Wrecked (21 page)

Sarah let out a whoop and shot her fist in the air.  “Yes!  That is a friggin’ DOLPHIN, ladies and gentlemen!”  She turned and shot Candi a huge grin and put her hand up for a high-five.   

Candi smiled and slapped her palm.  Things were looking up.   She checked on Jonathan and saw that he was no longer swimming, but was standing in the water on some sort of sand bar, walking the boat closer to shore.  The shallow spot went pretty far out into the water that was now a beautiful bluish green and clear enough to see all the way to the bottom.   Candi looked back to see the dolphin again, but it had disappeared.

Now that the shore was so close, the girls could see it in detail for the first time.  There was a vast expanse of white sand that ringed what looked like an island about the size of two football fields.  The beach was about fifteen yards wide, met at its far edge by a line of palms and other kinds of trees with medium sized, roundish leaves.  They were growing together so closely and were so thick with foliage, it was impossible to see too far into them.  The left side of the island, which was probably the south side, if Candi’s navigation wasn’t completely off, had some rocks she could see above the treetops.  She saw no signs of houses or hotels or anything she was used to seeing on beaches.

Candi felt a little bit sick to her stomach.  She looked down at Kevin, wondering how they were going to help him if there wasn’t anyone there with medicine.  He was sleeping; she could see his chest rising and falling as he breathed.  His lips were crusty and cracked with dried blood on them.  His face was coated in fine, white salt.  She could see the skin underneath was burned pretty badly from the sun.  There were little tiny pieces of shell and sand all through his hair, and she could see it in one of his ears too.  It must have been churned up by the terrible storms and put on their bodies with all the sea spray.  She felt her own face to see if she felt the same things there.  Sure enough.  She tried to brush it all away, but it hurt the sunburn that she just realized was also there.

A small piece of her was jealous of Kevin’s unconsciousness.  She wished she could be sleeping through this day like he was and then be able to wake up when it was all over.  

But that was stupid – she knew Kevin felt terrible and was in very real danger without medicine or enough water. 
Be careful what you wish for.  Look where it’s gotten you so far.  You wanted to be better acquainted with Sarah and Kevin Peterson; you dreamed of someday having some alone time with Kevin.  Well, here you go. 
That was a very sobering thought.  Wishing was dangerous business.

***

“Man, am I glad to get back to civilization.  I’m going to go have the longest, most relaxing shower I’ve ever had in my entire life,” exclaimed Sarah.

“Uh, Sarah … ”

“Shush!” yelled Sarah, holding up a finger at Candi, not bothering to open her eyes.  “Don’t mess with the fantasy, okay, Sugar Lump?  I’m five seconds away from a cool cucumber facial and a hot oil massage given to me by a man-boy named Juan.”

“Okaaaayyy … ” 

Sarah heard Candi jump in the water and sighed, opening her eyes.  She watched as Candi walked in slow motion through the small waves until she reached Jonathan, grabbing the rope that was still around his chest.

“Let me take it now; you can rest.  I think you’re overdoing it, Jonathan.”

Sarah strained her eyes to see Jonathan’s face, wondering at the concern she heard in Candi’s voice.

Jonathan didn’t answer.  He just took the rope off and continued trudging through the water until he reached the shore.  Once there, he dropped down in exhaustion, his face landing sideways in the sand.

“Jonathan!” yelled Candi.  She couldn’t move fast enough to get to him because she was still hauling the boat. 

Sarah didn’t think – she just jumped into the water and started swimming, cutting a clean line through the surface, swimming freestyle towards the shore.

As soon as she reached the shallow water, Sarah stood up and ran over to Jonathan, dropping down beside him and turning him over.

“Hey!  Are you okay? 
Jonathan! 
Say something!”

Jonathan squinted his eyes, trying to open them, the color slowly returning to his face.

“What do you want me to say?” he asked innocently.

“Oooh, you …
idiot!”
said Sarah, flinging sand on him as she stood up quickly and moved away from him.

Sarah saw that Candi was nearly to the dry sand now.  She was trying to figure out how they were going to get Kevin out of the boat so they could start taking care of him.  They weren’t going to be able to pull it up very far because it was so heavy.

“Here, let me help.”  Jonathan had stood up again and got behind the boat where Sarah had already gone, and began pushing along with her. 

