The Raft

by S.A. Bodeen

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  For Tim, and everyone else who ever took that flight to Midway …

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Epilogue

  My thanks go out to

  Also by S. A. Bodeen

  Copyright

  To survive it is often necessary to fight and to fight you have to dirty yourself.

  —George Orwell

  one

  The dude with the lime-green Mohawk and dark wooden plugs in his earlobes looked down at me, the long silver needle in his rubber-gloved hand pointed directly at my face.

  “Wait.” I swallowed and gripped the arms of my chair.

  Jutting out one hip, he rolled his eyes. “Do you want your nose pierced or not?”

  “Yes, just … can you tell me something worse?” I pointed at the needle. “Something that is worse than that?”

  He probably thought my request was insane, but that was how I coped with unpleasant things. Once I found out something worse, then it was easier to deal with. Whether it was a filling at the dentist or an end-of-term physics test, finding out things that were worse helped me deal with new challenges.

  Green Mohawk Dude seemed to think about it as he looked around. A blond pregnant woman in tall suede boots and a fuchsia halter dress browsed through the gold hoops. With one gloved finger, he pointed at her. “Childbirth. Fairly certain that hurts worse.”

  “I’m fifteen.” My turn to eye roll. “Something a little more relative? Not so obviously inappropriate?” I got ready to leave.

  He pointed down at his black flip-flops. “See my big toes?”

  My glance went downward and I flinched. His toes were big and callousy with yellowish nails. Easily the ugliest toes I’d ever seen.

  Sick.

  Green Mohawk Dude said, “Last year I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. Coming down, my toes got smashed into the front of my boots. Ended up losing both my big toenails. Took them eleven months to grow back.”

  I asked, “And that hurt worse than getting your nose pierced?”

  “Guess so.” He shrugged. “Now, can we do this?”

  Nodding, I closed my eyes as he shoved the needle through my skin.

  A rush of stinging flooded up my nose. “Holy crap!” My eyes watered so bad I had to blink like crazy, then I finally gave up and kept them shut for a while. When I did open them again, first I glared at the green-haired liar standing in front of me, then looked in the mirror to check out the diamond adorning my nose. “Sweet.”

  “No swimming in pools for a month. Even though they’re chlorinated, they could have germs. And lakes, rivers … avoid those. The ocean too. Just to be safe. You don’t want to get it infected.” He handed me a plastic baggie with alcohol swabs and Xeroxed instructions. “So now you can go back to the mainland with the new look you got in Honolulu.”

  “Um, yeah,” I said, suddenly wondering just how much trouble I would be in when my parents saw my nose. “Actually, I don’t live on the mainland. I live the other direction, out on Midway Island.”

  “Midway as in the Battle of Midway?”

  I nodded.

  His eyebrows went up and he nodded. “Very cool. You’re lucky.”

  Lucky.

  If I had a dollar for every time someone called me that, I’d be rich, because that’s all I heard when I told people about my life.

  When I told them that I lived on a coral atoll in the middle of the Pacific:

  Lucky.

  When I told them that I didn’t go to a real school:

  Lucky.

  When I told them that I hung out among dolphins and monk seals and nesting albatross:

  Lucky.

  For three years, my parents had been research biologists on historic Midway, now a national wildlife refuge, so I lived there too, in the old admiral’s home called Midway House. Sure, there were cool things like having my own golf cart and making my own hours for home school and getting to hang out with National Geographic photographers. Plus the fact I knew more about ocean fish and seabirds than most postgraduate researchers.

  Those things did make me feel lucky.

  But then there were other things that did not make me feel so lucky.

  Like having the Internet crap out for days at a time, and not even owning a cell phone because there was no reception, and getting only three television channels, one of which was CNN, none of which were MTV. What’s the point of even having television?

  Not to mention being the only kid among fifty or so adults, which left me no one to talk to except for Facebook friends, and that was only when the Internet worked.

  Lately it seemed there were a lot more days when my life felt less like luck and way more like suck.

  I paid Green Mohawk Dude, tipped him a little, and then headed back for AJ’s apartment.

  What saved me from going crazy most of the time was Dad’s sister, my aunt Jillian, who lived in Honolulu. AJ, as I called her, had a place right on Waikiki Beach and was a consultant, which meant she got to do all her work from home. She was way younger than Dad, only about thirty, and when I couldn’t take the isolation anymore, my parents would throw me on the supply flight returning to Honolulu from Midway and send me to her. And that’s where I had been spending the month of June.

