“No. No more food. We need to conserve,” she says again.
“Let me make this clear,“ says the man in a deadly voice. “You are going to give us all more food, or I am going to eat it all myself.”
“I said no,” repeats Rachel slowly, her eyes full of resolve. The man starts to reach for the container, grabbing it. The raft chooses that exact moment to bump a rock. There’s a second that seems like it’s frozen in time, the man and Rachel teetering dangerously. And then they fall off.
Everyone freezes, staring at the bobbing heads in the water. That’s half of our remaining food gone, too! And then I think of something worse. Rachel has the compass. The shores of Miami, at the very edge of Florida, are not yet in sight. I can see everyone’s eyes widening as they all realize the same thing. I remember how I felt when I was drowning. Powerless. Terrified. I jump in.
During the day, the ocean is really warm, just like the air and the food and the drinking water and the people – we’re all a big, warm, sweaty pot of soup. But in the evening, all of these things are cold. The sea hits me like a freezing slap. I swim up as fast as I can and take a breath, then go under again and open my eyes even though the salt hurts. Just below my toes, something is sinking fast. The food!
I dive down beneath it and push it up, but it’s too heavy and I’m sinking with it. Suddenly, it becomes a lot lighter. I look across and see Ari pushing too. Together we lift. Five more feet. Now two. And then we’re through the surface, gasping for air. We shove it onto the raft, then turn around and see Anay, who is swimming with Rachel to the raft. He’s holding the compass, which seems to be waterproof. It’s safe.
The man who tried to steal the food obviously cannot swim very well. He is struggling to stay afloat. Should I help him?
“I know what you’re thinking,” says Ari. “Don’t do it.” But, despite my best friend’s warning, I can’t help staring at the drowning man, who is starting to breathe in water. I think of when I was about to drown. Nobody deserves that. I have to save this man.
I take a breath and dive under, get a firm hold on the man, and drag him to the raft. With a grimace, I shove him on board. I know something new about myself: Now I will never, ever be able to let someone drown. I hate what this man did. But I saved him.
Chapter 7
Miami
It’s Ari who spots the shore of Miami first. It’s the evening after the fight and I’m dumping off our last empty container of food when I hear her shouting.
“Florida!” she cries. “Florida! We made it!” A few other people cry out in excitement, pointing at the shore. Our water is gone, our food is gone, and hope seemed scarce until now. It really is Florida. But their shouts scare me – by the looks of it, they scare Rachel, too – because we cannot be caught by the Coast Guard. If we are, we’ll all be sent back to Cuba. If we are sent back to Cuba, we’ll have to go to prison for trying to leave in the first place. And the shouts make it easier for the Coast Guard to catch us. I try to tell everyone to be quiet, but it’s hard because I can’t be too loud myself.
As if by an unspoken agreement, Rachel and I walk among the people who are talking and quiet them one by one. At last, I reach Ari. I grab her hand.
“Hi, Ari,” I say. Excitement is just beyond my calm tone.
“Hi!” she says, her voice giddy to the point of sounding insane. Just how she sounded whenever our parents agreed to let us play together in our spare time. “I can’t believe this is actually it! Before it was like a fairy tale, oh, it’s Florida, the far-off, magical safe haven. But now it’s so close!” I turn and grin at her. It occurs to me that it’s the first time in weeks that I’ve really smiled. And that’s when the motor stops.
I’m so shocked I can’t even make any noise. My mouth opens wide, but no sound reaches my lips. We all stand there, wondering what to do.
Anay is the first to react. We have nothing to row with, so he dives in and swims for shore. Rachel soon does the same. Then me. And soon everyone is in the water whether they know how to swim well or not, heading for Miami desperately. But the shore has gone from being so close to, once again, the faraway land of Florida.
I come up for a quick spot check. Everyone is swimming as fast and as well as they can. I’d estimate that the shore is 200 meters away. I keep swimming, glad that my hair is cut very short for the summer because when it’s long it always feels like it’s slowing me down. But when I come up again, I see something that everyone else was too excited to see. A storm that was brewing over Miami has moved over to us.
The waves get taller and taller, mountains rising with the intent to bring our deaths. I’m running out of breath, and I have less time to take air in since my head goes underwater more frequently. Then I find something. A rock just beneath the surface. By moving my foot along it and watching the pattern of the waves, I discover that it’s a really long rock. One that connects to the land.
I climb onto it and scream at the others to come to me. To other people, I must look like a maniac. I am a girl who is waving her arms like a crazed chicken and screaming like a deranged pterodactyl. But if someone who has been through what I’ve been through saw me, they would understand.
Once most people have come to the rock, they all run together to Miami. But something holds me here like a magnet. I will never, ever be able to let someone drown. That is true. I can’t. And someone is still out there. I can see one more head bobbing among the waves. I jump off the rock and swim until I reach the person, adrenaline covering my exhaustion. I drag them to the rock and pull them on. The first thing I see is that it’s Anay, which is really weird because Anay is a fantastic swimmer. The second thing I see is the dent in his head. Anay’s skull is dented. He must have hit his head off a rock. And if his skull is dented, he will not live, and I cannot save him. He’s not dead yet, though, I can tell by the way his eyes look. Like he’s still trying to focus.
“Yanara…” he says. “Your name means shining light.” I nod, that is what my name means. I wonder how he knows.
“I like that,” he tells me. “Then we are even now, Shining Light. You lit the way for me after I lit the way for you.” I sniff and wipe my nose. I have never seen someone die before. I wasn’t there when my father died.
“I guess we are,” I say.
“Almost, Yanara. You will live and I will not. Do something for me. Turn me to face Florida,” he says.
I’m crying and everything is blurry, but I prop him up and stay with him a minute as he watches the lights in Miami. He dies with a smile on his face, staring at the skyline. I walk away, leaving him sitting there with his eyes open so that he can watch the skyline.
When I reach the beach, I hug Ari tightly.
“We made it,” I whisper, staring at a brightly lit building behind her. “We made it.”
People are missing from my life and they are holes that won’t ever heal. But I still have my best friend by my side. We made it to Florida.
The Shores of Miami Page 2
