah, I think I believe in God.”

“That came out of left field,” Landon says.

“Of course you believe in God. You’re in a raft surrounded by sharks. I bet you’ve started believing in Jesus, too.”

“Historically speaking, Jesus was an actual person,” Munny says. “I don’t think belief is the right word.”

“You know so much unimportant junk that it’s impossible to like you,” Dale says.

“I like Munny,” I say. “And I’ve been thinking about God for a while. Not just today. Two days ago I was totally thinking about Moses.”

“You were?” Landon asks.

“Yeah. Why, were you thinking about him too?” I ask. I’m always hoping that our twin connection will kick in.

“No,” Landon says. “I just didn’t realize that nonreligious teenagers sporadically thought about Moses.”

“That is a little weird,” Wick says. “What exactly were you thinking about?”

I don’t want to mention thinking of the bulrushes story when I took the directions from Landon’s basket. So I lie.

“How he fought Goliath,” I say.

“That was David. Even I know that, and that’s saying something,” Dale says. “I may be a Christian, but at this point in my life, I care about the Bible about as much as I care about Canada.”

“What do you have against Canada?” Sov asks. “I have relatives that live there.”

“So do we,” Wick says.

Dale doesn’t answer.

“All I was trying to say is that I believe in God. And I think we’re going to be okay,” I say. “I think saving the llama got me thinking about these deeper issues.”

“That thing died,” Dale says.

“I know,” I say. “
That
got me thinking about even deeper issues.”

Wick rubs my knee. Talking about God makes me feel hopeful. I wonder if I’ll care about these things after I’m rescued. Am I the type of person who wants to go to church? Every week? I don’t know. I can’t imagine myself sitting on a pew that many times per month. I turn to look into the water.

“Hey, what’s that?” I ask.

“Do you see a ship?” asks Landon.

“No, that right there. That white thing. It looks like my shoe.”

“That’s not possible,” Landon says.

“But it totally looks like my white pump.”

“It’s something. It could be a piece of Styrofoam. Or some other piece of trash. It’s too far away,” Wick says.

“Let’s row toward it,” I say. I reach my arm into the ocean.

“There’s sharks in there, Enid,” Sov says.

I pull my hand back in the raft. “I want my shoe,” I say.

“Dude, get over it,” Dale says.

“Dude, if it were your shoe and you were barefooted, you’d want it too,” I say.

Dale shrugs.

“It’s drifting toward us,” Munny says. “We’ll probably intercept it.”

I clutch my heart. “I hope we do,” I say.

“Enid, it’s just a shoe,” Wick says.

“I know. But it’s my mother’s.”

“When you tell her the story of what happened to it, I’m sure she won’t care that you lost it,” Wick says.

“But I’ll care.”

I don’t know why, but my mother’s shoe has taken on all this extra meaning. I sit and wait. The shoe bobs merrily along. Eventually, it drifts so close that Landon is able to lean over the side and pluck it from the sea.

“Enjoy,” he says, tossing it to me.

“I don’t believe it! Where are those Doritos bags?” Dale asks.

“Get over the chips,” Landon says.

I try to slide the shoe on, but my foot is swollen. It hurts. I decide just to hold it.

“Thanks,” I say.

“Any time,” Landon says. “But I wouldn’t expect to come across your other pump. Cherish the one you have.”

I press it to my chest and lean back into Wick’s arms. I think that I’m going to stay awake and be responsible and totally look for passing ships, but I feel myself dozing off instead.

The
raft is developing a crust of salt. The sun evaporates the water, and in the creases of the rubber, the salt hangs on. I hate the salt. It’s become an enemy. I try not to look at it. I’m almost happy when the ocean laps at the salt pockets, dissolving them back into the sea. My throat aches, and more than anything else in the world, I want water. I look at my hand. The small wound has become infected. I can see yellow pus surrounding the gash. I touch it.

“Does it hurt?” Landon asks.

