by Karen Rispin
"Iguess," Lisa said. "Idon't know if he'll listen to me. I haven't hardly prayed at all since Mom and Dad decided to come here."
"Just say you're sorry, and he'll listen. Please?"
"Well, OK," she answered finally. "You go first."
"Dear God," I prayed, "please get us home safe. I said I'd do whatever you want, even go to the States, but I don't want to die yet. Please. In Jesus' name, amen."
Lisa was quiet for so long that I finally said, "Your turn."
"If I pray, do I have to say I'll stay in Africa if he wants me to?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said.
It was quiet again for a bit. Finally she started to pray. "Um, dear Jesus, please forgive me for being mad about being in Kenya and, um, being mad at Mom and Dad. Please let us get out of this safe. I'll try to like Kenya, I promise. Amen."
"You're supposed to say, 'in Jesus' name, amen,'" I whispered.
"In Jesus' name, amen," she said.
I felt like Lisa and I were all alone in the whole world, floating in a dark ocean in front of God.
"Friends?" she asked all of a sudden.
I smiled in the dark and said, "Friends!" and she reached over and squeezed my arm. That made the tube rock, so she quit.
We started kicking again, but finally I said, "I don't think it matters whether we kick or not, because I don't know which way we're going."
"It's silvery over there," Lisa said pointing. "It can't be morning already, can it?"
I looked, and she was right. I said, "It must be the moon. We'll be able to see which way to kick when it comes up. I think it's almost full because the tide was so high."
I was shivering so much the words came out hard. My mouth felt stiff and thick and slow.
We just lay there, watching. I was too tired and cold even to care. Once Lisa sort of slipped, but she was sitting in the tube so she couldn't fall out very easily. I woke up with a jerk when I slipped, and I grabbed on again. This time I hooked both arms over the tube, so it was kind of stuck under my arms and chin. I tried to kick again just to stay awake.
"Come on, we've got to hold on," I said, but it was only a whisper. Lisa didn't answer. I yawned, then shook my head hard.
I had to stay awake, because if I fell asleep…
I shook my head again. I didn't even want to think about it.
| Go to Table of Contents |
Chapter Nine
I woke up when my face went under water. I kicked hard to come up, and my foot hit a hard, sharp rock. That really woke me up. I paddled, grabbed at the tube, and missed.
My hands didn't work properly, and it was kind of hard to move. I kicked toward the tube again and banged my foot a second time. It hurt. Gradually it sank in. The water was shallow, I could stand up. I did, but it hurt my feet. Besides, I was dizzy. I wobbled and lost my footing; my face went under again.
Finally, I was standing, balanced on a sharp piece of coral. I looked around. The moon was all the way up, so I must have really been out of it. I could see well in the silvery light. Lisa was still in the tube, and it was drifting away.
I looked again. Right in front of me, about ten feet away, was a big stretch of coral reef sticking up out of the water. It looked black in the moonlight. The tube drifted up against it and stopped.
"Lisa!" I tried to yell, but my voice came out in a kind of a croak. The inside of my mouth was all shriveled up from the salt water. I swallowed and tried again.
"Lisa!" this time it was a sort of screechy whisper. She didn't even move. What if she was dead! Ugh. A violent shiver ran over my body, and then I couldn't stop shivering.
I had to get to her. I took a step. My foot slipped, and I bashed my shin on more coral. So I lay in the water and half paddled, half crawled to the tube. My arms still hurt, but they were working better. I guess they'd gone to sleep from being propped over the inner tube.
I tried to stand again. This time my feet hit sand. I could see the little patch of sand shining silvery white through the water. The moon is really bright at the coast in Kenya, and was I ever glad.
Lisa was still sitting in the tube, but her knees were just about touching her chin, like she'd almost slipped through and got stuck. Her head was hanging back, and her hair was trailing in the water. Her mouth was hanging open. She looked awful.
You can't drown if your head is out of the water, can you? I wondered. Everything felt odd and muddled. She couldn't be dead. I wouldn't let her be.
