Taken by Storm (5 page)
Authors: Angela Morrison
Tags: #Social Issues, #Dating & Sex, #Christian, #Friendship, #Juvenile Fiction, #Sports & Recreation, #General, #Religious, #Water Sports, #Death & Dying
The school’s English teacher/librarian/volleyball coach, Mrs. D, is making us read
Hamlet
out loud. Kiss of death boring. She feels compelled to explain what’s going on after every stupid line. Everyone would much rather just watch the movie—even that four-hour marathon one—except the staring chick from physics. Staring Chick is way into it. She reads that archaic gibberish out like the words mean something. Mrs. D gets her to play Hamlet every day. At least the woman doesn’t torture us by making one of the jocks read it. Or call on me.
Hamlet
out loud. Kiss of death boring. She feels compelled to explain what’s going on after every stupid line. Everyone would much rather just watch the movie—even that four-hour marathon one—except the staring chick from physics. Staring Chick is way into it. She reads that archaic gibberish out like the words mean something. Mrs. D gets her to play Hamlet every day. At least the woman doesn’t torture us by making one of the jocks read it. Or call on me.
After the scene with the ghost, poor Mrs. D tries to provoke the class into a discussion. “Is the ghost good or bad?”
Nobody says anything.
“Should Hamlet obey it?”
Staring Chick puts up her hand. She’s wearing her hair down long today. Looks lighter, more sun-streaked, than when she hides it in a ponytail. The teacher nods for her to begin.
“I think Shakespeare messed up with that ghost.”
Mrs. D grins at her. “Do you think the Bard messes up often?”
“No. Look at Romeo and Juliet. He totally tapped into the innate desire everyone has for a passion so consuming you’d rather die than live without your beloved.”
DeeDee snorts to a football jock drooling next to her. “Like she knows anything about passion.”
Staring Chick’s cheeks go red like when i catch her staring at me every freaking day. “The ghost just isn’t convincing. Spirits aren’t like that. They are bright and beautiful and emanate goodness.”
DeeDee’s jock, i think his name’s Troy, snorts. “You been holding séances?”
Mrs. D ignores him, focuses on Staring Chick. “So Hamlet is right to doubt?”
“I guess so.” She purses her lips. Thinking? Pouting? I don’t know. She could be getting ready to kiss the teacher. Or spit at that jock. She’s got nice lips. Full enough. I don’t like skinny lips. If you’re into someone, it probably doesn’t matter if her lips don’t look pink and wet like Staring Chick’s, but it helps.
Mrs. D is droning. “So you are saying Hamlet is right to doubt and wrong to act? Is he wrong to avenge his father?”
“It just leads to a pile of dead bodies.” The sun from the classroom window makes Staring Chick’s hair glow.
DeeDee frowns. “Hey, don’t ruin the ending.”
Mrs. D walks over to Staring Chick and stands right in front of her desk. “But isn’t this a tragedy?”
“Okay.” Staring Chick shakes her hair back and gives the teacher a friendly grin. Makes her pretty—that smile. “The ghost serves a dramatic purpose, but—”
The teacher raises her eyebrows, takes a step back to include the rest of the class.
Staring Chick continues. “Hamlet and Ophelia were in love.” Her eyes look blue today. “Maybe as much as Romeo and Juliet.”
“Cool, do they get it on?” Troy flips ahead in the text searching for a skin scene.
Staring Chick turns away from him like he’s garbage on the roadside. “The ghost ruined that. They didn’t get to marry and have children.” Her voice is intense.“Hamlet could have been a great king.”
“Tragic?” Mrs. D delivers the winning blow.
Staring Chick drops her head. Her hair curtains her face so i can’t see if it’s even pinker now.
Mrs. D moves in for the kill. “So Shakespeare didn’t mess up?”
DeeDee and Troy smirk. Everyone else is zoned.
Mrs. D raps on a desk for attention. “Anybody else want to weigh in?”
DeeDee raises her hand. “I loved a guy like that for two whole weeks. It is pretty cool. Especially the passion.”
“Ouch, you’re slaying me, Dee.” Troy winks, and she licks her lips like she wants him for lunch.
Mrs. D’s losing the class. That’s what she gets for turning on Staring Chick. They’re usually allies. Remind me not to dis the Bard around her.
“Let’s get back to
Hamlet
.” She dumbs it down. “Ghost: good or bad?”
Hamlet
.” She dumbs it down. “Ghost: good or bad?”
Troy doesn’t bother to put up his hand. “I think the ghost was good. He wanted justice. That’s good. Hamlet should do what he says. Anything else is wimping out. Getting even. That’s what it’s all about.”
Staring Chick’s head goes up. Her mouth is set in a firm line. “Regardless of the consequences?”
“Who cares about consequences?” DeeDee jiggles for Troy.
“Michael.” The teacher catches me sitting up, listening. “Did you want to add something?”
i shake my head and put it back down on the desk trying not to think about consequences and what they’ve done to me lately. To my parents, my dive buds, even that waitress i barely knew. That night at the crab fest, her hands shook as she served us platters of steaming crab. She didn’t look hot with her eyes red and puffy, mascara leaking down her face. When she left our table, Dive Dog leaned in and whispered, “I heard her in the hall crying to the captain. She wanted to get off the boat.”
“Her kids are in Belize City at her mom’s. She’s scared for them.” i grabbed a big crab claw. “Give her a break.”
Dad gave me a sympathetic look, had spied me chatting her up earlier.
“Poor thing.” Mom watched the girl spill beer at the next table.