He’s seated at the other end of raft. He’s perched on a side, which requires more balance, but it keeps him elevated above the floor. He’s been watching me.

“It hurts a little,” I say. “But I’ll be fine.”

“I know you will,” he says.

I want to ask him how much he drank. Sores are breaking out on his face and arms. I’m worried that he’s going to become dehydrated faster than the rest of us. Why were the guys drinking at all? That was so stupid. I look away from Landon. Next to him is Burr, seated beside Skate. Anger floods over me when I look at Burr and Skate. This is all their fault. I hate them. It was their party. It was their ship. It was their beer. It was their stupidity. Burr sees me watching him.

“What?” he asks. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

I turn to face the water.

“What’s wrong with you?” Burr asks. His voice is thinner than usual and very tense.

“I wasn’t looking at you,” I say.

“You totally were staring at Burr. I saw you,” Dale says.

I shrug my shoulders.

“Sorry,” I say.

I continue to watch the water. Everybody’s nerves are on edge. I need to be careful. I’ve taken two semesters of psychology, and I know that under the right conditions, anybody can lose it. Under duress, anybody has the potential to become dangerous. And this is duress to the nth degree.

“The Coast Guard will be here before nightfall,” Burr says.

“You think so?” Wick asks.

“I’m sure of it,” Burr says. “If there’s one thing you can count on in life, it’s the Coast Guard.”

Skate moans, and Burr tries to soothe him by rubbing his shoulder. Skate sleeps more than he’s awake. His head isn’t bleeding anymore, but the wound is infected. I think back to the gash before Burr wrapped it. It’s worse than the cut on my hand. Like the kind of wound you’d expect to see on a death-marked character in a movie about the apocalypse, not the kind of injury you’d expect to see blooming on the back of your childhood friend’s head. He needs antibiotics. He needs a doctor. But these things are hours and hours and hours away. I don’t want my mind to arrive at this, but it does. Without medical attention, without water, how many hours does Skate have left? I feel sad and helpless. I’ve arrived at a level of despair that is lower than anything I’ve ever felt.

I imagine that my mind is a television and I turn it to another channel. After spending a few minutes looking at my thumb, trying to will it to heal itself, I turn to the water again. I see something. It’s floating next to the raft and looks like a heap of garbage. I set my shoe beside me and lean over the side. I think it’s seaweed. I reach carefully, snatch up a fibrous bundle of it, and pull a dripping line on board.

“What are you doing?” Dale asks. “What are you putting in the raft?”

“Can we eat it?” I ask Munny. It has the appearance of canned spinach mixed with large grapes, except it’s much tougher and browned.

“It’s full of salt,” Munny says. “It would dehydrate us.”

I’m holding the messy rope of seaweed in my arms. It’s hard for me to put it back in the ocean. Then, an orange leaf of it breaks off and plops on the raft’s bottom. The leaf sprouts legs and begins rowing itself sideways toward my foot. It’s a crab. I scream. I don’t scream because I’m afraid of it, but because I wasn’t expecting it.

“Get it out of the raft,” Dale says.

“Enid, toss it over,” Landon says. “It’s sargassum weed and it’s full of sargasso crabs.”

Then, as if it were possible to rain tender, damp crabs, the seaweed releases a dozen of them. They drip onto the raft’s floor and begin to swim toward our legs. I guess they’re looking for cover. I reach down and pick up the one closest to my foot. I pinch its body between my thumb and index finger. “This crap is full of them,” Burr says.

“Wait, isn’t sargasso weed what Atlantic Ridley sea turtles swim to after they’re born? We could eat sea turtles,” Munny says.

His comment jogs my mind. On a trip to Florida with my family, at an aquarium, Landon and I learned all about the endangered Ridley sea turtles. After hatching from eggs on shore, they leave the beach and swim out to sea. They spend the first year or more of their lives drifting in the sargassum rafts that gather in the Gulf Stream. Munny reaches into the sea and grabs for more of the brown weed. There aren’t any turtles.