I grabbed her shoulder and shook her, but that just made her head wobble around. I tried to yell at her, but it still came out in a screechy whisper. I slapped her face hard, which made an explosion of pins and needles run up my arm. I hugged my arms to me. Lisa just had to wake up.
One of her arms moved, and she groaned. A wave of relief flooded my whole body, and I shivered even harder.
"Come on, Lisa. Wake up. Wake up!" Halfway through the second wake up, my voice came out really loud. I shook her shoulder and kept yelling.
Her eyes opened, and she tried to say something, but no noise came out. I grabbed her arms and tried to pull her out of the tube, but I couldn't. Somehow I felt like I just had to get her out. I yanked harder and the tube turned over. The water was only two feet deep. Frantically I tried to turn the tube back over. This time it came off.
Lisa thrashed in the water. I grabbed her hair and pulled her head up, then lost my balance and sat in the water beside her.
Lisa sat up, too, "Whydid you do that?" her voice sounded cracked and scratched, too.
"Oh, you're all right," I said, relief washing over me. "Oh Lisa, I thought you were dead."
"I can't feel my legs," she sounded really scared.
"They're probably just asleep. My arms were," I crawled toward the reef, cutting my knees when I got to the edge of the sand. I wanted out of the water. The coral wasn't so sharp on top of the reef, and I just kind of sat there for a second.
Lisa tried to stand up, yelled, "Ow, my legs!" and sat down again.
"Come on. Get out of the water," I said.
"I can't."
I looked back at her and realized that I could see the beach, too, about five hundred yards away.
"Look!" I called. "The beach! It worked. All our paddling worked. We got out of the current. We didn't get washed out to sea!"
Lisa twisted around and then really woke up. "All right!" she yelled. I was smiling so hard my cheeks ached.
The trees and stuff behind the beach looked black, but the white sand gleamed in the moonlight. A wave crashed on the other side of the reef. We were on the inside of the outer reef.
Suddenly, right in the middle of a laugh, I stopped dead.
"We've got to get out of here," I said and waded back toward Lisa. I'd just realized that the tide might be already coming in. "This reef could be under water in almost no time."
"At least we aren't out at sea," she said, and she tried to stand up again.
Just then, between me and the beach, I saw this light moving. I stopped and stared. Then it hit me: the African fishermen use lights to help them catch fish at night. An African fishing boat! A dugout canoe! And not very far away.
"Help!" I yelled like someone had yanked it out of my throat. "Help! Help! Saidia!Saidia mimi!"
I turned toward Lisa and screamed, "Yell! It's a boat."
She looked around wildly and fell down again. "Where?" she yelled, spitting out sea water.
"There," I pointed and yelled at it with my whole body.
The boat was turning, coming toward us. Now I could see a man standing, poling the boat along. I stopped yelling and felt dizzy. I wobbled and almost fell down, but didn't.
Just before he got to us, he called, "Jambo," like he'd just met us walking down the beach or something.
"Jambo," I answered him and just stood there like an idiot.
"Well, what is this affair?" he asked in Swahili, and I started bawling like a baby.
"Sorry, sorry," he said, but he sounded like he
was almost laughing. He poled the boat closer and almost hit Lisa, who was still sitting down.
"My friend, my friend! Watch out for my friend," I said still sobbing. I felt stupid crying, but I somehow I couldn't stop.
Lisa tried to stand up again and fell. Her legs were obviously still asleep.
He got out of the canoe this time, and a smell of stale beer hit me. I couldn't believe it! He was drunk! He grabbed Lisa, picked her up, and dumped her in the canoe. Lisa had on sort of a skimpy bathing suit. Like I said before, Lisa was already pretty well developed—not like me.
The fisherman bent over her, leering at her. My stomach knotted up even tighter. "Stop it!" I yelled.
He turned around and laughed right in my face.
"Get in," he bellowed from about two feet away. Another sick smell of stale beer breath washed over me. I backed away.