The boat made contact with the sand and stopped abruptly.  They heard Kevin groan as his body was jerked to the side.

“Errrh!  I can’t.  Push.  This.  Thing.  Any.  Farther!” grunted Sarah.

“Just do your best … a couple more inches,” said Jonathan, putting his shoulder against the back of the boat and pushing with all his might.

They got two more inches of movement before the boat dug itself into the sand.  It wasn’t going any farther today, they decided.

Jonathan and Sarah dragged themselves around the side of the boat to stand on the beach next to Candi. 

“How are we going to get him out of the boat?” asked Candi, concern marring her features.

“First thing we have to do is prepare a place for him to be taken to.”  Jonathan looked at Sarah.  “Can you manage that?”

“Of course I can,” responded Sarah indignantly.  “What do you want me to do?”

“Just make some sort of shelter up there in the trees.  Use the tarp and the sheet – put the sheet on the ground and the tarp in the tree as a canopy of some sort.  We need to protect him and us from the sun as best we can.”  He looked up and squinted at the sky.  

Sarah could feel her face burning.  She looked at Candi and Jonathan and saw that they had pretty bad sunburns too.  All she could think about was the skin cancer that was probably being created on her face as she baked under the sun.

He turned to Candi.  “Let’s go see if we can wake him up enough to get him out of the boat.”

Sarah climbed into the boat, taking the sheet from the puddle in the bottom and the tarp from above Kevin’s head.  She headed up to the tree line with the two items to begin making their shelter.

***

After Sarah was gone, Candi and Jonathan got back into the boat, studying the situation.  Jonathan was the first to speak.

“Wake him and try to get him to sit up.  When he does, I’ll try to get him on his feet.  Watch his hand.”

Candi bent down over Kevin’s face.  “Kevin.  Wake up.  Kevin, we need you to wake up.”  She started shaking his shoulder as she continued.  “Keeeevin, wake uuuuup.  We’re home!  Look, Kevin, we’re home!  Time to get up!”

“Mmmph, home.  Good.  Tired.”  

Candi looked up at Jonathan.  “He isn’t budging.”

Jonathan sighed, making his decision.

“I’m sorry to have to do this to you, Kevin, but it’s the only way.”

He reached down and squeezed Kevin’s sore hand.

“HOLY FFFFFRIG WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? … I’M GONNA KILL YOU!”

Kevin sat bolt upright, cradling his hand, his eyes ablaze with pain and fury.

“Grab him!” yelled Jonathan.

Brother and sister each grabbed him under an arm and lifted with all their might.  Kevin’s body didn’t budge.

“What the hell are you doing?  Getting rid of the dead weight?” asked Kevin indignantly, thinking he was being offed by the Buckley kids.

“We’re trying to get you out of the boat!” yelled Jonathan, frustrated that he had no upper body strength.

“I can’t swim like this … I’ll drown!” yelled Kevin.

“Kevin, we’re on an island right now.  Look.”  Candi gestured towards the shore.

Kevin sat up straighter, looking out over the bow of the boat.  “Hey.  We’re not moving anymore.  And there’s trees.  Lots of ‘em.  Holy shit, Jon, you did it, man!”  A beaming smile broke out over his face, now that he realized he wasn’t being fed to the sharks.  He looked over at Jonathan.  “Way to go, dude.  You’re the man.  Help me get out of this shitty boat, will ya?”

“Yeah, like I haven’t been trying to do that for the past five minutes,” he said wryly, as he bent over to grab Kevin under his arm again.  

With Kevin helping, they were able to get him over to the side of the boat.  After a few seconds of calculating and debating the best way to get him onto the shore, Kevin managed to roll himself over the side to land on the sand below.  He yelped in pain, but it seemed to wake him up a bit and made it easier to get him stumbling up the sand to the tree line.

When the three arrived at Sarah’s camp, they were pleasantly surprised to see that she had been very busy setting up a temporary shelter for them.  “Wow, this is nice,” said Jonathan.

The sheet was laid out over the sand and the tarp had been tied at three corners to nearby trees with some sort of vine.  Sarah was nowhere to be found.

Candi and Jonathan got Kevin settled on the middle of the sheet, then worked on carrying the supplies out of the boat and over to their shelter.  

“We might as well bring it all over here for now, just in case there’s another storm and our boat gets pulled away.”

“I hope that doesn’t happen.  We want to keep the boat, right?” asked Candi.