Dad and i descended into the pile of steaming legs, cracking the claws, ripping the joints, breaking the long sections in two, sliding fat chunks from the shell, swirling the sweet meat in butter. Inhaling the whole platter. We both went for the last leg. With a quick jerk, i tore it out of his hands. He shook his head and smiled at Mom. “When are you going to teach this boy respect?”
i laughed—we all did. i squirted Mom when i broke the leg open. She frowned, wiped her face, leaned forward. “Hold still.” She reached to wipe the butter dripping down my chin.
i pulled back, wiped it with my own napkin, still steaming over her new free-dive rules.
The
Festiva
jerked against her moorings, and the waitress stumbled, spilling a platter of crab legs. The captain scowled at her while she scooped them back on the platter and hurried out of the salon to get a fresh tray. i wondered if he’d let her call home. She looked so scared. He should have let her leave. i should have said something. Told the jerk off. But we had a platter of crab to deal with, and everything would be fine, right?
Festiva
jerked against her moorings, and the waitress stumbled, spilling a platter of crab legs. The captain scowled at her while she scooped them back on the platter and hurried out of the salon to get a fresh tray. i wondered if he’d let her call home. She looked so scared. He should have let her leave. i should have said something. Told the jerk off. But we had a platter of crab to deal with, and everything would be fine, right?
Wrong.
She’s dead now. So is Mom, Dad, Dive Dog. Everybody in that dining salon except me and the stupid, imbecile captain, who should have let her go, is dead.
That’s consequences for you. Party on, friends. You’re invincible.
But now you’re dead.
chapter 7
TRIPPING
MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #8
Stuck on a stupid field trip. i wanted to ditch it, but i was dumb and slept last night. i woke up at 2 a.m., covered in a layer of cold sweat, twisted in the pants quilt, shaking from a nightmare. Mom was in it, sinking, breathing in water, screaming my name as she drowned. That didn’t happen. It couldn’t. There was nothing i could do.
i had to get away from that bed, Dad’s old room, Gram, that hideous crack in the wall, the
why
s and
what
s that ricochet in my head. Two hours on a school bus that smells of baked dust watching DeeDee make out with half the football team brings me to Grand Coulee Dam.
why
s and
what
s that ricochet in my head. Two hours on a school bus that smells of baked dust watching DeeDee make out with half the football team brings me to Grand Coulee Dam.
The pound of falling water, the sweet liquid scent pours through me as soon as i get off the bus. i didn’t think about hearing it, seeing it, smelling it again. i probably wouldn’t have come.
The dam itself is worth seeing. Massive. The old guy who guides our tour says his father helped build it.
“We were starving to death down in a California Hoover-ville. I can remember picking fruit for ten cents a day. Ten lousy cents. We come up here. Dad got a job pouring. Big man, my father. Strong as an ox. Had to be. Still, it took him and a couple of others to tip those buckets. They come out swinging on a gondola. Timing had to be just right or you’d have a whale of a time. My dad was the best.”
Big man. The best. Can’t this guy talk about something else? Not dads. Especially big ones. Best ones. Dead ones.
Stan called again last night. Recovery divers got Dad’s body out of the wreck. i’m supposed to be relieved, but why? What are we going to do with a toxic, waterlogged body? Seemed to make a difference to Gram. i didn’t get a chance to talk to Stan about a coffin and bringing the body back before she took the phone. She shut herself in her room and talked a long time.
“This dam saved our lives.” The wiry old man reels off some facts about its size, something about three times bigger than the Great Pyramid.
Why didn’t someone, something save our lives? Why didn’t we just get off that stupid boat and find someplace like this? Isadore’s surge was just thirty feet high. Grand Coulee Dam is a thousand feet high, a mile across the river, concrete, reinforced with steel. A safe place to be in a storm.
The jerk teacher, Taylor, makes us watch
A Century of Water for the West
in the visitors’ center. Then we eat lunch in a grassy picnic area that overlooks the dam. Benches, seagulls, bored kids sprawling all over the place. What a treat.
A Century of Water for the West
in the visitors’ center. Then we eat lunch in a grassy picnic area that overlooks the dam. Benches, seagulls, bored kids sprawling all over the place. What a treat.
The river cascades down the dam’s concrete face, churning into white foam at the bottom. i don’t freak. Crap. Maybe i’m as numb to water as i was to DeeDee. No. There it is. i feel the pull. The rushing wet of it. i need to get closer.
i walk to the edge of the overlook where seagulls squawk on black stone lumps and scan, searching for a way down. i break off a chunk of sandwich and chuck it. Gram packed me tuna. Mom would faint. The birds scream and fight, flapping around the spot where it lands. A couple of greedy gulls about take my hand off vying for more. i throw the whole smelly thing at them.
“Aren’t you hungry?” intrudes from behind me.
i turn around. Staring Chick is sitting cross-legged on a bench a few feet behind me with a vintage suede jacket draped on her shoulders. She’s never actually said anything to me before. At school she just rants in class and sits on the stage reading or scribbling in a notebook. Her hair is long again today.
“i don’t eat tuna.” i turn back to face the river.
Staring Chick joins me, dumps potato chip crumbs on the rocks for the gulls to fight over. “I boycott my mom’s tuna casserole every week.” She pulls a Save the Dolphins necklace from under her T-shirt and jingles it—half smiles.
i start to tell her to get lost and, by the way, quit staring at me all the time, but she smells nice. Tropical hair stuff. Baby powder. Old suede leather. Freaks me that i can stand here with the scent of water all around me for the first time since Belize and breathe in this girl. Maybe i’m not completely wrecked. She shakes her hair back, nervous, releasing more intoxicating tropical vapor and a full-blown smile that really does make her beautiful.
“Do you think anybody dives down there?” i nod toward the river far below.
“You mean right off this cliff? That’d be crazy.”
“Scuba.” i know this is just a river. Lousy conditions. Currents. No vis. But it’s wetter than a wheat field.
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