"Get in!" he bellowed even more loudly and came toward me. I tried to dodge, but he grabbed my arm and shoved me into the canoe. His thin, tough hand bit into my arm, and he half lifted me over the edge. I bashed my shins on the side, then fell into the slimy water and fish scale stuff in the bottom of the canoe.
He picked up the pole and started poling back toward the beach.
I tried to sit up and banged my head on Lisa's knee as she tried to get untangled with me. We ended up sitting jammed side by side in the canoe. I grabbed the edge with both hands and started to try to jump out. This fisherman didn't seem safe at all. If I get away, Ithought, maybe I can get help from someone else.
Lisa grabbed me and held on. I kept trying for a second and then quit and just sat there. Lisa was right. I couldn't get away anyway; you can't run on coral in the dark with bare feet. And he'd just catch me if I tried to swim.
My whole body hurt. I looked at my legs and could see blood on them looking black in the moonlight. Lisa shivered next to me. The fisherman was still staring at her. It was warm out, but we were cold from being in the water so long.
I got my nerve up and asked the fisherman, "Where are you taking us?"
"To my house," he answered and leered at Lisa again. I glared at him.
"Who is your father that he would allow you to go out alone?" the fisherman asked suddenly, kind of sneering.
"My father is a good man," I answered indignantly. "We were swept away in Mida Creek."
"Where is the house of this good man, your father?" He said it really sarcastically.
I was supermad now. How dare he talk about my daddy like that? The air and wind on my wet skin made me shiver harder.
"What's he saying?" Lisa whispered. "I don't like this! Don't make him mad. You'll just make things worse." The fisherman and I had been talking in Swahili, so she could only tell what was going on by how things sounded and looked.
I hugged my knees and shivered. That fisherman thought we were asking for trouble. I mean, some of the people at the coast think any girl who is by herself is just asking for trouble—especially if she's not all covered up. But Lisa was right; making him mad wouldn't help.
I swallowed hard and tried to sound more polite when I answered, "My father is now staying at Bilge Water."
"I do not know that place," he answered. "You will stay with me this night," and he glanced at Lisa again.
"No, I will tell you where my father is," I answered. "You must take us there." Then I found out it wasn't so easy to explain where Bilge Water was. I didn't know where we were or how far the current had carried us. I tried to tell him from where the old mosque ruin was or from where you turn off the pavement.
He just kept saying, "Sijui pale," which means, "I don't know that place."
This was real trouble. We were stuck with a drunk Swahili fisherman who had no intention of taking us home. As for the intentions he did have, well, I didn't even want to think about that.
"What's the matter?" Lisa whispered.
"He says he doesn't understand me when I try to tell him where Mom and Daddy are," I answered.
Lisa just looked at me and raised one eyebrow. "So what's he going to do with us?"
"He said we have to stay at his house—that's when he grinned at you like that. He's drunk, and he thinks we're sinful because we are by ourselves and not all covered up like his women."
"So what's the proper clothing for a girl to wear while getting washed out to sea, a snowsuit? Be real."
"I am being real, and I'm scared," I kind of snapped back.
I looked up at the fisherman right then. The steady clop and splash of him poling the canoe hadn't stopped, but now he was glaring at both of us. He looked angry.
Lisa followed my glance, swallowed hard, and said, "Maybe we should pray. I mean God answered our prayers last time—we're not out to sea or drowned." Lisa really was nice after all.
"Be still!" The fisherman's low voice spat the Swahili words out as if they were bullets. Just the look on his face made Lisa shut up for a couple of seconds, but she didn't understand what he had said and I didn't dare warn her.
A second later Lisa's cold hand reached for mine, and she started to whisper a prayer.
Whack! Ow! That hurt. Something cold had banged really hard on my shoulder. Lisa flinched, too. Then I realized the fisherman's pole had come down right where our shoulders were up against each other.
"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded. "I said to be still. Learn your place!"
The flash of anger I felt made me forget to be afraid or to think.
"Whatplace is that?" I practically yelled at him. "Be careful, or your place will be jail."
He lifted the pole again and swung it at me. I tried to dodge, and then there was a terrific thud right inside my skull.
