The Raft

by S.A. Bodeen

  Another bump under my butt made me shriek louder.

  “Get out of here!” I started waving my hands, shooing the birds, hoping maybe if they moved, the bait ball would leave, and take that shark with it. “Go! Go away!”

  Within seconds, the birds had moved off, and the surface of the water no longer churned. The bait ball had moved on.

  My gaze went to the mangled skipjack, who stared up at me with glazed, lifeless eyes. Well, the shark had done me one favor. I no longer had to worry about how to gut the thing.

  I blew out the breath I didn’t even know I’d been holding. My thirst wasn’t at the point where I was desperate enough to try eating the eyeballs or sucking the spinal fluid.

  Skipjack was in the tuna family, and I liked sashimi, which was raw tuna. It couldn’t be that different, could it?

  The fish was slippery and slid right out of my hands. Then I picked it back up and cradled it with one arm against my chest. My white camisole was already filthy; a few fish guts wouldn’t make it any worse.

  I dug out a piece of pink flesh with my fingers.

  “It’s just sashimi.” Although my mom always let the tuna rest in the fridge for a day before she cut and served it, I didn’t have that luxury, and with the sun going down before too long, I might not be able to even dry it in time. If I wanted to eat that day, I would have to eat that fish. Raw.

  Sashimi. Just sashimi.

  I popped the morsel into my mouth and chewed. The fish was slimy and salty and I started to gag, but managed to swallow.

  “Not that bad.” Saying it out loud didn’t make it any more real. But I dug in for another piece and ate that too. Trying to distract myself, so I wasn’t totally focused on the dead fish in my lap, I decided to count my blessings.

  I’d caught a fish. I’d actually caught a fish.

  Another good thing? Catching the fish in the open ocean meant I wouldn’t have to worry about diseases I could catch from eating reef fish. Like ciguatera. Fish caught the toxin by eating small reef creatures and cooking didn’t even kill the poison.

  Ciguatera brought nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. And after those symptoms, neurological ones set in, like the loss of coordination and a constant feeling of pins and needles.

  Nasty. And pretty much incurable too.

  I popped another piece of fish in my mouth. Yup, I was very happy to be eating from the ocean.

  My stomach gurgled.

  I swallowed and paused. Maybe my poor shrunken tummy was just happy to be getting some protein after three days of nothing but a few off-colored Skittles. I continued eating, hoping Max would wake up so he could have some too. I considered trying to rouse him.

  But I didn’t.

  I kept eating until I was so stuffed, I burped.

  I set aside the rest of the fish for Max, hoping he’d wake up soon to eat something. But it didn’t take long for what remained of the skipjack to smell. The only smart thing to do would be to get rid of it, because as soon as I got hungry again, I’d be tempted. I threw the remains as far away from the raft as I could and washed my hands in the salt water. I lay back against the side of the raft and tried to adjust to the full feeling in my stomach.

  It wasn’t very hard to do. Then Max woke up. If he knew I’d eaten, he didn’t say anything about it. And I didn’t mention it. I just listened.

  thirty-six

  Max sounded so determined. “I refused to come that close ever again without winning. I started eating again. Over the summer, I grew about five inches and put on thirty pounds.”

  “Wow, that’s a lot.” I guiltily stifled another burp. “But how did you get back to one twelve?”

  “After that I wrestled one thirty-five and was state champ the next two years.”

  I smiled. “Congratulations.”

  “Wrestling wasn’t everything. She meant more to me. I would have given it up for her. I would have given anything up for her.”

  I wondered who she was.

  Max told me. “Brandy Thomas and I started going out sophomore year. Kinda weird, since I’d known her since kindergarten, when she wore her black hair in braids.”

  Growing up as I had, that was hard for me to imagine. I hadn’t known anyone since kindergarten. Sometimes I missed that, having classmates I had known forever. Was it odd to miss something I’d never had?

  Max went on. “Sophomore year, the girls who had been about my height were suddenly shorter than I was. They saw me differently. I saw me differently. I’d never dated, not even prom.”

  I’d never dated. I’d never even talked to a boy, really, other than a couple I met at AJ’s pool. Would I ever get the chance to date? I realized a tear was trickling down my face and I quickly wiped it away.

  Max smiled. “When homecoming came up, my friends kept telling me to ask someone out. Brandy and I had always been friendly. She lived out on the reservation and was quiet, but funny. Very opinionated. Good in school. A few weeks before homecoming our sophomore year, I walked up to her at her locker and asked her to homecoming. That was it. Neither of us ever dated anyone else.”

  I smiled. Max sounded so in love.

  “Brandy’s mom never liked me that much.”

  I wondered how she could possibly not like him. I barely knew him, but I could just tell he was a good person.

  “I was always polite. But she didn’t trust me with her daughter. I could tell. Maybe she had a feeling, an intuition. Maybe she knew something we didn’t.”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant, but Max didn’t say anything else.

  thirty-seven

  Evening came and I took stock. Max was asleep again. With all I’d had to eat, I felt so much better. I even had to pee for the first time in a while. But I was still sunburned, and the piercing in my nose was hurting more and more.

