The Raft (7 page)

You may get water from fish. Drink the aqueous fluid found along the spine and in the eyes of large fish.

“Ew.” I would have to be really desperate for that to happen, that’s for sure.

Watch the clouds, and be ready for any chance of rain. Keep the tarpaulin ready for catching water.

“That might be nice if
I HAD A STUPID TARPAULIN!
”

Apparently, the Survival at Sea people assumed you would be equipped with things needed in order to survive at sea.

Idiots.

I shoved the card back in the ditty bag without reading any more.

Looking further, I found a red single-subject spiral notebook, curved to the shape of the ditty bag. I glanced at the words on the cover, frowned, and fanned the pages. They were full of handwriting, but it was definitely an invasion of privacy. If Max wanted me to know what was in there, he would tell me. I glanced down at him, his face still serene.

Still, I put the notebook back without reading any of it. Inside the ditty bag was one more thing, something red. I reached in and pulled it out.

I whooped when I saw what it was.

twenty-three

Despite my major thirst, my mouth began watering immediately.

A king-size bag of Skittles.

My gaze went to Max.

I swallowed.

Would he share when he woke up? He didn’t owe me anything. He’d already saved my life.

He could have told me the first night. “Hey, we’re adrift at sea, but I have Skittles.”

Taste the rainbow
.

My heart beat faster as I licked my lips.

Taste the rainbow.

He’d had plenty of time to tell me about them.

Taste the rainbow.

The truth was, he had been hiding the only food on the raft from me.

Taste the rainbow.

“Screw you, Max.” Carefully spreading my sweatshirt in my lap, I gently tore open the bag of Skittles and shook them out onto my shirt.

At first, I could only stare as my heart pounded.

Then I counted them.

One hundred and seven all together.

Sorting them into piles by color with a trembling hand, I counted again.

Thirteen red.

Twenty-three yellow.

Twenty-two orange.

Thirty-two green.

Seventeen purple.

I didn’t like purple Skittles. They tasted like really bad grape juice. Max could have all of those. I would fight him for the green and the orange though. They were my favorites.

There was one deformed orange Skittle.

I didn’t think Max would mind whether I ate the bad one.

Did I even care what Max did or didn’t mind?

My hesitation was momentary before I popped it in my mouth and sucked, trying to make the fruitiness last as long as possible. The rest I put back in the Skittles bag, one by one, then put that into the ditty bag and zipped it up before replacing it.

Dumb.

He’d know as soon as he saw the Skittles bag that I’d been in his stuff.

But I didn’t really care. My mouth still tasted of orange candy. I opened my hand. My fingers, still wet and wrinkled, had the colors of the rainbow all over them. I licked my palm, then, one at a time, I stuck my fingers in my mouth and sucked, savoring. And getting rid of the evidence.

My butt was wet. Time to bail again.

twenty-four

I managed to clear just about all the water out of the raft. Probably not dry enough for the Survival at Sea people, but, hey, it was the best I could do.

The sun beat down, and I put the damp hoodie on top of my head to keep the hot rays off my face. Max’s face was uncovered, so I took his T-shirt, sopped from lying in the wet bottom of the raft, and draped it over him. Hopefully it wouldn’t result in any saltwater boils.

I shut my eyes and, before I knew it, was waking up. My throat was dry and my stomach still rumbled. The sun was still up, but lower in the sky and, once again, I was sitting in water.

I leaned over to check on Max.

He was gone.

“Max!”

Shading my eyes, I scanned the ocean around the raft. “Max!”

Oh my God, what have I done?

“Max!” I screamed his name until I was hoarse and the water in the raft had gotten too deep to ignore any longer. I started some frantic bailing as I kept calling for Max and my thoughts raced.

“Max!”

He’s in the life jacket, he won’t sink. He’ll be okay.

“Max!”

He’ll wake up and come after me.

“Max!”

The current will bring him the same way.

Won’t it?

Wouldn’t he be here if that were true?

