by Sara Grant
TO PAUL. FOR ALL OUR ADVENTURES TOGETHER
AND THE ONES YET TO COME.
CONTENTS
Cover
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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Copyright
“Don’t leave me here!” I shouted and waved wildly at the seaplane as it floated away with a roar and spray of salty water.
I was standing on a twelve-by-twelve floating dock in the middle of the Indian Ocean. I had survived twenty hours trapped on planes – forty-five minutes of that on a seaplane – and then me and my bags had been abandoned here. My brain and mouth felt fuzzy from recycled air and plastic plane food.
“Come back!” I screamed as the plane cut a wide arc in the water, preparing to take off again. If it left, I would be stuck here. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Panic punched me in the gut.
Maybe the pilot couldn’t see me. I jumped as high as I could while simultaneously screeching at the top of my lungs. Bad idea. The dock tilted, and I staggered to the edge. I flailed my arms to regain my balance, but I was out of sync with the bobbing dock. My backpack and duffle slid towards me. I had to do something quickly or they’d be tossed into the ocean.
I lunged forward and landed face first on my bags, spreadeagle in the centre of the dock. I’d saved my stuff from a watery grave. Relief flooded through me, but only for the briefest of seconds. I flipped over in time to see the seaplane zoom past and take flight.
“Nooooooooooooooooooooo!” I sprang to my feet. Another bad idea.
The plane’s wake rocked the dock. I was catapulted into the air. There was absolutely nothing I could do. I screamed as I plunged butt-first into the ocean. Big mistake. The sound was strangled by gallons of water splashing over me.
What had my dad told me NEVER to do in an emergency? Oh, yeah – panic.
Too late.
My lungs burned for air. My short, pathetic life flashed before my eyes, but maybe that was only a school of fish because my life wasn’t that colourful. I needed to calm down, which wasn’t easy when you lacked oxygen and were waging an epic battle with the Indian Ocean.
I clawed my way to the surface and gulped in air. Two strokes and I was back at the dock. Thankfully my luggage had only shifted to the edge and hadn’t toppled in. I flopped on the dock and let the hot sun dry my drenched clothes. I combed my fingers through my seaweed-like hair and twisted it in a knot at the back of my head, securing it with the rubber band I always keep around my wrist. I felt a bit wobbly after my almost-sort-of-near-death experience. My fear quickly drained away and was replaced by an all too familiar feeling – annoyance. All I’d had to do was stand still and wait. I couldn’t even do that right.
The sky and ocean merged into an uncomfortable blanket of blue around me. The sun created ripples of liquid diamonds in the water. It was beautiful in a last-man-standing-after-the-apocalypse way. The gentle swaying and the whisper of the waves should have been soothing. Some people might have found the quiet and vast nothingness peaceful, but I couldn’t help feeling that I’d made a massive mistake.
When Dad told me about this trip to the Maldives, I was actually excited. He was ex-United States Navy so my life had been a fourteen-yearlong boot camp. He’d been recruited for some big assignment at the Pentagon for a month, maybe two. He needed somewhere to dump me. A desert island getaway sounded pretty amazing. While my friends were slaving away in the snowy January cold, I’d be soaking up the sun and exploring the sea. Now standing smack-dab in the middle of nowhere, I knew that I hadn’t escaped, only changed prisons.
The sun’s rays singed my skin like thousands of searing hot needles. After only five minutes, my clothes were nearly dry. Maybe it was my imagination, but my pasty white skin appeared a shade pinker.
If the heat didn’t kill me then I might die of boredom. I had found a crumpled copy of the island’s glossy brochure shoved between the seaplane’s seat cushions. It boasted – BOASTED – no wifi, TVs or phones. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the resort catered exclusively to senior citizens. Dad had left out those two very important details. The most active item on the island’s itinerary was water aerobics. I didn’t want to think of wrinkly bingo wings flapping about in the pool.
I could deal with heat and boredom, but the thing that was causing the complete and utter meltdown of my internal organs was meeting my British grandma for the first time. I imagined she looked like the Queen of England. I didn’t know for sure because I’d never seen a picture of my grandma. Until a month ago, I never knew she existed. I mean, I knew everyone had a biological mom, and my mom had a mom, but my dad refused to talk about them.
I’d suspected I was adopted, kidnapped, and at one point, cloned. My dad had assured me that he was my father, and I was conceived the old-fashioned way. Gross! I’d interrogated, snooped, tricked and begged. He never uttered one syllable about the person who donated her egg nor did I ever find one shred of evidence that she was really real. I had sort of learned to accept my mysterious lack of mom. But today my family tree would expand by one branch whether I liked it or not, and I was freaking out. I couldn’t remember why I’d ever wanted to meet the old woman who’d never tried to see me or even send me so much as a birthday text.
I checked my phone. The screen was blank. Water dribbled out of the charging and headphone slots. I stabbed at the buttons and poked at the screen. It was dead. I knew how to perform CPR, but I had no idea how to resuscitate a drenched, lifeless cell phone. The first casualty of my so-called vacation. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last.
At least my watch was waterproof. It said it was about six o’clock in the morning, but that was Indiana time. I’d lost two days travelling. There was a nine-hour time difference between Indiana and the Maldives so that would make it three in the afternoon.