I must have been knocked out. Next thing I knew I was freezing cold, and my head was absolutely full of a terrible pounding ache. I could hear this moaning sound. After a second I realized it was me, so I stopped. I was lying on my back on top of something cool and gritty. I moved my hand…sand. I was on sand.
I opened my eyes, and a palm tree swayed back and forth in the moonlight. It all came back: Lisa, the drunk fisherman. Where was Lisa? I tried to sit up. That was a mistake. It was like my head exploded with pain. My stomach heaved, and I threw up.
I fell onto my back. The palm tree and stars were sliding sideways like things do when you've got a high fever.
I shut my eyes tight, and gradually my stomach felt better. Nothing happened. I couldn't hear anything at all except the low roar of the ocean and the wind.
"Lisa?" I called, but it didn't come out very loud, and the effort made my stomach tighten up again. Saying Lisa's name reminded me that she said we should pray.
"Dear God, please help. Please," I whispered. Nothing happened for a long time. I just lay there hearing the sea and the wind and feeling the cold sand. My thoughts were kind of slow and far apart. Gradually it sank in. If I hadn't done the same old thing—acted without thinking—I wouldn't be so sick now.
"Sorry, God," I whispered. "Please help me." All of a sudden, I felt as though he was right there with me somehow. "Please help Lisa, too," I whispered. I sure felt different about Lisa. I didn't even want to think about what might be happening to her.
The roar of the ocean had been getting gradually louder, but I wasn't paying attention. The tide was coming in, and I was on the beach.
I remembered how,once, when David had hit his head really hard, his mom hadn't let him go to sleep for ages. My muddled head knew there was supposed to be something bad about sleeping for people who'd been hit hard on the head. But it was so hard to stay awake.
Whack. Water hit the side of my head. That woke me up properly. I jerked, and my stomach twisted. Whack. Another wave hit me. It was getting to be high tide, and I had to move or drown.
I found that if I moved very slowly, my stomach would behave. Gradually I pulled myself onto my stomach and crawled up the beach. There's always a tangle of stuff on the beach at the high tide mark. Old coconut husks and driftwood hurt my cut knees, but I didn't quit
crawling.
I flopped down on the powdery dry sand at the top of the beach. After a second I realized that opening my eyes didn't make me so dizzy anymore. I could even sit up if I moved very slowly.
I looked around. I was all alone on the beach. The fisherman's canoe was lying right at the edge of the water, looking like a big black blotch near the bottom of the sandy part of the beach. It was going to drift off with the tide pretty soon.
The moon was lower in the sky, but I could still see the tracks I'd made crawling up from the canoe. There were some other canoes out of the reach of the tide, not far from where I was sitting.
I realized I could hear people talking loud, arguing. The noise was coming from behind me, through some heavy bush. Maybe that's where Lisa is, I thought.
Without thinking I started to stand up to go to Lisa, but my dizzy head stopped me. After everything stopped whirling and my stomach decided not to throw up after all, I started to think—and pray.
"Please help me to do the right thing this time, God," I whispered. "Help me not to blow it again."
I could still hear people arguing. That is, I could hear angry voices, but I couldn't hear the words.
OK, I thought, let's think this through properly. Lisa is up there, and if they're arguing about her maybe she's still all right. Then I thought of something else: Even if some of them want to help Lisa, she can't talk to them. She doesn't know Swahili.
Finally I decided to go up quietly and try to see what was happening.
I was still kind of dizzy, but I could walk OK. I looked down, and there in the moonlight I could see where everybody else's tracks went into a gap in the bush.
That's where the path is, I thought. It would probably be better if I went through the bush, but I didn't think I could make it. I still felt very, very strange.
I walked along the edge of the path, hoping I wouldn't show up much in the moonlight. As I got closer, I saw that everybody was grouped outside one house, arguing and waving their arms. In the doorway of the house I could just see the fisherman who'd hit me. He was yelling at the others. Most of them had their backs to me, and the lamp in the house made their shadows stretch out toward me like huge, dancing black ghosts. I guessed that Lisa was probably in that house.
