Stranded (11 page)

Isaac held up his hand. “No wind.” He pulled the tackle box out and a broken rod (something we had been able to salvage) and started to walk out of the campsite, down toward the beach.

“Where are you going?”

“To get breakfast.”

“Now? It's still early.”

“Might take a while.” Isaac didn't look back.

“We need a plan,” I said.

He turned around and jabbed the reel at me. “This is my plan.”

“Fishing?”

“We need food. We need water. Right now, that's
my
plan.” That was the cue for me to go do something useful. There wasn't too much on the list. More wood for the fire. We had a metal cook pot that I could use to boil water in. If Isaac couldn't catch any fish—and I seriously doubted he would—then at least I could get water ready. We still had instant oatmeal. A few granola bars.

I could get wood. I could find some worms, maybe find a few fat night crawlers. Fish like to eat worms. And after I made a pile of dry logs, I would hunt along the shore and see what kind of bugs I could find, though I hoped we wouldn't have to resort to eating bugs any time soon. A plane had to come today, didn't it? We needed to make sure it saw us when it flew over.

Suddenly I knew exactly what my plan was.

I jumped up and brushed my filthy hands down the front of my equally filthy pants. Wood. I was going to need a lot more wood. I headed in the direction of a large pine, halfway up the rise from the beach, standing out from the surrounding maples like a lighthouse in a green sea. Time to get busy.

*  *  *

Oscar thought the raft project was a good idea, and after we made a signal flag with Chloe's pink T-shirt, we spent the next hour scouring the woods by the beach, finding the right-size logs and branches. I stared at the row of dead tree limbs, wondering how to turn it into some sort of float we could push out into the lake, something a plane would see. We planned to write the word “HELP” on it.

There were two main problems:

How to write “HELP” on a bunch of logs.

How to tie the logs together to make a raft.

“Dirt?” I suggested. “Mud? Sticks?”

“How will it show up, though?”

“Use the white aspens? We could make some mud and stick moss on it?”

Oscar's forehead wrinkles smoothed out. “Yeah, that's a good idea.”

“We still need rope.”

“How about we cut some fabric into strips. I have extra clothes.”

I pulled out my blade, the edge dark and dull-looking. “This won't cut it.”

Oscar swept his hand through his hair, thinking. “We need to sharpen it somehow.”

“Rocks?”

“What kind would work?”

“I don't know,” I admitted. “I don't even know how to do it.”
I sat down, tired and achy. I couldn't think. “I feel like crap.”

Oscar grabbed his canteen. “Thirsty?”

“Yeah.” I drained the rest of my canteen, but my head still pounded.

“Where's Isaac?” Chloe asked.

“Still out there.”

“Catch anything?”

“Nope. Not even weeds.” Oscar sat down and tugged off his sweatshirt.

“Do you think this will work?” Chloe flexed her ankle, then rolled it in circles, frowning. It was still swollen, but the discoloration had faded. I took that as a good sign. She pulled her sock over the wrap. “Are we going to build a signal fire, too?”

Only a few wispy clouds were stretched across the blue. “Yeah, something smoky so the planes see it.”

“I don't see any planes,” I said.

But as I finished speaking, I heard a buzz. The vibrating hum grew behind me.

“Wait.” I held up my hand, suddenly nervous. Yes. The sound got louder. “I can't believe it! I think I hear one!” Relief flushed my face.

“Get the fire going!” Oscar made a dash back to the lake, presumably to go tell Isaac.

“How do I make it smoke?” I yelled after him.

Chloe looked around. “Something damp. Something green. Something that doesn't want to burn.” She hopped forward
on her good foot, gaining balance. “I'll go signal at the lake.” She stuck the hot pink T-shirt flag under one arm, grabbed the stick she'd been using as a crutch with the other, and vaulted herself back down the sandy trail. “Hurry, Emma!”

“Okay!”
Why didn't I think of that? What's wrong with my brain?
“Do you need help?”

“I'm good!” She hobbled around a bush, and I had to smile. Her voice bubbled with excitement. Today we would get out of here, the excitement said. Today we would go home. “You get that fire smoking!”

