by D. G. Driver
Another forty-five agonizingly slow minutes passed according to my watch. Sweat trickled down my neck and dripped from my short blonde bangs into my eyes. My cheeks flushed, and I felt dizzy. My brainless plan to row a boat in the middle of the summer failed to include bringing a couple cold water bottles along. It felt like my tongue had morphed into that sandpaper I was using last night, and there wasn’t any saliva at all left in my mouth to moisten it. Is this what heatstroke was like?
Just as I decided I was going to pass out and die in this wretched boat, I came around yet another bend, and a miracle awaited me. A full armada of brightly colored kayaks filled the water, all manned by teenage boys. They smiled, laughed, joked, and rowed with strength and speed out into the middle of the lake.
I grinned at the sight of them, but the effort of it made my chapped lips crack. Resting an oar across my lap, I raised my right hand to wave at them. None of them noticed me. They were all focused on one another and their destination, which was still unknown to me, as I still didn’t see any island. All I saw was the far shore—a long, long way from where we currently were.
The kayak parade was a good distance from me. At the rate I was rowing, compared to the speed with which they were rowing, they’d be long gone before I got to their current position. How could I ever catch up? I tried angling my boat away from the shore to intersect them farther out, but I knew it would still be hopeless.
All this work to get to them, and I was still going to fail.
I shook my head, disgusted with myself. What a ridiculous idea, using a rowboat when the guys specifically said they all had kayaks. These were not equal crafts. Kayaks were thin and sleek. They could glide through the water, barely making a ripple. The oar was one long post with paddles on both sides, much easier to wield and control. Rowing a kayak would take less strength to get a person twice as far. A rowboat, on the other hand, was not designed for speed. It was designed to sit in one place while a person zoned out in the sun with a fishing rod and a can of worms.
My muscles were already exhausted. I stank from my sweat. And I’d never catch up. I’d just done over two hours of rowing this boat for nothing. Completely pointless.
I swore under my breath and grunted out loud. Immediately, I threw my eyes heavenward and apologized. A habit my mom got me doing as a little girl. I always thought it was funny when she’d apologize to God for cussing until I noticed I had started doing it too.
Having no real choice, I kept paddling. I’d go a little farther and see if any of them looked back and noticed me. They were pretty spread out, so it was hard to count. From what I could tell, it looked like about thirty-three or thirty-four kayaks, maybe. That didn’t seem like that many to me. Small town or not, I figured there had to be more than a couple dozen teenage boys living in it. Maybe there were a lot of boys in town without kayaks. Although that’s not the way the guys painted the picture yesterday. From what they had said, every guy in town did this campout like some rite of passage.
My breath caught for a second when I spotted Lamont in one of the kayaks. His dreads were pretty identifiable, unless some other guy in town had that same hairstyle. Most of the guys had caps on, so it was hard to tell which of them was Chris, Jasper, Brian, or Alex. I watched Lamont flash his white teeth as he smiled at his friends and rowed with those strong arms.
Oh, my goodness, what was I doing? Shake it off, girl. You don’t need to start crushing on one of these boys. Like you don’t have enough to worry about?
It didn’t matter. The group kept getting farther and farther away. Finally, they were so far out that I knew I could never hope to catch up. I pulled up the oars and drifted on the current for a while, trying to decide what to do exactly. Massaging my arms, I weighed the options.
I could try to follow them even though I had no clue where they were going. Once I got far out in the lake, getting back to shore would be hard. I’d hate to get stuck out there wandering around aimlessly. What if I got too tired to row back?
I could row back to Grandma’s house and return the boat to where I found it. Before going in her house, I’d jump in the lake and get all wet, then tell her I’d been swimming to explain where I’d been. The thing is, I knew that excuse wouldn’t fly. It had taken me forever to get here. Now I was tired and sore. Rowing back would take twice as long, and Grandma was probably already worried, wondering where I was. What lie could I tell her that would explain me being gone for more than four hours without letting her know where I’d been?
I could row back to shore right here, walk into the Square, ask to use the phone at my Grandpa’s old pharmacy, call Grandma, and ask her to come pick me up. I’d tell her the whole truth. She’d be mad, tell my folks, maybe punish me somehow, and they’d punish me later for sure. But in the end, I’d be forgiven, Grandma wouldn’t be worried, and I’d be able to get something cold to drink and lie down for the rest of the day.
That last plan was looking pretty good to me. What was some time spent being grounded going to harm? Getting grounded and being stuck at home where there was food and a bathroom sounded pretty all right to me. So, I gave up. I turned my little rowboat toward the shore.
Lo and behold! Coming right at me was another wave of kayaks, maybe fifteen or more. I checked my watch. It was almost 10:30. These guys must have gotten a late start or something. Within seconds I was completely surrounded.
I saw Jasper. He shouted at me as he passed, “Dude, you’re going the wrong way!”
“Wrong way?” Brian laughed. “He’s IN the way!”
Jasper laughed too, and the two of them paddled to both sides of me and soon were out of my reach. Coming up quickly behind them was Chris. He wasn’t laughing when he saw me. Instead, he scowled and sneered.