I searched for any sign of life. I didn’t know if I was being picked up by speedboat or jetpack. Something in the distance was moving towards me.
Was that… ?
Nah, don’t be ridiculous.
I stood and squinted. Maybe it was the curl of a wave. I stepped closer to the edge. No, that was definitely a fin cutting through the water.
SHARK!
I was a sitting duck on this platform. I imagined the jaws of a Great White chomping me and the dock with one ginormous bite. While I was packing my swimsuit, sunscreen, bug spray and three graphic novels, sharks didn’t enter my mind. Sharks were only in movies and wildlife TV shows. They didn’t target fresh US prime-cut kids.
That fin was definitely swimming closer. There was no use calling for help because no one would hear me. I staggered back, tripped on my duffle, and fell hard on my butt. My hands splashed in the water behind me. I scuttled forward. I wasn’t going back in what I now knew were shark-infested waters.
I ransacked my duffle for something I could use as a weapon. Could you blind a shark with toothpaste? I didn’t have straighteners or a hairdryer or any beauty products that might contain shark-repelling chemicals. If only I was more girlie �
�� that way I’d at least have had hairspray, tweezers or stilettos. I dug through my shorts, flip-flops, and a rainbow-collection of T-shirts from bike races and fun runs. I found nothing I could use to defend myself. I was shark bait, plain and simple.
I braced myself as the fin dipped lower and arched closer. This was it. I was going to die and no one would ever know what happened to me. Tomorrow’s newspaper headline would read: Charlotte ‘Chase’ Armstrong Disappears Without a Trace.
The water erupted in front of me. A sound clawed at my throat until I was all-out horror-movie shrieking.
I stopped mid-scream as my brain told my body what my eyes had actually seen.
The creature burst from the water again and I got a better look.
A dolphin.
My fear melted like a vanilla-chocolate twist in the August heat of the State Fair. I’d never heard of death by dolphin. I was such an idiot. I laughed as three dolphins jumped and twisted giving me my very own SeaWorld show. As they raced away, I repacked my duffle. My dad would be so disappointed. He’d raised me to take care of myself, and I’d freaked at a dolphin swim-by. Dad had made me practise fire drills and obstacle courses. He showed me aikido so I could manoeuvre out of any chokehold or defend against a backpack thief. He never told me what to do in case of a shark attack. In his defence, we lived in Indiana where the chances of seeing a shark – outside of an aquarium – were less than zero.
I found my sunglasses at the bottom of my backpack and slipped them on. Between the scratches on the lenses and the waves, I thought I saw a boat heading towards me. I should have felt relieved. I wasn’t going to drown or die by shark attack, or shrivel under the baking sun, or simply be left to suffer starvation and dehydration. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that this vacation might actually kill me.
I was rescued, but that uneasy feeling swirled around me like a hurricane in a fishbowl. The boat that puttered up to the floating dock looked like a mini Viking ship without the massive sails or the guys in horned helmets.
“Hello, Charlotte!” an older grey-haired man called from the approaching boat. He was pastier and whiter than I was. A young, tanned, shirtless guy was steering the big wooden wheel at the front of the boat.
“Hi,” I waved. No one called me Charlotte. “It’s Chase,” I corrected. He smiled and nodded in a way that meant he couldn’t hear me or couldn’t care less. At least I wasn’t alone in the universe any more.
A mermaid was carved into the bow of the boat and stretched from sea level past the roof and reached the dock first. I had to duck to avoid being whacked by the mermaid when the boat swung parallel to me with surprising precision.
The old guy scanned me from head to toe. His nose wrinkled as if he whiffed something nasty. I’d been travelling and hadn’t seen my reflection for twenty-four hours. My blue Race for Life T-shirt was damp and rumpled. I placed my hand over the Coke stain on my shorts from when we’d hit turbulence over Saudi Arabia. I tried to smooth the kinks from my hair and tightened the knot to make it look somewhat styled instead of the tangled just-out-of-bed-serial-killer mess it usually was. I shrugged in a half apology and half whatever way.
This resort was supposed to be some laid-back getaway, but the old guy looked ready for a business meeting. His grey hair was slicked back. I couldn’t tell if he’d been swimming or if he over-gelled. He was wearing a perfectly pressed white shirt and khaki trousers.
“Welcome to…” I thought he said Mal-Horrific-Shoe-La. I’d seen the name of the island spelled out; it had far too many vowels together for me to be able to pronounce it.
“Thanks,” I said, because I thought I should say something.
“I’m Artie, the resort manager.” He extended his hand and I shook it. “The island motto is: No shoes. No news. We give our over-sixties clientele a complete escape from the outside world.” He pointed at my bags, and the young man tossed them in the boat. “I’ll have to ask you to be on your best behaviour and not to disturb the other guests…”
He kept talking about rules that basically meant I could only whisper and tiptoe. Be seen and not heard. His British accent made him sound smarter and made me feel dumber. Two big thumbs down for old people resorts. So far my vacation sucked with a capital SU – and I hadn’t reached the island yet!