  And I was still stuck in a raft in the middle of nowhere.

  Clouds covered up the stars and moon, making the night very black. I took out the Coastal Commander, extracted the flashlight, and turned it on. The immediate area of the raft lit up as I shone the light around me and checked on Max. I clicked it off, and black swallowed everything. That dark was even worse than before.

  So I clicked it back on.

  I couldn’t keep turning the flashlight off and on all night. I held a flare in my hand. It would be a waste. I needed to save those in case I heard a plane or a boat. Fumbling in the dark, I stuck everything back in the Coastal Commander and fastened it into its pocket.

  Then I laid my head on the side of the raft and tried to sleep. The water was calm, pushing us up and down so slightly I barely noticed.

  I’d grown used to the motion.

  And the quiet. At first, the quiet was so loud. There was so much nothing that I couldn’t block it out. But I was getting used to that too, the quiet. Which is probably why, when I dozed off, the distant sound woke me up.

  My eyes blinked in the darkness, straining to see. The sound didn’t register at first and it took me a moment to break it down.

  A drone.

  I knew that sound. It was a C-130.

  The Coast Guard.

  Rescue.

  I waved both my arms. “Hey! Hey!”

  Stupid. Like they could hear or see you.

  The flares. I needed the flares.

  “Max! A plane!”

  Patting with my hands in the dark, I found the pocket and unzipped it, then pulled out the Coastal Commander. I turned on the flashlight and shone it into the bag, then pulled out a flare. Was it like the one Max had used? I held it closer so I could read the directions. From what I could tell, I just needed to strip off the wax seal and pull the string.

  How long had Max’s flare lasted?

  Should I wait until the plane sounded closer?

  It still sounded far away.

  There were more flares. I could use this one as a demo, and then wait until the plane was closer to fire up another.

  I propped the flashlight in my mouth so I could use both hands, t
hen peeled the wax off the top of the flare. I held it out in one hand, pulled the string, and then pointed it away from the raft. I flicked off the flashlight and waited for the fireworks.

  I heard a low hiss and some puffing. But there was no light.

  A slight breeze picked up and I couldn’t breathe. Coughing and choking, I switched hands, pointed the flare downwind, and turned the flashlight on.

  Orange smoke. That was the only thing flooding out of the flare. Nothing but orange smoke. Heaving the flare into the water, I swore.

  I’d lit the wrong kind. A smoke flare was for daytime.

  I shone the flashlight back in the bag. Two left. I was more careful about reading the labels. One was another smoke signal flare so the other had to be the real kind. I pulled it out and readied myself, waiting until the plane came closer.

  So I sat there, heartbeat pulsing in my ears, hands shaking.

  “Come on, come on.”

  The drone grew closer, although with the cloudy sky, I still couldn’t see any lights and had no way of telling how close it truly was. Then I couldn’t wait any longer. I hoped the flare would go for at least ten minutes, maybe more. And that C-130 sounded like it was only a minute or two away.

  I put the flashlight in my mouth and got up on my knees. I peeled off the wax, said a silent prayer, and pointed the flare toward the direction of the plane. I pulled the fuse and held out the flare with one hand, keeping the other tight on the side of the raft.

  Sparks flew out and with a great rushing whistle, the flare went off. And up. The cylinder in my hand was empty.

  All the fireworks followed an arc up into the sky where they lasted about ten seconds then dispersed into small stars trickling back down.

  My mouth dropped open, and the flashlight fell into the water. “No!” I grabbed for it but was too late, and could only watch the light spiral down and around, down and around, growing fainter and fainter, then finally fading away.

  With engines roaring, the C-130 burst through the clouds overhead, red lights blinking.

  “Hey! I’m down here!” I waved my arms.

  But the plane didn’t slow.

  The pilot didn’t dip his wings in acknowledgment.

  No one dropped out in a parachute.

  Because they didn’t see me. They didn’t know the raft was there.

  I set my arms on my head, elbows up, fingers clasped together at the back of my head. I breathed out.

  I wasn’t getting saved. Not that night.

  The C-130 disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

  Dropping my arms, I clutched myself.

  Within a minute or so, the C-130’s drone faded out to nothing, returning my world to a soundless, lightless void.

  I managed one halfhearted “come back!”

  Then I curled up in the dark and cried.

  thirty-eight

  I awoke to a drizzle and rolled onto my back, letting what drops of rain there were fall into my open mouth. After the disaster of the night before, I had no energy to do more. Max hadn’t moved. I didn’t have the heart to tell him about the plane. Or how I’d failed to signal it.

  After a while, I sat up. Directly in front of me, I thought I saw a line on the horizon.

  It could have just been a low cloud bank. The day was overcast, so the lack of visibility and my own exhaustion could have been playing tricks on me.

  As the day went on, the line got slightly bigger. There was definitely something there. I wanted Max to wake up so I could show him. See what he thought it might be.

  And just then, he woke up. He took a few moments to orient himself, and then he clung to the side of the raft and looked skyward, opening his mouth and drinking. Water dripped down his face and he didn’t bother to wipe it away.