“What are you doing here? And what are you in?”
“This was all I could get my hands on,” I said, struggling to get the boat going the other direction again. I’d found the group, so I figured I was getting one last chance to be involved in this adventure.
“THAT is not a kayak,” Chris said.
“Duh,” I answered. “I know that.”
“You’ll never keep up. Not in that hunk of junk. You might as well go home.”
“I’m not going to. I’ve come this far already.”
Chris sneered at me. “Lamont should never have invited you.”
“Well, he did, and I’m here,” I responded smugly.
“He’ll change his mind when he sees that boat,” Chris came back.
I shrugged. “From what I saw, Lamont is way ahead of us. Since I can’t hope to catch up,” I said melodramatically, “I guess he won’t know until I get to the island. What’s he going to do then?”
Chris scowled. “Where’d you find that boat anyway?”
“My grandma’s backyard,” I answered.
He looked at the boat really hard as though trying to figure something out. “Somebody should’ve taken an axe to that thing a long time ago.” Then he paddled on past without another word.
Ugh! Chris was such a pain in my butt. I didn’t know what his problem was with me or my boat. Sure, I knew he was right about me not being able to keep up. It was impossible for me to row this heavy thing as fast as a kayak. But that didn’t matter. I was going to go on this trip anyway, no matter what he said. Guys like Chris made me want to try harder, just to prove them wrong. I wanted to see the look on his face when I strolled into the campsite that afternoon.
And I couldn’t wait to hear Lamont tell him that I could stay.
Alex sidled up beside me. “Good to see you, Danny,” he said in a fake English accent, tipping his John Deere cap in an old-fashioned way. “Out for a spin on the lake, then?”
“I’m trying,” I said, trying to control the girlish giggle bubbling up inside of me.
“Look,” he offered, speaking in his normal voice, “I’ll hang back and keep you company if you want.”
“Really?” I was astounded. “Why?”
Alex gri
nned sheepishly. “I’m pretty new to this whole kayaking thing, so I don’t go as fast as everyone else.”
“Oh, I get it,” I said, laughing. “I’d make you look good.”
“Something like that.”
“I should hit you.”
“You can’t reach me.”
I splashed him with my oar instead.
“You know where we’re going?” I asked as we both settled back down.
He pulled out a map from his pocket and waved it at me. “Got the island circled in red.”
We pulled on our oars and followed the rest of the guys.
My arms still burned. The short rest I’d given them helped a little, but I was worn out. “How long do you think it’ll take to get there?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound as whiny as I felt.
Alex thought for a moment, as if doing the calculations in his head for wind resistance and other factors. “At the rate we’re going right now, it might take us three hours.”
“Three hours!” I said, flabbergasted. There was no way I could do this another three hours.
“Well,” said Alex. “We are going kind of slow.”
He wasn’t kidding. The other guys had left us far behind, like we hadn’t been moving at all.
“You sure you want to hang back with me?” I said. “I’m really holding you up.”
“Shoot,” Alex said. “I’d never catch up now, anyway.”
I decided that Alex could be a pretty cool friend to have around here, and if that was all I got out of this trip, then that would be worth it.
I splashed some lake water on my face and felt it run down my neck and moisten the collar of my T-shirt. “You wouldn’t have anything cold to drink, would you?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He pulled a bottle of water out of a small ice chest that must have been under his feet. “I only have two, but you can have one.”
I thanked him and took a big, long drink. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“I hope so,” Alex said. “’Cause it’s a hot day.”
“Tell me about it,” I replied. I looked up at the sun, wishing I’d had the same brilliance. Then, maybe I would have remembered to wear sunglasses or a cap. There really wasn’t one thing about this day that I’d done right. Closing my eyes for a second, I prayed silently that I wouldn’t make any more of fool of myself than I already had.
8
Alex’s Kayak and an Old Sad Story
Most of the conversation came from Alex as we rowed slowly toward the middle of the lake. He was the one with the energy, and he used a lot of it to chatter on and on about how excited he was to get to go on the campout this year. I listened to him tell me all about how he and his dad went to Knoxville to buy the kayak because it was cheaper there.
“But it’s a really good one,” he was quick to point out. “This baby’s primo.” He banged on the side of it. “It’s just a better bargain if you go to the city instead of buying local. Mr. Taylor’s ticked and hasn’t spoken to my dad since we bought it.”
Alex described all the aspects of his kayak that made it top quality. Its sleek sides and bullet shape were a special design. The fiberglass siding and the way it came up over his legs were different than other kayaks, so it was supposed to row with more ease and not tip over. Even the oars were coated with some sort of oil that made them more water-resistant.
Yeah, that would be cool, I thought. My wooden oars had lost whatever polish or coating they once had long ago—if they ever had any. The ends were waterlogged, and they seemed a lot heavier than they were when I first started out. Of course, it could be that my arms were about to fall off that made them seem heavier.
“Try ’em,” Alex said, handing his paddle to me while his kayak coasted on the water.