“Ready?” he asked and held out his hand to help me aboard as if I was some damsel in distress. I don’t think so. I launched myself into the boat. I’d won the high jump on sports day so I landed dead centre. The boat rocked and Artie was knocked back on to one of the benches along the side. He scowled at me. “I think we are ready to leave now, Luke.”
Luke gave me a sneaky wink and tried to hide his smile from Artie.
Artie began to tap on his cell phone. I guessed my welcome was officially over.
I stepped up next to Luke. “So what’s the real deal with this place?” I whispered to him.
He pointed to the island that was coming into focus. It looked tiny from here. A green blob of palm trees ringed with a beach of white sand. My grandma was on that island, and so was the truth – if I was brave enough to ask. Maybe it was time to solve the mystery of my mom.
“The island is basically a triangle with the boat dock on one point, the Aquatic Centre for our range of recreational water activities on the middle point, and the overwater bungalows on the final point. See how the water is a lighter shade of blue between the boat dock and the bungalows?” Luke gestured to the area right ahead of us.
I nodded. I’d call that colour Blizzard Blue from the fluorescent Crayola crayons collection.
“A natural reef surrounds half the island and creates a massive lagoon.” I could tell English wasn’t his first language. He spoke every word precisely as if mimicking the voices on those language apps. “You should go snorkelling. The coral and sea life are magnificent. Flippers and goggles are provided in every bungalow.” It sounded like he’d given this speech before.
“That sounds amazing.” I’d only ever swum in swimming pools or murky lakes. Oranges, yellows and reds flickered in the water below. I couldn’t wait to go underwater exploring without my dad making me sit out for fifteen minutes every hour, or telling me to stay close to the shore, or not dive so deep. “What about sharks?”
Luke laughed. “We have lots of sharks. Most are harmless. The reef creates a natural barrier so none of the big ones can swim into the lagoon. If you want to explore outside the reef,” he pointed to two yellow flags that looked like the ones Dad put on the back of my first bike, “that’s the only place you can safely cross the reef through a gap in the coral. The sea creatures are more spectacular on the dark side of the reef. Stay alert. Sharks generally won’t bother you if you don’t provoke them.”
“Check! No provoking sharks,” I replied. I wasn’t exactly sure how you might provoke a shark. Make fun of its fin? Flick it on the nose? If I saw a shark, I planned to swim the other way as fast as my flippers would take me.
“Can you hurry it up?” Artie barked at Luke. “I’ve got better things to do than babysit.”
Ouch!
“Yes, sir,” Luke said, and shifted the boat into high gear. His face changed from soft and smiley to stone. I could see his lips moving. I couldn’t hear what he said over the roar of the engine, but I could tell it wasn’t nice by the way he glared at Artie out of the corner of his eye.
We sailed closer to the island, and I understood why the rich and famous escaped to places like this. It was completely secluded; the perfect tropical island paradise. It was no bigger than four or five football fields. The overwater bungalows Luke had mentioned were at the far end of the island. I counted twenty of them attached to a long wooden pier and suspended on stilts over the lagoon.
“Wow,” I muttered. My skin tingled with goosebumps. I hadn’t really thought about where I’d be sleeping. Even if the island was only for old people, it was going to be pretty awesome staying in one of those. They each had their own private deck and steps that lead straight into t
he lagoon. For the first time since my plane took off from Indianapolis, I felt a glimmer of hope. If dear old Granny Sinclair was crazy, evil or hated my guts from the moment she laid eyes on me, at least I could still snorkel every day and enjoy the sunshine.
As we approached the boat dock, Luke expertly manoeuvred around the row boats and Jet Skis that were tethered there. Artie was off the boat the second it came to a complete stop.
“Come on!” he shouted at me. I flinched at the nasty tone in his voice. “I mean, we are ever so pleased you’re here.” His tone softened and his lips curled into a weird, tight smirk. “Ariadne asked that I take you to her as soon as you arrived.”
Ariadne. That was her name. Was I really going to meet my long-lost granny? Waves of worry sloshed through my veins.
Luke was busy tying the boat to the dock. Artie checked his phone again and made no move to help me with my things – not that I wanted his stupid help. I looped my backpack on one shoulder and hugged my duffle to my chest. I stepped up on the bench and teetered on the rail of the boat before staggering forward and nearly face-planting on the dock.
The dock extended into the dark side of the reef, as Luke had called it. I stared down at the rocky channel that ran parallel to the long walkway. The water below bubbled and frothed like a hot tub. I leaned forward for a better look and gasped. Two creatures, which appeared to be part dragon and part snake, were pretzelled together and attacking anything that so much as twitched.
Artie frowned at my outburst and placed his pointer finger on his lips. The universal sign for shut up.
“Sorry,” I said.
He looked in the water to see what had startled me. “We call them Twist and Shout.”
“Yeah, but what are they?” I grimaced at the thought of swimming in the same ocean as those thick snakes with pointy snouts.
“Haven’t you seen an eel before?” he asked, as if I was the stupidest kid on the planet. “They patrol the reef. It’s best to steer clear of them.” He pivoted on his Jesus sandals. “Follow me!” he called as he marched down the long pier to the island.