  I didn’t tell him about the C-130. Instead, I pointed to the line on the horizon. “Do you think that’s an island?”

  We both stared in that direction for a few minutes.

  Max squinted. “Could be.” Exactly what I had been thinking.

  The sun came out now and then. Near the end of the day, we drew ever nearer to the line, and it had become something real. I noticed the clouds above it were green, which meant they were reflecting the color of water, shallower water, which meant a reef and an island.

  And then the birds came.

  Fairy terns, sooty terns, a few brown noddies. This time, they weren’t part of a bait ball. This time, they were close to home.

  The line was definitely an island. And we were getting nearer every minute.

  I had a few ideas as to what island it could be. Or couldn’t be. Or hoped it wouldn’t be.

  Laysan was a possibility. It was the time of year when researchers would be there, so that would be perfect. But I was pretty sure Laysan was too far to the east of where we probably were.

  Pearl and Hermes Atoll, also probably too far.

  The Gardner Pinnacles were a possibility, but they would suck. Basically just two pieces of tall rock, they were great for birds and insects, no place for humans. And I didn’t see anything of much height, so it couldn’t be that anyway.

  As I strained my memory, trying to picture a map of the area, I kept coming back to the name of Lisianski Island. I was pretty sure it was in the area. And it wouldn’t be bad at all. Having spent the last few years in the company of adults, I’d learned to make myself a little more viable during long dinner conversations involving mainly biologists and other scientists. I had scoured the Internet and memorized a bunch of cool, gross, or amazing facts about some of the more obscure Northwest Hawaiian Islands, guaranteeing myself at least some attention at the dinner table.

  And there were a few facts about Lisianski that I always remembered.

  Sometime in the early 1900s rabbits had been introduced to the island, where they had multiplied, of course—they were rabbits. But the food supply eventually ran out and they become cannibals, the old devouring the young. A naturalist visiting the island from Honolulu reported seeing the last newborn rabbit being eaten alive by the last starving mother.

  Hard to forget something like cannibal rabbits.

  Plus my mom had a fit when I told that story at the dinner table. She sent me to my room right before she served my favorite dessert, Better than Anything cake.

  I sighed just picturing it.

  German chocolate cake, poked with holes that were then filled with an entire can of sweetened condensed milk. Then the whole cake was covered with caramel ice cream sauce, spread with Cool Whip, and topped off with crushed Heath bars. Even more of a reason not to forget the evening or the cannibal rabbits of Lisianski.

  Lisianski was also pretty well known for bird poaching. About the same time as the rabbits, law enforcement raided the island and discovered poachers with the feathers of over 140,000 dead birds.

  Sick.

  I wondered if the women wearing feathered hats or people sleeping on feather beds, resting their heads on down pillows ever thought about where the filler came from. How many birds went extinct just so they could have a soft place to lay their head?

  Luckily for the birds, Teddy Roosevelt declared the whole area the Hawaiian Island Bird Reservation. Since then it became protected in other ways, and under other names, and Lisianski was once again loaded with birds.

  All in all, Lisianski wouldn’t be a bad place to end up. Certainly not the worst. And way better than being stuck in a raft.

  The sun was close to setting when I heard waves crash. Since I’d been on the raft, the waves hadn’t made sound. Even the big ones, with deep troughs, were relatively quiet. So hearing those waves crash could only mean one thing: an island or reef close by.

  My heart beat faster.

  My only experience with a reef was at Midway. We would take the boat out there to see Hawaiian monk seals and spinner dolphins. All was calm and beautiful inside the reef, but outside, where the ocean crashed against it, was deadly. Midway had an opening in its reef where ships could go through. But the rest
of it? Solid. Ships had been wrecked on the reef. Reefs are coral, which is sharp. The reef would rip the raft to pieces if it got smashed against it. Hell, the reef would rip me to pieces if I got smashed against it.

  Could I decide what to do on my own?

  I sighed and clasped my hands behind my head as I considered my options. Option, really. Because there wasn’t really any going around it. Our best chance of survival was to be out of the raft and on that island, whatever island it was.

  My gaze went to Max. The raft would be lighter with neither of us in it, and might even just skim over the reef on one good wave. But we might not survive getting bashed against the reef on our own. We needed to go over with the raft if at all possible.

  The line of the island was closer. I sat on my haunches, hands gripping the front of the raft, watching as a wave lifted us. I screamed as we headed straight for the reef.

  thirty-nine

  Up. I went up.

  And then down.

  I was out of the raft.

  Falling.

  So slow.

  Was I flying?

  There was green.

  And then gray. And brown.

  Gray and white and brown.

  Reef.

  Sudden pain. My head!

  And then nothing.

  forty

  Clack! Clack! Clack!

  I moaned. My head felt split in two.

  Clack! Clack!

  I was lying facedown on the sand, my arms stretched out on either side. I tried to blink, and then scrunched my eyes as I realized my face, along with the rest of my body, was packed with sand. I brushed off my face, but cried out when I touched my left eye.

  I couldn’t see on that side.

  I tried again to blink. But only my right eye worked.

  Clack! Clack! Clack!