I lifted it from the middle and tried to raise it up over my head. I couldn’t. Even though it was obvious to me that Alex’s paddle was as light as a broomstick, way lighter than mine, which seemed as heavy as logs, I still struggled under the weight.
“Very excellent,” I said, trying not to grunt as I handed it back.
“You okay?” Alex finally asked.
“Just tired,” I said. “This is hard work. I’ll be better when I get to the island.”
Unfortunately, I still didn’t see an island, which did not help my mood that was becoming increasingly sour. We’d been rowing for a while. The sun had arced across the sky quite a bit from where it had started and was starting to deepen into a darker orange color. I was too tired to lift my arm and check my watch. I also kind of didn’t want to know if it had been as long as I suspected. That would make me want to cry.
“Any idea how much farther?”
Alex, who only stroked once for every four or five strokes I had to do, was pretty much not working at all. We were moving so slowly, and I knew it was all my fault that he was late to the campout. However, I got a sense that he was more thrilled about his kayak than the actual camping, so maybe it really was okay with him to be stuck out here with me.
He pulled out his map and studied it. Then he flipped it upside down and studied it again. I watched him draw his finger along some imaginary path through the lake, then scratch his head as he looked up to find what the map told him he should be seeing.
I noticed his eyes widen and a crease form between his eyes.
“What’s the matter?” I asked him.
“Oh, nothing.” Alex folded up the map and tucked it back in his pocket. He stroked a couple times and got the kayak moving a little more to the right instead of straight ahead. I followed. He kept glancing over his right shoulder at the shore that was quite a ways from us now as though looking for some familiar landmarks.
“Alex?” I asked again.
He sighed. “My dad told me that the island would be directly across from the cove where he and I usually go fishing. We go there at least once a month in the spring and summer, and we take the Scout troop with us a lot of times too. Dad’s the Scoutmaster. So, I know what that cove looks like.” He scanned the shoreline again and then looked past me toward the far side of the lake. No cove. No island.
I dared to suggest, “You know what that cove looks like from standing on it, but maybe it looks different from this direction. From this far away.”
“Yeah,” Alex admitted. “I think it does, ’cause we should have been to it by now and I’ve seen a lot of places just like it.”
“There’s no island anywhere around here,” I said. “Unless that shore way over there is the island, but that seems too far away, doesn’t it? I mean, that looks like it’s the other side of the lake.”
“Here, look. My dad gave this to me. He had me mark the island and the cove on it.” Alex pulled out his map again and raised it up for me to see. He pointed to the island marked with a red circle and the dock from where he had started out, which was marked with green. It was a pretty good distance across the lake.
“According to this,” I said, “we haven’t gone out far enough yet.”
“And I don’t think we’ve traveled far enough south either,” he added. “We’re going really slow. It seems like for every little bit we row forward, the current pushes us right back again.”
“Right now, we’re not going at all.”
We both started paddling again. Only this time, Alex kept quiet. All his happy nonstop chatter had come to an end. Nerves had taken over, I could tell. His neck was stiff, and his eyes strained to see anything familiar.
“Dude,” I said softly. “It’s going to be okay. The lake isn’t that big.”
Alex twisted his head to me and nodded. “Yes, it is that big, Danny. You don’t know. You’re not from around here.”
That stung a little. “No, I guess I’m not.”
“People have drowned in this lake. People have gotten lost. It happens at least once a summer. And then, of course, there was the drowning on the way to the campout that time. Everyone still talks about it.”
“Come on,” I said. “Every summer? That’s a bit of a
stretch, isn’t it?”
Alex got all animated again, like a kid telling ghost stories at a sleepover. “I’m serious, Danny. This is a tourist place, believe it or not. Folks come from all over to fish here or go boating. There are state campgrounds and some hotels along the highway. This is a popular place. The only reason it’s calm today is because everyone just left after the Fourth of July holiday. That’s why we do this campout on this date. It’s the calmest time of the summer.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Alex went on. “And people come and get drunk and do stupid stuff. It happens all the time.”
“You guys aren’t drinking on the campout, are you?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I wanted to get involved with that.
“No,” Alex said. “We’d get so busted.”
“Who would know?” I asked. “No grown-ups go, right?”
Alex smiled. “That’s kind of right and kind of not. It might seem like we’re on our own, but that’s not the truth. Some of the parents go out on their boats at night and anchor just far enough from the island so the guys feel like they’re independent, but they’re close enough to get there fast if anyone needs help.” He winked at me. “They love it, actually. My parents started going even before I was old enough to participate in the campout, which I thought was totally unfair. They think it’s a blast to hang out with their friends drinking wine and listening to music. They stay out until after midnight when they figure the guys have gone to sleep and then sail back home.”
“They never actually come to the camp and make sure things are okay and on the level?”
“The dads come help clean it up in the morning before everyone gets back in the kayaks. There aren’t any trash cans on the island, so they’d see beer cans and whatnot.” Alex shrugged. “If we did that kind of stuff, the campout tradition would be over forever.”