I shook the thoughts away so I could concentrate on the bailing. Then I could focus on getting Max back.

Soon, it became clear that my efforts were not going to be enough. I was not going to be able to bail enough to empty out the raft. The best thing would be to get out, flip the raft and empty the water, then get back in.

There wasn’t another life jacket, which meant I would have to stay afloat by hanging on to the raft. Steeling myself, I put one foot over the side and into the water.

And froze.

There was no way. I could not get in that water.

I pulled my foot back in and sat down. The water in the raft continued to rise beneath me. I knew there was no choice, so I stuck my foot over the side again. This time, it stayed for a few minutes before I pulled it back in.

No way was I getting out of that raft on my own.

I would stay there until it sank beneath the waves, taking me with it for good. I needed something to make me feel better, something to make me feel like I wasn’t stuck in a raft by myself in the middle of the godforsaken ocean.

Grabbing Max’s bag, I unzipped it, snatching out the bag of Skittles. Shaking some into my palm, I slammed them into my mouth, chewing, tasting every flavor, not even minding the grape. As soon as I swallowed those, I downed another handful before noticing the bag was half empty.

My mouth dropped open. “Oh my God.”

What was I doing? The candy belonged to Max.

And for the time being, at least, it was our only food.

Was I already going crazy from the sun and the thirst? Was this how long it had taken the survivors of the
Indianapolis
to lose it?

Get a grip, Robie. Get a grip.

I shoved the Skittles back in the ditty bag and tossed it to the other side of the raft.

My chin quivered and my lips curled as a guttural wail escaped between them.

Sobs bubbled up, great gulping, gasping sobs that racked my whole body, complete with tears that blurred my vision so that my whole reality was messed up. And so I screamed, shouting at the sky, “I don’t want to be here! I don’t want to be here!”

I want to be anywhere but here.

twenty-five

No longer in the raft, no longer fifteen, no longer in command of my world, I was but five. A little kid of five and I’d awoken from a heinous nightmare and wanted my mother, wanted her to take away everything that was bad.

With a fist on either side of my face, I scrunched my eyes shut. “Mommy! Where are you? Where are you?”

Rocking back and forth, I struggled to get the words out amidst the sobs and the gasps and the shudders.

“Mommy! I want you!” I wanted her to answer me. “I need you!”

“Just come and get me!” I said it over and over, until the words turned quiet, a desperate pleading. “Just come and get me. Please. Mommy. Please.”

My voice cracked on the last “Come and get me … Mommy…”

And then I could only think it.

Mommy
.
Please come get me.

But she didn’t.

Someone please tell me something worse.

And that’s when I knew no one could tell me something worse. Because there wasn’t anything.

I was still alone. In a raft. At sea.

twenty-six

Me. It was all on me. Everything was all on me.

As much as I hoped for it, my mom was not coming to get me. I was the only help I was getting. And I needed to chill out before I lost it completely.

The Skittles rose in my throat and I swallowed, forcing them to stay down. No way was I throwing up food, the only food there was.

Get a grip. I have to get a grip. Think, Robie. You can do this. Do what you need to do to make it through this. Do what you need to do.

I considered what I needed to do.

You have only yourself to rely on. But you know a lot. A lot. You live on an island, which is basically just a bigger raft that doesn’t move. You’ve picked up so much information. You know enough to survive this, you know you do.

You, on your own, are strong enough to survive.

I took a deep breath, which held just a trace of lingering shudder, and let it out.

I would do this. I would be my own resource. I would get through this whichever way I could.

Starting immediately, I would do what was necessary to stay hopeful.

To believe I would survive.

Something grabbed my hand and I screamed.

twenty-seven

“It’s me.” Max let go and I turned toward him.

“You’re back!” I almost told him I thought he was gone forever, but didn’t see what good that would do. Especially when he looked worse than death. A sense of relief rushed over me.

“How long have I been out?” He held a hand to his head.

That was an easy answer. “A long time.”