“Drink my own pee. Eat live turtles. I can’t do this,” Dale says.

I’m a little relieved that Munny doesn’t find any. Ridley turtles are endangered, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable eating a protected species.

“They look like grapes,” Landon says, fingering a cluster of gas-filled bladders.

“Get it off the raft,” Burr says. He flings another crab out to sea.

“Wait,” Munny says. “We might be able to eat those.”

I’m still holding a sargasso crab between my fingertips. I drop it onto the floor and watch it wriggle in the water, trying to acclimate to its own buoyancy. It reminds me of a spider, one of God’s worst creations.

“Live crabs?” Dale asks.

“We can do this,” Wick says.

I nod my head. “Right.”

We’ve passed through the patch of seaweed, and it’s really too late to reconsider grabbing more, so we focus on the small crabs that remain swimming in the raft. We fish through the raft water with our hands and pick them up.

“But they’ve been in the crap water,” Dale says.

“Just eat it,” Wick says.

“Wait,” Landon says. “Does everybody have one?”

“Skate doesn’t have one,” Burr says. “I’ll give him mine.”

“No,” Dale says. “I’ve got two.”

How Dale went from decrying that he’d never eat a crab to become the sole person holding two both surprises me and does not surprise me.

“Give me your hand,” Dale says.

Skate lifts his hand and it trembles. The flesh around his fingernails is white. The seawater is rotting our skin; it’s dissolving us. And Skate looks worse than any of us.

“Just put it in his mouth,” Burr says.

Skate opens his mouth and Dale delivers the crab to his awaiting tongue.

“Should I kill it first?” Dale asks.

“Pinch it hard and it will die,” I say. How did I know that? How did I suddenly become a dispenser of knowledge for how to kill crabs and feed them to your friends?

Dale pinches the crab and a clear fluid runs down his thumb. Dale quickly lifts his hand to his mouth and catches the drip. “Son of a bitch, it’s salt.” He lowers the crab to Skate’s open mouth and flicks it onto his tongue. Skate closes his mouth and chews.

“Good job,” Burr says.

Once Skate is fed, I hurry to eat my own crab. I don’t kill mine before I put it in my mouth. It moves across my teeth and it cracks when I bite it. It doesn’t taste like anything. My mouth isn’t making saliva. It’s hard to chew. It’s hard to swallow. My teeth are sore. So are my gums. I wish I were eating pudding.

“I’m bleeding,” Dale says. He opens his mouth and blood stains his teeth.

“We’re dehydrated,” Munny says.

“Jesus, eating these crabs was a rotten idea.” Dale points his finger at me. “Don’t tell me what to do ever again.”

“Don’t yell at Enid,” Wick says.

“We’re eating seaweed and crabs,” Dale says. “It’s gonna kill us.”

“We’re not eating the seaweed,” Sov says.

“Could everybody just shut up for five seconds so I can have time to think!” Burr says.

I wasn’t expecting this explosion of anger from him. I stop breathing. He glares so hard at Sov that it makes me uncomfortable and I turn away. I see a fin lowering itself below the surface. I had no idea there were this many sharks left in the world.

“That seaweed brought more water on board.” Burr kicks at the water gathered in the raft. “Skate can’t sit in the corrosive crap. Ask before you haul anything else on the raft. Can you do that, Enid?”

I nod. I don’t know why Burr is so mad at me. We all were able to eat a crab because of what I did. I look at everyone else’s face. Sov and Munny are staring into the water. Landon looks at me and weakly smiles. Dale is focused on his own mouth, touching it with his fingers, checking them for blood. Skate’s head droops onto his chest. I think he’s asleep. Wick takes my hand and squeezes it. I don’t turn to look at him. I think if I did, it would make me cry. Not that I actually could.

I can’t make sense of Burr’s anger. The rage behind what he says stings me, and I feel like I’m absorbing a punch. I knew Dale had anger issues, but not Burr. Learning this makes him feel like a stranger to me. I try to think of him as the version I know. If I do that, I’m not afraid of him. I know the “twin group,” and they are all good guys. Burr and Skate may have their problems. Dale, of course, is a total ass, but nobody in our group would hurt me. Or themselves. Or anybody else. Not intentionally.