  When I walked in, AJ was on the phone. Her long brown hair was up in a clip and she had a plumeria-laden cover-up on over her red bikini. AJ’s eyes widened when she saw my nose, then she gave me a thumbs-up. As soon as she hung up, she came over and grabbed my chin, eyeing my new piercing. “Let me see this dia
mond I paid for.” She grinned. “Your parents are never going to let you come here again.”

  I tossed my green crocheted purse on the table. “I’m getting my suit on.”

  * * *

  AJ spent every day sitting by the pool with me, although she did try to get me to branch out. She called through the bathroom door: “Can’t we do the beach today, Robie? We can get a good spot by the Hilton.”

  “Nope.” I put on my purple cheetah bikini. “Two words. Sand and waves.”

  She laughed. “For someone who lives on an island, you are the most ocean-aversive person I’ve ever met.”

  “I love the ocean!” I protested, as I opened the door.

  AJ groaned. “You just don’t like to touch it.”

  “Exactly. I just like to look.” I pointed at my nose. “Plus I have instructions not to go in the water.”

  She shook her head. “Finally, your perfect excuse to not get wet.”

  We went down to the pool. Wearing my contented smile, I leaned back on my pool chair and turned on my e-reader to Stephen King’s newest, which I was almost done with. There was absolutely nowhere else I would rather be at that moment. “Now, this is the life.”

  She asked, “So what shall we do tonight?”

  Every evening we headed off to do something, like see a movie or get pedicures at Ala Moana Center. My toes currently sported bright orange polish, rhinestone flowers on both big toes. One night my aunt surprised me by having a friend of hers come and give me cornrows. My dirty-blond hair was almost to my waist, so it took forever. When she finished, I looked in the mirror and tried not to show my shock. With my tan, the cornrows looked a little tacky. And I didn’t look anything like myself. But I didn’t want to make AJ feel bad, so I lied and said I loved them. My dad would like them, so I planned on keeping them until I got back to Midway, just so he could see. Plus it was kind of fun to walk around, feeling unrecognizable.

  AJ waited for me to answer about tonight.

  “International Market Place?” I suggested.

  “Sure. Cheesecake Factory after?”

  “Definitely.”

  That evening at the International Market Place, a collection of booths and shops selling anything and everything, I found a henna tattoo stand where a pretty Hawaiian lady, dark hair to her waist and three rings in her nose, beckoned to me.

  I wanted a real tattoo, but my parents were already going to freak over my nose. AJ had signed the permission form only after I promised to take all the blame. That’s how deep her coolness went. She had even sprung for the diamond, which, even she admitted, totally rocked. So, given I’d already used up my quota of quasi-permanent bodily changes my parents would dislike, I started to look through the book of henna tattoo samples.

  AJ tapped me on the arm. “I’m going to be right over there by those shell planters.”

  The tattoo lady asked, “You want your aumakua?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Your ancestral guide. The spirit that protects your ohana. Your family, yeah?”

  “I’m not Hawaiian.”

  The tattoo lady smiled. “Mine is the honu.” She pointed to a picture of a sea turtle.

  “I love green sea turtles.” I sat down on the wooden chair and propped my foot up on a stool.

  With a little plastic bottle, she squeezed the brown henna out like she was painting, and it tickled my ankle. The henna turtle looked like brown mud when she finished. “It will dry, but leave it on, yeah?” She handed me a little baggie with a cotton ball inside. “It’s soaked in lemon juice. Squeeze this on several times and the henna will last longer.”

  I handed her three wrinkled fives and went to find AJ.

  There was a huge line outside the Cheesecake Factory, but I made my way through the crowd and inside the noisy restaurant where AJ was already at a table. We shared a slice of turtle cheesecake. AJ had just gotten a refill of decaf when her phone rang.

  She glanced at her phone. “Barney.”

  Even I knew Barney was the guy who gave her the most consulting work. AJ always took his calls. “Hey, Barn.”

  I leaned down and touched my tattoo. The henna was stiff and felt like it was drying out my skin.

  Back above the table, AJ’s eyes narrowed as she listened for a while. “Seriously?” She listened a little more and rolled her eyes. “No. No, that’s fine. I’ll come tomorrow.” She hung up and put a hand on mine. “I am so sorry, Robie. I’ve got to go to LA tomorrow.”

  “That sucks.” I wasn’t looking forward to cutting short my trip and going back to Midway. But I saw her face and added, “It’s only a week short, I was going back next week anyway.” I took a sip of my Coke.

  The waitress brought the bill and AJ got out her reading glasses. “You don’t have to go back.” She leaned forward like she was going to tell me a secret. “Bobbi can stay with you.”

  Stifling a groan, I faked a smile.