“Of course, but I’d rather keep our supplies close.  Those rogue waves scared me.”  Jonathan looked at the boat stuck in the sand.  “Honestly, though, I don’t know that we’re going to get that boat moved at all.  I’m afraid we’re going to have to leave it there.”

Candi nodded in agreement.  “Yeah, me too.  It’s already sunk into the sand a little bit, even after just thirty minutes.”

Four trips later they had everything around the blanket.  Candi started unpacking the first aid kit, laying out the items she thought they could use for Kevin.

“There’s antiseptic here, and some gauze and tape.  Also, I think this is antibiotic ointment.”  She held up a small, foil packet.

“That’s good.  First, though, we need to scrub the cut and clean it out – get all that pus and stuff out of there.”

Candi went a little green. 
“Ew,
are you sure?”

“Yes.  Can you do it, or should I?”

“I think you’d better do it.”

“Okay, fine.”  Jonathan moved so he was next to Kevin’s hand.  “Kevin!” he yelled. 

“Dude, you don’t have to shout, I’m lying right here.”

“Oh, sorry, I thought you were sleeping.  I’m going to clean your hand now.  It’s probably going to hurt a lot.  Don’t hit me.”

Kevin opened his one good one eye.  “Don’t worry, I can take it. I play rugby.”

Jonathan took Kevin’s hand and pulled it towards him, muttering, “Playing rugby is not the same as having surgery without anesthetic.”

He took a deep breath and began.  

His plan was to use the gauze and antiseptic to wipe off the goop that had hardened on top, but as soon as he started, he noticed his heart rate starting to climb.  Then several droplets of sweat broke out on his upper lip.  He started feeling dizzy and queasy … 

“What the … ?”

Jonathan sat up, looking around in confusion.  Sarah was sitting nearby, smirking at him, and Candi was packing up the first aid kit, casting glances his way.

“What’s going on?  What happened?” He was completely bewildered.

“You passed out, that’s what happened,” laughed Sarah.  “Your little sister had to clean up after you and take care of our patient without your help.”

Jonathan looked over at his sister for confirmation, then looked at Kevin’s hand.  Sure enough, it was neatly bandaged with gauze and tape. 

Jonathan looked sheepish.  “Sorry, Candi.  It must have been a vasovagal response.”

“Don’t worry about it.  I’m sure that’s what it was – the vasowhatever thingy.  I took care of it, and I think I did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself.”  She smiled, proud that she hadn’t passed out or puked when that gooey pus had come out of Kevin’s poor hand.

“Yeah, Candi’s like Florence Nightingale over there.  I vote she’s in charge of the island hospital from now on.”

Candi looked up from her packing.  “And I vote Sarah’s in charge of shelter arrangement on this island from now on.”  She smiled over at the girl who had single-handedly made a pretty nice field hospital for her to operate in.  

Sarah smiled back.  “I don’t mean to brag, but I also managed to find these for us.”  She pulled out a bunch of bananas from behind her back. 

“Holy crap, bananas!” exclaimed Candi.  

“Yep!” said Sarah, as she ripped one from the bunch and started peeling it.  “There are trees full of ‘em on this island.”  She took a bite of it and continued, “They’re kinda little, but they taste fine.  I also saw some coconuts, but they were up too high to get.  Plus I have no idea how to open one.”

Jonathan sat up slowly, holding his spinning head gingerly.  “I think we could figure out how to open them.  I’m glad to know they’re here, because we only have a little bit of water.  Until we find other fresh water, we could survive on coconut water.”

“Isn’t it called coconut milk?” asked Candi.

“No, not really.  What we call coconut milk that people make daiquiris out of is actually the juice squeezed from the white meat of the coconut, not the liquid that swishes around inside the round nut.”

Sarah looked at him with exasperation on her face, like she couldn’t figure him out.  “How do you know all this stuff?  I mean, the difference between coconut water and coconut milk?  How esoteric can you be?”

Jonathan shrugged his shoulders.  “I don’t know.  Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Bill Nye the Science Guy.  A variety of sources, really.”

“Yeah, but, how do you
remember
all of it?

“I don’t know.  I just do.”

Candi nodded her head.  “He’s like an elephant.  He never forgets anything.  He’s still mad about a lollipop I stole from him when I was three.”

Sarah rolled her eyes.  “How annoying.”