I wonder when our parents will know that anyone besides me is missing? Will the Coast Guard tell them? The guys aren’t expected back for three more days, but my mother will be tearing apart the world to find me. She knows me. Eventually she’ll figure out that I didn’t drive to Canada or check into a youth hostel. She’ll realize what I did and she’ll drive down looking for me. She’ll drive to Burr and Skate’s uncle’s house. He’ll be the one who tells her we took the boat out. Wait! How come none of us have thought of this? He had to see that the boat was missing. When the guys didn’t come back, he had to put two and two together. He must have called the Coast Guard. They
are
looking for us.

I lift my head. I can’t wait to tell the guys. “The uncle!”

“What?” Wick asks.

“Burr and Skate’s uncle. When you guys didn’t come back, he must have looked for you. I bet he went to the dock and saw the empty slip. He must have called the Coast Guard.” I reach down and touch Wick’s hand. Energy I didn’t know I had surges through me. I am so happy. I smile. I have hope again.

But nobody else seems the least bit excited by my revelation.

“Their uncle Bennett is out of town,” Dale says softly. “He won’t be back for another week.”

I tumble down my ladder of happiness and fall lower than I was before. Wick squeezes my hand, but it hurts my thumb and I pull away.

“You guys were lying about staying with the uncle?” I ask. “Mom would never have let you come if she knew you were down here with zero adult supervision.”

“Which was sort of the point of the lie,” Dale says.

“The Coast Guard is looking for us even without Uncle Bennett,” Landon says.

“Yeah,” Burr says. “I gave them our coordinates. But it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

Even with our coordinates? I think. I study Burr’s expression. He doesn’t look nervous. He looks tired.

“No!” Landon yells.

Notch rams the side of the raft hard, almost dumping us into the ocean. I want to think that he’s just curious. But every time the fish approaches us, his tight jaws loosen and I can see rows and rows of teeth. But what’s most disturbing is the way he looks at us. Right before Notch strikes us, a third lid slips down to protect his hollow-looking eyes. They’re solid black, and there’s no feeling there. He’s just a hungry mouth attached to some fins.

“I hate their eyes,” I say.

“They have a nictitating membrane to protect them when they attack,” Munny says.

“I know. I can see it,” I say.

Before I even know what I’m doing, I take my shoe and pitch it at Notch. It bounces off his flat head. It floats for a moment, ducklike, and then Notch opens his mouth, dives on top of it, and takes it under. The water where Notch went down foams a pale blue.

“What the hell?” Burr asks. “Don’t tempt them.”

“Dude, that’s messed up,” Dale says.

“Leave her alone,” Wick says. “It’s okay, Enid.”

“Why did you do that?” Landon asks.

“I don’t know,” I say.

I fold my arms and bow my head like I’m going to pray. Notch resurfaces and rubs against the raft. If I wanted to, if any of us wanted to, we could reach out and touch his rough gray skin.

“Dude, no more messing with the sharks,” Dale says.

“She won’t do it again. Will you, Enid?” Landon asks.

I shake my head no. Wick rubs the back of my neck and tells me again that it’s okay. But it’s not okay. I look at my bare feet. They’re submerged in the raft’s filthy water. I wished that I hadn’t thrown away my only shoe. Even if it was an impractical pump, it was something. I’m so tired, I let my hand go slack and I lose Wick’s grip. I think of the road signs I passed on the drive down from Vermont.
MARYLAND CHERISHES ITS WATERSHEDS
and
NO ILLEGAL DUMPING. $25, 000 FINE.
I just illegally dumped my shoe. That’s a $25, 000 offense. Why did I do that? Then the answer hits me, and I feel like I’m going to be sick. I threw my shoe because I’m going crazy. I’m losing it. I could be the first one to die.