  Bobbi was a friend of AJ’s who lived on the other side of Oahu. We’d been up to see her a couple times at her beach house, which was always messy and full of smelly cats. Bobbi was old, like fifty, and had thick, waist-length dreadlocks and really tan, leathery-looking skin. She didn’t believe in bras. Or deodorant.

  “No, that’s okay. I can go back to Midway.” I paused. “Or … I could just stay at your place by myself.”

  She started to shake her head and protest, but I cut her off. “AJ, I’m almost sixteen.”

  AJ huffed out her nose. “Robie. You are not almost sixteen. You’ve only been fifteen for two months.”

  I shrugged. “Still, you have security up the ying-yang at your place, I know my way around…”

  She looked at me over the top of her black cat-eye reading glasses. “Your parents would kill me.”

  “We won’t tell them?”

  AJ tapped the pen on the bill for a moment, and then pointed it at me. “Only if Bobbi stops in every day after work.”

  Ew. “Every other day.”

  Her voice was firm. “Every day.”

  “Fine.” I held out my hand and we shook.

  The next morning, after about an hour of instructions, admonitions, and warnings, AJ left for the airport. I was just getting ready for the pool when the phone rang. Bobbi said, “Hi, Robie. Jillian fly out yet?”

  Technically not, since she was probably still sitting at the airport. “No.”

  “I can’t talk, but can you give her a message for me?”

  “Sure.”

  Bobbi’s words were rushed. “I’m not gonna be able to stop in like she asked me to. My car died and I have to carpool with a guy from up here.”

  “That’s okay.” I smiled as I noticed AJ had left me a small fortune’s worth of bills on the counter.

  “Can she get someone else to check in on you?”

  “Yes. Definitely. Don’t worry about it.”

  I hung up. I was free for a week. Although I did already miss AJ, I did a little dance.

  Free!

  two

  Starbucks was on the first floor of AJ’s apartment building, and every morning, I ran down and got myself a grande vanilla bean frappuccino. Before I went by the pool to read, I washed off the rest of the henna. The turtle was faint orange, but the lady had said it would darken.

  And then I carefully doused my new piercing in rubbing alcohol.

  The pool was lonely by myself, and I didn’t stay as long as usual.

  Back in AJ’s apartment, I watched the rest of the DVDs from the final season of Battlestar Galactica. We didn’t get much television on Midway, and I made up for it when I got to Honolulu. AJ had Netflix and I usually went through an entire series or two during my visits. Maybe it was weird, that I didn’t get to watch television like other people, and I had to watch stuff long after it was on TV, but I also didn’t have to wait from week to week to see what happened.

  On the other hand, watching an entire series over a few days could be a letdown. Being so immersed in the characters and the sto
ry, kind of sleeping and eating them, it was even harder to come to the end, to know it was done.

  The final episode had me in tears partway through, and I had to hit Pause while I looked around for some Kleenex. Finally, I had to settle for a roll of toilet paper and used up a lot of it by the time the episode ended.

  I clicked off the television. My shoulders sagged and I sniffled and blew my nose again. I felt drained. I could always start the series over, meet Starbuck again for the first time, but decided not to.

  For lunch I had some ramen noodles, and then walked down to Ala Moana Center. I’d been visiting AJ in Honolulu since I was eight, so I knew my way around. After shopping for a while, and scoring big on a pair of pink high-top Chuck Taylors, I headed back to the apartment, which was very quiet and empty.

  AJ had several seasons of Lost on DVD, so I put on the first episode. The plane crash was a little intense, but I couldn’t stop watching until the episode was over. Instead of watching the next one, a nap sounded good. When I woke up it was dark. I’d planned on running to McDonald’s for dinner, but I didn’t usually go out after dark by myself. But it was Honolulu, I knew it like the back of my hand, and McDonald’s was barely five minutes away.

  The tropical evening was warm and windy, and tons of people were on the well-lighted streets. Still, my heart pounded a little as I crossed the avenue. I’d never realized that I did everything in Honolulu with someone, either AJ or my parents. Come to think of it, everything I did, I did with someone. Even on Midway, when I was alone, people were never very far away.

  As I got my plain cheeseburger Happy Meal and headed back, bag in one hand, vanilla shake in the other, I wondered what, if anything, I had actually ever done on my own before. A dirty guy without a shirt leaned against the traffic light as I waited for it to change. With my peripheral vision, I could see him watching me, and I shuffled away a little bit, trying not to be too obvious.

  He yelled, “Lucy!”

  The light changed and I stepped down into the crosswalk, walking fast. Just as I reached the other side, a hand grabbed a chunk of my cornrows and yanked.

  My food went flying as I was whipped around.