I fed the flames with bright yellow maple leaves. Dew-covered pinecones. Fresh green, bendy aspen branches. Chloe was right. The fire smoked. I added more, shoveling bits of damp moss in the cracks of the tepee with my stick.

The mechanical whir grew louder. It had to be a plane. As I glanced up, it passed over, white-and-silver belly flashing in the sunlight. Red-painted wings. It was a small bush plane, flying low, buzzing the treetops like a gigantic metal bug.

Smoke belched up in thick white plumes. The plane had to see it.

More pinecones. More leaves. The flames sank.

Where is everyone?
I ran over to the trees; Chloe stood knee deep in the water, her sweatpants pushed up to mid-thigh, waving her pink flag like a bullfighter. Despite not being able to walk, or maybe because of it, all her energy pulsed out of her arms and shoulders.

I looked farther down the shore. Oscar was running, waving his hands like Chloe, but Isaac didn't move. I squinted, watching him cast and reel in the line.
Does he even know what
he's doing?
Why did he have to go halfway around the lake to fish?

The sky was quiet. Would the plane make another pass? I could hear my blood pound in my ears. That was all.
Did it see us? It must have seen us. It had to have seen us.

“Dodd!”

I turned away from Chloe's flapping pink shirt dance. “What?”
How long have I been standing here?

Isaac clutched his tackle box to his chest, his reel trembling in his hand. He was breathing hard, probably sprinted the whole way back. “What are you
doing
?”

“Making the fire smoke.” I gripped a clump of moss in my fist and looked down. No red embers left at the base.

Isaac dropped his stuff. “Smoke my ass! You put the damn thing out!”

“It'll come back,” Oscar said, trying to calm him.

“Dammit!” Isaac ran his hand through his hair. It stuck straight up. He jogged back into the trees to find dry wood.

“I was trying to make it smoke,” I told Oscar, my face flushing. Isaac had the amazing ability to make me feel like an idiot.

“Well, you definitely succeeded,” Oscar said.

A plume of mossy smoke hit my face. “Do you think they saw us?”

“I hope so. I'm sure they saw Chloe. That shirt is pretty bright.”

“So now what?”

“I guess we wait.” Oscar looked at me expectantly. “The plane will probably radio back. It can't land up here.”

“Do you think they'll send one of those boat planes that can land in the water?”

“Maybe. But this lake might be too small to land on.”

I narrowed my eyes. The widest part looked almost four hundred yards across. Surely a small plane could land on it?

Oscar kept watching me, then he held out his hand.

“What?”

“How much food do we have left?”

“Not much. Only the oatmeal. Maybe a little pickle relish and mustard.” My dizziness returned.
Probably inhaling too much smoke
. I turned away before Oscar cut in. “I'm going to go get Chloe and see if she needs any help.” I took my time on the walk down to the beach, my boots shuffling slowly in the sand, and filled my lung with breaths of clean air. In a few seconds the dizziness was gone, like it had never happened. Here and gone.
Just like the plane
.

“It's been hours.”

“Three.”

“It's been three hours.”

“I know. I just said that.”

“I hope they're on their way.”

“I'm sure they are.”

“Because it's been hours.”

Oscar and Chloe kept recycling this conversation. But I understood it. It was hard to be still or quiet; the silence pressed around us like an invisible wall, punctured intermittently by a bird chirp.

I watched the raft as it drifted listlessly toward the center of the lake, and only now, from this distance, did I realize how small and pathetic it appeared. If a plane did fly over, would they even see it? Would they recognize it for what it was? I squinted fiercely, unconvinced, and sighed. All we
wanted to hear was another plane, but it was like that old saying my mom was fond of, the one about watching a pot that doesn't boil. So Chloe kept talking, her way of not watching, as if the more we pretended not to notice, the faster things would happen.

The afternoon dragged, regardless. Isaac didn't want to listen to us, so he went back to “fishing,” which meant he moved his spot even farther down the shore.