The line was gone. So was his life jacket.

He held on to the raft and pulled himself upright. He stuck a hand in the raft. “It’s really leaking.”

I nodded, feeling so guilty. “I’m so sorry I put you in the water. I just thought…”

“You weigh less. Together, we’d sink.”

“Yeah.” I thought for sure he’d be pissed about being in the water, and was glad that he agreed it was the smart thing to do. I was glad he was back, calm and rational, just in time, just when I was in danger of losing it.

He said, “We need to fix it.”

I knew that, I did. “How?”

He pointed to a pocket in the raft. “There should be a patch kit in there. But we need to empty the raft first. Then find the leak.”

I felt in the pocket and pulled out a small pouch. Inside I found a little tube of sealant, some small patches of the same rubber as the raft, and a small sheet of instructions. Scanning them, I figured out what I needed to do.

“We need to tie those down,” Max said, pointing to the Coastal Commander and the bailer. Then he pointed at his ditty bag. “Put that around your wrist.”

I just sat there. It was his bag. If something happened, if, heaven forbid, we got split up, it was his bag. It should stay with him.

He said, “Do it.”

Taking his bag, I slipped the bungee cord around my wrist.

I knew what he’d say next, but my heart still sunk when I heard the words.

“Now you need to get out.”

I didn’t answer.

“I’m right here. I won’t let anything happen. You need to get out so we can flip this over and fix it.”

Taking a deep breath, I put my foot over the side and started to slide out of the raft and into the water. But then I locked my elbows on the edge, refusing to go farther. My weight on the side of the empty raft made it flip over, trapping me underneath.

I screamed and grabbed for the raft, pushing it up. “Get it off! Get it off!” Even though, for the moment, I could breathe just fine within the pocket of air between me and the capsized raft, the feeling of my legs just hanging there, treading, was more than I could take. “Get it off me!” I screamed. I couldn’t stand it anymore and didn’t wait for Max. Instead, I shoved up with all my strength, throwing the raft off me.

As I did, the ditty bag attached to my arm slipped off. I grabbed for it, catching it by the bottom. Red and green and purple and yellow and orange dots rained down around me, some pelting me.

Skittles.

“No!” I scrambled, splashing as I tried to grab them, but they were everywhere, sinking. How could I have forgotten to close the bag?

In a frenzy, I scooped water and managed to get a few. Two yellow, a green, and a purple. I dropped them back in the ditty bag and searched for more.

Nothing.

They had sunk.

Holding on to the raft with one hand, slapping at the water with the other, I blubbered, as part of me cursed the carelessness that had just lost us all the food we had, and another part was just pissed that I hadn’t eaten them all when I had the chance.

Sniffling, I wiped my nose, nearly jumping out of my skin at the sudden streak of pain. Touching it again, gently, my piercing was hot to the touch and hurt like hell. Great.

Max said nothing. Nothing about the bag or the Skittles. Instead, he stated exactly what I was thinking, the one thing that mattered so much more than the stupid candy. “I hope the patch kit is still in there.”

twenty-eight

Inhaling a shudder, I looked inside the ditty bag, hoping to hell I hadn’t lost the patch kit. I sighed with relief when I saw it.

I knew I needed to patch the raft. My hands shook as I fought a rising panic, trying not to think about what might be in the water. Anything could sneak up on me.

Hurt me.

Eat me.

I’d read that many victims of shark attacks didn’t even feel the actual bite. They just had the sensation of something bumping them. Only after they got out of the water, if they survived, did they see the holes in their wetsuits, and the bite marks on their skin.

Because most sharks took a bite of humans and didn’t much care for the taste.

Most sharks.

Tigers didn’t give a crap. Food was food.

I squinted and looked around me. The surface of the ocean was blue, a shiny mirror reflecting the sun.

I wasn’t exactly sure how to find the leak. I thought maybe if I pushed the raft up partway, slid under it, and dripped down water from the bailer, then I could see where water came through.