Thinking about the possibility of fish increased that dull stabbing in my stomach, so I concentrated on poking my stick in the fire.
All we have left is oatmeal. How long can we go without food before we get too weak to function? Too weak to try to hike out. A few days?
I had hardly ever gone more than a few hours without something to eat, let alone a few days.

I turned over the small charred pieces with my stick, stirring up the embers. The light smoke kept the mosquitoes away, and I took that time to sit down and check for ticks. I peeled down my socks. Nothing on my ankles, but those little black deer ticks were the ones I was worried about and the hardest to see. Where I lived, Lyme disease was scarier than influenza.

When I was done with my examination, I peeled off my flannel and shook it out, sending waves of dust and grit into the breeze. It stank of smoke; I should wash it. I should wash myself. Rubbing a palm down my hair, I was certain I could grease a cookie sheet. I hated feeling like this, sour and dirty. I would have made a horrible pioneer.

“Where's the soap?” I asked.

“I have it.” Chloe dug a square green plastic case from her pack and snapped it open. “It looks brand new.” She sniffed it. “What's that smell?”

Oscar took a whiff. “Old Spice.”

“Yuck.”

“Well, it's probably better than what I smell like,” I said. “I definitely need to use it.”

Oscar tugged his shirt away from his chest. “I think we all do.”

I looked at him. His face was streaked with soot, his hair disheveled in a way that some people spent a lot of time and money to achieve. If anything, he looked better than he should, and my face grew hot as I caught myself staring at the ring of dirt on his neck.

“This is all we got.” Chloe tossed me the case and grinned. “Don't drop the soap.”

“Yeah.” The bar was a swirl of red and white. It did smell like Old Spice, definitely better than smelling like sweat, smoke, and BO. I wondered if it would wash my clothes as well as my body.

“There's a little beach over there.” Oscar pointed in the opposite direction from where Isaac had gone.

“Oh. Okay, thanks.” I didn't like the idea of Isaac and me sharing a beach, and I hoped it would be far enough away that he wouldn't be able to see me, at least not any detailed images. I certainly didn't need to put any ideas into his head.
I shook my own, resigned to the knowledge that they were probably already in there anyway, grabbed a towel, and headed down to the shoreline.

I trudged along the sand until I reached a spot that was wider, almost like a small half-moon inlet. The water was clear. No weeds or sludge that I could see, and smooth pebbly rocks studded the sand. This was probably the best it was going to get, so I got undressed (but kept my underwear on) behind a leafy dogwood and debated whether I should wash my clothes. I had a pair of sweats, a couple of T-shirts, a down vest, underwear and socks, and of course my red flannel shirt with half the bottom cut off. I also had a pair of quick-dry Columbia pants that zipped off at the knee, the ones I was currently using.

I pulled my hair out of the bun. Despite keeping it pulled back, it was a snarly mess, hanging in greasy lank waves past my shoulders.

I slid on the only surviving pair of flip-flops, and with a bottle of shampoo in one hand, the soap in the other, I slowly waded into the lake, gritting my teeth. It was cold. Not freakishly cold, but cold enough so it hurt.

Just get it over with.

I dropped down, submerging myself. Underwater I gasped. When I stood up again, my skin was glowing pink, and my heart was beating like a jackhammer. The water cascaded down my back in a sheet, making me feel strangely happy. I quickly washed my hair, both the bottle and bar of
soap floating next to me, and scrubbed my skin until it felt like a layer was missing. Even though I knew I was contaminating the water, I was too dirty to worry about it. Surely one bath wouldn't hurt? I peeled off a sliver of soap with my fingernail and used it to wash my clothes. Then I rinsed everything and my wad of clothes, turned, and swam back to shore.

“Hey, Dodd.” Isaac smiled, wolfish. He leaned against a pine tree like he owned it, holding my towel. “Whatcha wearing?”

I crouched down so the water hit my chin. “What are
you
doing here?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even. “I thought you were fishing.”

“Fish weren't really biting.” His smile slid wider across his face. “And I thought maybe I would take a bath, but someone took my soap.”

“Here.” I tossed the soap at him from my squat, but it hit the sand at the water's edge. Isaac walked forward and picked it up. “Now give me my towel.”